Promising Anti-Corruption Convention To Be Put into Action?

While the United Nations’ Convention Against Corruption is an important achievement in the global fight against corruption, the real test of the Convention is in its implementation, which will be monitored.

UNCAC is the first treaty that tackles international corruption with preventative and punitive measures, with some 140 countries signed up to the Convention so far. The European Union has ratified the UNCAC and the European Commission fully supports its effective implementation.

Hailed as a global solution for a global problem, UNCAC was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2003. Nearly a decade later, UNCAC is entering into the crucial implementation phase, which will be the real test of its worth.

“It’s very promising that we have it, it’s a great basis for dialogue with a country that’s signed it, but the convention itself is just the piece of paper,” said Elizabeth Hart, Director of the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre. “The implementation is really critical.”

In a world where corruption increasingly transcends national and regional boundaries, one of the UNCAC’s strongest features is its global nature, with about three-quarters of the world’s countries bound by the terms of the Convention.

The instrument is designed to support and assist signatory states in fighting corruption through four key areas:

1.       Prevention

2.       Criminalisation and law enforcement

3.       International cooperation

4.       Asset recovery

Many developing countries consider the commitment to restoring wrongfully gained or stolen funds from overseas bank accounts back to where they belong particularly appealing; UNCAC provides for the freezing, forfeiting and return of embezzled money.

Last year, following intense negotiations, a monitoring mechanism was agreed and put into place. Nevertheless, donors have to be realistic in understanding its current limitations.

“It is a negotiated compromise mechanism and it’s really important for people to recognise that all of the material that’s in the prevention chapter... which is the core development work... isn’t even covered in the [first phase of the] review mechanism,” said Ms Hart.

Chapter 2 of the UNCAC covers ‘Preventive Measures’ obliging signatories to adopt coordinated measures to tackle corruption and designate a body or bodies to oversee that work this is done. Yet there is no agreed process for monitoring that these anti-corruption measures are being embraced and that the bodies in charge of following their implementation are acting correctly.

Nonetheless, UNCAC has many practical uses for donors, especially for those working in the field.

According to Ms Hart, the document itself is valuable reading for anyone new to working in anti-corruption, detailing what counts as positive anti-corruption measures. For instance, a well implemented programme of public finance reform can be more effective in tackling corruption than the establishment of a flashy but toothless anti-corruption body.

“Anti-corruption policies need to be in place but they need to be focused, they need to be prioritised,” said Ms Hart. “We really need to avoid the attraction of funding a process that ends up with something that can’t then be implemented.”