Campaigners are gearing up for a fight over access to key talks which begin today in Marrakesh
MARRAKESH (TrustLaw) – Anti-corruption campaigners are gearing up for a fight over access to key talks when countries that have signed the world’s largest anti-graft convention meet this week to discuss progress in the battle against corruption.
More than 150 countries have ratified the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), and the results of a review into how 26 of them are doing in implementing the convention will be discussed at a high-level U.N. conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, starting on Monday.
Campaigners and experts say the review process is riddled with secrecy, while the lack of a mechanism to “name and shame” the countries doing least to fight sleaze raises question marks over UNCAC’s impact.
Civil society organisations are allowed to attend the conference and hold meetings but they are excluded from discussions by the main review body – the Implementation Review Group (IRG) - unless they are part of a government delegation, which only a handful of countries are allowing.
Nearly 1,000 delegates are expected to attend the conference, including more than 24 government ministers.
UNCAC explicitly recognises that anti-corruption efforts must go hand-in-hand with transparency and civil society participation, but some governments, led by Russia, continue to reject this notion.
“There is an irony to it because the convention emphasizes transparency and civil society participation and this is also something closely associated with anti-corruption efforts,” Gillian Dell, programme manager for conventions at non-governmental watchdog Transparency International, told TrustLaw.
“We also know corruption thrives on secrecy. Even if governments are sincere in fighting corruption but are being secretive about it – that creates doubts. If you consider transparency and civil society participation as being indicators of commitment, then we’re not finding satisfactory levels of commitment.”
MORE TRANSPARENCY NEEDED
As part of a peer-to-peer review process, launched last year, each country is assessed by two other states. The results of the first round, with 26 countries under the microscope, will be debated at the conference.
Anti-corruption experts say more needs to be done to make the review process more transparent.
“A crucial challenge for UNCAC after eight years is how it is being monitored – everything is voluntary, nothing is mandatory,” Daniel Kaufmann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a U.S.-based think tank, told TrustLaw.
While all countries under review are obliged to publish an executive summary of their findings, only one – Finland – has published its full report.
Many countries also did not consult civil society in preparing their self-assessments, according to a survey by Transparency International.
“The country under review has to agree to disclose its full findings, which most of them don’t do – in 2011 that’s basically a throwback to the past century,” said Kaufmann, a former director at the World Bank Institute where he led work on governance and anti-corruption.
“For real impact, they need to take the bull by the horn and push for more disclosure and civil society participation.”
Civil society organisations led by Transparency International have been conducting their own review to help keep states honest.
These anti-graft crusaders call themselves the UNCAC Coalition and are publishing their reports in parallel to the peer-review process. The coalition is a global network of more than 130 civil society organizations in over 100 countries, established in 2006.
But there are some signs of progress in making the review process more transparent.
For the first time, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which serves as a secretariat for UNCAC, has been putting civil society reports and statements on its website ahead of the Marrakesh conference.
“That is really a landmark for us,” said Dell, adding that no other anti-graft convention publishes such civil society documents on its websites.
CHALLENGES AHEAD
When it was launched eight years ago, UNCAC set the agenda in the fight against corruption, addressing thorny issues such as the cross-border nature of corruption and the return of stolen assets, as well as stipulating that countries need to take preventive measures to fight graft.
But Kaufmann said that ratification of UNCAC does not constitute political will in itself to fight corruption, and there is little under the terms of the convention that can be done to force countries to do more as, unlike the OECD’s Anti-Bribery Convention, it does not “name and shame” the worst offenders.
“Some of the most corrupt countries in the world were quick to sign up to UNCAC,” Kaufmann said, adding that some states may just ratify to deflect criticism and keep donors happy. “Yet, some of the least corrupt countries, such as Germany, New Zealand and Japan, have not even ratified UNCAC – that says a lot.”
Click here for a factbox on the UNCAC.
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(Editing by Alex Whiting)
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