The global civil society network for the implementation and monitoring of the
United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC)
|
|
Dear Reader,
The UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on corruption earlier this month has arguably failed to give a big push to global anti-corruption efforts.
The UNGASS Political Declaration, adopted by consensus, is full of caveats and notably lacks proper follow-up. However, civil society experts from our membership identified several anti-corruption issues where the wording of the Declaration can be seen as a small step in the right direction, for example on public procurement transparency (see this analysis by Open Contracting Partnership), on beneficial ownership transparency (see this blog by Transparency International), and on the protection and role of journalists and civil society.
At the same time, the Political Declaration failed to address issues including the impunity of powerful leaders involved in grand corruption cases and failed to link corruption with issues such as environmental crimes and the climate crisis (see a summary and videos of the analysis of key issues here).
|
|
We carefully watched, summarized and analysed the 115 UNGASS high-level national statements and the issues they covered (here is our YouTube playlist). 45 States mentioned the role of civil society in anti-corruption efforts (including several authoritarian governments), at least 24 States mentioned whistleblower protection, and at least 10 mentioned beneficial ownership transparency. However, hardly any country announced concrete new initiatives or made new commitments.
Several CSOs, such as TI Sri Lanka, have raised concerns about the statements made by their country; others, such as the Pakistani think tank PILDAT, have commented on the outcome of the UNGASS.
Notably, the UNGASS statement by the G7 countries stood out with several important commitments, including actively enforcing domestic foreign bribery laws, protecting and promoting access to information for all citizens, CSOs and journalists; and ensuring a fully transparent UNCAC review process that includes civil society.
Implementation of commitments and follow-up is key
The next step in operationalizing some of the UNGASS commitments will be the preparation of resolutions to be adopted by the UNCAC Conference of States Parties (CoSP) in December in Sharm El Sheik.
As a global anti-corruption community, we now need to put a stronger focus on implementation and on getting States and leaders to deliver on their anti-corruption promises made at the UNGASS, under the UNCAC, but also in fora such as the G7, the G20 and the OGP, and to better leverage those commitments to get measurable progress in transparency, accountability and anti-corruption. Lessons learned by the Open Government Partnership on the implementation of anti-corruption commitments following the London Anti-Corruption Summit provide useful guidance.
|
|
UNGASS Debrief for Civil Society
The UNCAC Coalition will debrief fellow civil society groups on the UNGASS and host a discussion about the next steps from a point of view of civil society on Tuesday, July 6, 15.00-16.00 CET (Vienna time, via Zoom). Register in advance here.
|
|
|
The UNCAC Coalition is expanding its team and is recruiting for the following positions:
- Policy Officer
- Communications Lead
- Analyst
- Regional Coordinator (Europe)
|
|
|
|
The report finds that Costa Rica has made progress in areas including:
- Access to information: The Decree on Transparency and Access to Public Information (2017) defined which information has to be publicly accessible, created the legal concept of the Access to Information Officer, and obliged entities to include a transparency section in their work reports. The approval of a law on access to information is currently pending;
- Public procurement: The use of the Integrated Public Procurement System (SICOP) became mandatory for the entire public administration in 2016. Combining 20 virtual public procurement platforms, the system was a major achievement and resulted in savings equal to 0.9% of GDP in 2017 alone;
- Participation of civil society: National bodies including the Ombudsmen Offices, the Judicial Branch and the Legislative Assembly have provided information to the general public about their rights and have created spaces to promote participation, even though these have yet to be fully institutionalized.
Areas where more efforts are needed include:
- Prevention of corruption: Several different institutions deal with aspects of corruption prevention but there is no entity leading this mandate in Costa Rica. Existing initiatives are isolated and have little impact;
- Whistleblower protection: Channels to report acts of corruption by public officials are not uniform in terms of the level of protection, publicity, accessibility, and not all of them have a clear regulatory framework;
- Asset Recovery: There are significant gaps in the country's framework for the recovery and direct return of assets. This includes a lack of applicable domestic legislation as well as missing international cooperation agreements.
|
|
|
Recent Developments from the Second Cycle Review of the UNCAC:
- Mauritius and Slovakia have published their Self-Assessment Checklists,
- Peru has recently published the Full Country Report,
- UNODC has now published the dates of several country visits by the peer reviewers that took place over the past 1.5 years in the UNCAC review of Cyprus (25-27 Feb 2020), the Netherlands (23-27 November 2020, virtual), South Africa (27 October 2020, virtual), Haiti (24-27 May 2021, virtual) and Venezuela (7-10 June 2021, virtual). Upcoming country visits, unfortunately, are not made public by UNODC.
|
|
The UNCAC Coalition is launching a new civil society working group on Environmental Crime & Corruption (chaired by the Wildlife Justice Commission), and re-launching its Asset Recovery working group (Chaired by Gillian Dell of Transparency International). Interested civil society representatives can sign up to join the working groups and attend future calls on the respective pages.
Our working group on Victims of Corruption, chaired by Juanita Olaya, also meets regularly to advance discussions on the recognition of victims and reparations for damages caused by corruption.
|
|
|
|
Second Regional Meeting for Sub-Saharan Africa
The second regional meeting for SSA brought together 20 representatives from civil society organizations to discuss whistleblower protection. Guest speakers from the DRC, Namibia, as well as a South African whistleblower discussed avenues for the protection of reporting persons through the UNCAC. See the highlights here.
|
|
|
Call for an International Anti-Corruption Court
Integrity Initiatives International has published a letter, signed by over 100 former leaders, including several former presidents, ministers and Nobel laureates from around the world, calling for the creation of an International Anti-Corruption Court to tackle impunity in grand corruption cases.
|
|
|
Global Corruption Barometer – EU
Transparency International conducted a regional survey on corruption, revealing that 3 in 10 European Union residents directly experience corruption and 29% (equal to 106 million people) report paying bribes or using personal connections to access public services. Explore the results here.
|
|
|
|
30th Session of the CCPCJ marred by political disputes, writes GI-TOC
The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) covered the 30th session of the CCPCJ, which took place in Vienna in May with a thematic focus on the smuggling of migrants. The session was hemmed in by politics rather than focusing on technical discussions on criminal justice issues. Protracted negotiations fraught with disputes have rendered the diplomatic community in Vienna increasingly unable to make meaningful, innovative progress – a similar trend has been seen in UNCAC meetings. Read the article here.
|
|
|
Convergence of Wildlife Crime with other forms of organized crime
The Wildlife Justice Commission published a report which presents case studies from across the world of how wildlife crime intersects with other forms of organized crime. The report puts forth recommendations for law enforcement authorities and policy makers on tackling the matter. The study integrates crime convergence as part of the approach to tackle wildlife crime and organized crime on a broad level. Browse the report here.
|
|
|
Read more about this month's Member in the Spotlight -
Kuwait Transparency Society - here!
|
|
Do you have relevant news or a success story linked to the UNCAC that you would like to feature in our next newsletter? Send us an email with the subject line "Newsletter" at info@uncaccoalition.org!
|
|
Upcoming Events
- UNCAC Coalition Asset Recovery Working Group Meeting (Zoom):
30 June 2021, 14.00-15.30 CET.
- UNGASS Debrief for Civil Society (Zoom): 6 July 2021, 15.00-16.00 CET. (Register here)
- UNCAC NGO Briefing on the margins of the resumed 12th session of the UNCAC IRG (Vienna & MS Teams): 7 September 2021 (tbc)
- 9th Conference of the States Parties (CoSP) to the UNCAC (Sharm El Sheik, Egypt): 13-17 December 2021 – the time to apply for non-ECOSOC NGOs will likely be in July-August!
|
|
|
|
|
|
