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UN Performance Problems UN Management Accountability Struggles Where is the Rule of Law? Inadequate UN Oversight Recent Developments
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Global anti-corruption efforts began almost two decades ago, when an
initial group including a dozen "international jurisdictions" met in 1983 in
The
UN had long been active in crime and justice policy matters, eventually
including some anti-corruption efforts, and for several decades the United Nations has held
global congresses on these topics. At the 1995 global congress,
Secretary-General Butros Ghali stated that the UN would
“continue
to play a major catalytic role in this field”
and work to “reinforce
…
national efforts” An ECOSOC resolution asked him to
undertake joint international activities against mounting corruption
problems, and provided a draft international code of conduct for public
office holders. "Rising crime is impairing
development and well-being of humanity, states Secretary-General in
message to Ninth UN Crime Congress", UN document SG/SM/95/105 of 28
April 1995, and "Action against corruption", and Annex "Draft international
code of conduct for public office holders", Economic and Social Council
resolution 1995/14 of 24
July 1995.
Subsequently,
however, the UN concentrated on technical cooperation and advisory
services in crime prevention and criminal justice. Global anti-corruption
leadership largely passed to the World Bank, civil society groups like
Transparency International, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD).
Initiatives were also taken by regional conventions as in Latin
America, country level anti-corruption coalitions, and growing attention
to global problems of money-laundering. "Stop the rot: A new treaty … is just the beginning of the fight against
corruption", and "A global war against bribery", Economist, January
16th, 1999, pp. 19-23 and 25, Stuart C. Gilman, "An idea whose time has come:
The international experience … in
developing anticorruption systems", Public Integrity, Spring
2000, pp.
135-155, "The war on corruption", A Publication of the
Inspector-Generals of the United States, The Journal of Public
Inquiry , Fall/Winter 2001, pp. 1-62,
WBI Governance & Anti-Corruption Resource Center of the World Bank Institute at the World Bank, found at www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/ Transparency International, found at www.transparency.org , and CORISweb , its web portal on
corruption and good governance, and for The Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) and its Corruption and Anti-Bribery Convention of
1999 topics, see under "By topic" at www.oecd.org/home/
.
In
1999, however, the UN was pressed to exert its universality and become
more involved in international anti-corruption efforts. A UN Global
Programme Against Corruption (GPAC) was launched in what is now the UN
Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. It seeks to aid Member States in
strengthening their legal and institutional anti-corruption framework,
supporting international groups strengthening judicial integrity,
developing anti-corruption policies and tools, and enhancing interagency
anti-corruption coordination. The UNDP also established Accountability,
Transparency and Anti-corruption and Access to Justice efforts, as part of
its practice area of promoting democratic governance through reform. The UNODC Global Programme
Against Corruption is found at www.unodc.org/unodc/en/corruption.html
, and
the UNDP efforts are found at www.undp.org/governance/index.htm .
In
October 2000, the U.S. Congress passed an International Anti-Corruption
and Good Governance Act, which included international initiatives for
combating corruption and improving accountability, international diplomacy
initiatives, and resources to strengthen institutions and reduce the
instability that corruption brings, especially through the establishment
of anti-corruption agencies. Donna Rosa, "The
Anti-Corruption and Good Governance Act", The Journal of Public
Inquiry, Fall/Winter 2001, pp. 1-2,
and "Report to Congress pursuant to the
International Anticorruption and Good Governance Act (Public Law
106-309):, section II.D.
"Global anticorruption diplomacy in the United Nations", US Dept.
of State,
2001.
The
10th UN Crime Congress urged that a convention against transnational
organized crime (the UNCTOC, which has subsequently entered into force) should include
provisions to criminalize acts of corruption involving public officials,
and an ad hoc committee of countries then agreed to seek a separate
international legal instrument. In December 2000 the General Assembly
established negotiating procedures. The Crime Commission analysed existing
instruments in 2001, which were followed by negotiations in Vienna in
2002. "Vienna: 10th UN Crime Congress:
Making concerted efforts to combat organized crime", International
Herald Tribune, 14 April 2000, John Brandolino, "Fighting
corruption: The role of diplomacy and international agreements", The
Journal of Public Inquiry, Fall/Winter 2001, pp. 9-12,
In
late 2003, after much effort, the UN General Assembly adopted the global
Convention Against Corruption: " … a landmark anti-corruption treaty
… The treaty … adopted by consensus, spells out measures to prevent
corruption in the public and private sectors and requires governments to
cooperate in the investigations and prosecutions of offenders. 'The adoption of the [UN] Convention against Corruption sends a
clear message that the international community is determined to prevent
and control corruption,' Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. 'And it
reaffirms the importance of core values, such as honesty, respect for the
rule of law, accountability and transparency, in promoting
development and making the world a better place for us all.'" Edith M. Lederer, "U.N. Assembly
OK's anti-corruption treaty," AP, October 31, 2003. [emphasis
added.]
In
May 2004 over 600 delegates at the annual crime commission session in
Vienna reviewed the activities of the UNODC and inter
alia: " … called [on] countries to ratify the UN Convention against
Corruption, and give UNODC the necessary resources to promote its entry
into force, and to provide technical assisstance to developing countries …
to allow them to ratify and implement the
treaty. So far 108 countries
have signed and two have ratified the Convention, which seeks to combat
corruption worldwide … It will enter into force when ratified by 30
countries." "Fighting terrorism and
corruption among resolutions adopted at UN crime commission", UN News
Service, 21 May 2004. [Note: the Convention itself
can be found at www.unodc.org/unodc/crime_convention_corruption
The
UNODC website on the Global Corruption Programme notes that as of April
2004 106 countries had already signed the convention, which:
"… indicates both an
acute awareness of the severity of the problem, as well as a remarkable
political commitment to tackle it.
This commitment must be harnessed. UNODC has limited resources:
building on the framework of the Convention, it must lever (?) changes in
areas where it has acquired expertise and experience and in societies
where the problem is most severe.
And, critically, it must work with others to ensure a unified
response that maximizes the impact of international assistance. The Convention marks a major step
forward in international cooperation against corruption."
"About the UN Global Programme", at www.unodc.org/unodc/en/corruption.html .
The
new Convention is a big step forward, although implementing it will be an
enormous task. But at present
the UN is gravely handicapped in its leadership and advisory roles by its
own weak corruption-fighting activities, and thus wide open as well to
charges of hypocrisy. This is
underscored by all the topics in
the preceding section on
The UN, Alone and UNaccountable,
and especially the subsection on Corruption characteristics, of
which the UN has many. It is
also hampered by the struggles of the UNODC itself, as described in the
preceding topic on the problems of its very own Top corruption fighter corrupted.
The
UN thus has another major problem to overcome. It wants to lead the international community
with a "clear message" of "determination to prevent and control
corruption", and to "reaffirm the core values such as honesty, respect for
the rule of law, accountability and transparency … to make the world a
better place", as Mr. Annan emphasized in his speech above. To do so, however, the UN must
start at home, by radically strengthening its own corruption-fighting
programme, determination, credibility, and reputation. It
must build that credibility with its staff as well. Once again, as the
June 2004 UN integrity survey found, from its more than 6,000 staff
respondents: "A new
survey of … [UN integrity
perceptions has found that] while structures for reporting and
combating corruption exist,
most staff members are either unaware of how to use them or afraid to do
so for fear of high-level
retaliation. … [The study] is being
made public at a time when Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been
forced by the widespread publicity [about corruption in the Iraq
oil-for-food program] to appoint a high-level panel to look into
[it] … The new study records
relatively high levels of worker satisfaction … but its most
negative findings have to do with ingrown leadership and the lack of
response to reports of corruption. 'Get rid of the old
boy network,' one staff member … [says.] 'That network is wide, tenacious
and powerful. … So long as you can wind your way into that
network, you are OK. … Opposing the network
is certainly the end of a UN career.'" Warren Hoge, "Report
criticizes the way UN fights corruption", International Herald
Tribune, June 16, 2004.
[emphasis added.] [Note: The actual survey
is "United Nations
organizational integrity survey", Final Report, prepared by Deloitte
Consulting LLP, June 2004. It can be found at http://www.un.org/News/ossg/sg/index.shtml
.]
The
UN can of course meet this anti-corruption challenge if its leadership is
now finally prepared to act. A reasonable, urgent, and essential way ahead
is A real UN fraud prevention
programme, which is proposed as the first topic
of the next major subsection, Answers: A Starting
Point. |
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