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The world community woke up to the existence of corruption in Member-States sometime in the early 1990s. So what does it do by way of expressing its concern? Draw up a series of resonating conventions in ornate style, that's what! Here are all the six of them: Inter-American Convention against Corruption (1996); Council of the European Union's Convention on the Fight against Corruption (1997); OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (1997); Criminal Law Convention on Corruption adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (1999); African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (2003); and UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (2003).

The net result can be neatly summed up by invoking the proverb: Dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. Being long on lofty verbiage, and terribly short on specifics, the conventions lacked teeth and were not taken seriously by any of the signatories. However, the global awareness of the persistence of the pernicious evil acquired a sharper edge when the Bretton Woods big brothers — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund — began subjecting countries approaching them for any kind of assistance to a commitment to fight corruption.

But having neither the authority nor the mechanism to enforce adherence to their stipulations on this score, they had to rest content with member-countries' anaesthetising assurances that everything possible was being done to get rid of the scourge, since suspension or termination of aid would have meant punishing the people of errant countries for the failure or default of their governments. In any case, there was no way the two institutions would have been able to confront the governments of the countries concerned with conclusive evidence of such failure or default. So, finding that the monster of corruption will not go away, what does the world community do? Yes, you've guessed it right! It sweats on yet another (the seventh, if you please!) Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) "to promote and strengthen measures to prevent and combat corruption more efficiently and effectively; to promote, facilitate and support international cooperation and technical assistance in the prevention of and fight against corruption, including in asset recovery; to promote integrity, accountability and proper management of public affairs and public property".

It also envisages the freezing, seizure, confiscation and return of the proceeds of offences such as bribery, money-laundering, embezzlement, misappropriation, trading in influence, abuse of authority and illicit enrichment.

Joy ride

The first UN Conference of the State Parties to the UNCAC met in Jordan in December 2006 to take stock of developments during the period of one year it has been in force. All that this Conference managed to achieve was to agree to work towards a review mechanism (mark the hedging phraseology), to collaborate in providing training to trace and recover stolen assets, and to enlarge the scope of technical assistance for better implementation.

A second conference is scheduled for late 2007 in Indonesia. From the look of things, there is going to be no end of such conferences providing ample opportunities for officials of Member-States to have a joy ride at public expense to all the exotic scenic spots of the world. At some point, no doubt, they will stumble upon the discovery that combating corruption is not going to be possible without an eighth Convention. And the ninth, and the nth!

While the UN is taking the pains of working the anti-corruption treadmill, the corrupt in the Member-States will be laughing all the way to their hoards stashed with their booty. That is combating corruption, UN style, for you!

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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