The new institution would target “grand corruption” by public officials
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - An international court should be established to combat "grand corruption" at the highest levels of government, says a leading United States judge.
Public anger at corruption helped to trigger uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Ukraine in recent years. The cost of corruption equals more than 5 percent of global GDP, the World Economic Forum estimates.
Mark L. Wolf, a federal judge from Massachusetts, outlined his idea for the new court in a report for the Brookings Institution.
It argues that just as war crimes and human rights abuses by senior public officials led to the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002, the persistent level of corruption worldwide means an anti-corruption court should be established as part of the ICC or as an independent entity.
"The government in no nation has consented to the abuse of personal office for private gain. Governments are constituted to protect and promote the most vulnerable human rights," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"There are young people who I have met who are literally risking their lives to expose and oppose corruption in their countries, and they deserve the support of people like me and many others."
EGREGIOUS ABUSES
There is a "close correlation between grand corruption and egregious abuses of the most fundamental human rights," the report says.
One hundred and seventy-one United Nations members are party to the Convention against Corruption, effective since 2005, which 140 countries have signed.
"(The court) would not be creating a new obligation, it would be creating a new mechanism of enforcing that obligation," said Wolf, adding that the court would be primarily focused on government officials rather than private citizens or corporations.
He argues countries will have an incentive to accept the court’s authority if cooperation is a condition for membership of international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
"HARD SELL"
The report highlights Russia as a major economy facing particular problems with corruption.
Russia saw $427 billion in illicit outflows between 2000 and 2009, according to the think tank Global Financial Integrity.
Wolf admitted persuading President Vladimir Putin to sign up to an international anti-corruption court would be a "very hard sell", but noted that the country joined the WTO just two years ago.
"Russia is a hard case because at the moment it is relatively affluent as it has oil and gas," Wolf told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "But if you look at developing regions, in Africa but not just Africa, they need loans from the international community.
"A requirement of those loans could be submission to the jurisdiction of the international anti-corruption court."
(Editing by Ros Russell; rosalind.russell@thomsonreuters.com)
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