As my last two posts indicated, epidemics of kleptocratic corruption distort development prospects for the poorest of the poor in the world, and even for those (like Argentina) where most people are less poor than Africans or Haitians, but where key priorities are altered for the worse by the abuse of public trust for private gain. Qatar is now implicated in bribing European legislators presumably to gain access and influence for that Persian Gulf monarchy, but conceivably even bigger blows for integrity are happening every day outside of Europe.
Mozambique has jailed the son of a recent president and ten other high-ranking culprits for stealing from the national treasury. Angola imprisoned the son of the country’s late dictator for five years and is pursuing his sister, once Africa’s richest woman, for her thefts from public enterprises. Malawi, as I wrote Friday, is trying a vice-president for accepting mega bribes. South Africa is continually uncovering corrupt dealings; the latest is in the Northern Cape Province, where leading officials procured anti-coronavirus equipment illicitly, pocketing the proceeds of systematic over-invoicing. Namibia is coping with a long-running scandal concerning its fishing industry.
The dictatorship in Equatorial Guinea has been grabbing petroleum extraction revenues meant for the country and its people for decades. Zimbabweans endure massive inflation and economic collapse because its predatory rulers appropriate to themselves whatever mining and farming revenues exist. Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Francophone countries of the African continent are also afflicted, even or especially the ones battling Islamist insurgencies. Somalia and Ethiopia are both fully corrupt and beset by civil conflicts.
The struggle against corruption thus continues in Asia, Oceania, Latin America, North America, Europe, and Africa. Winning that almost perpetual war will help (as it has in Ukraine) improve prospects for both democratic political growth and economic prosperity. But “how, exactly?” Existing mechanism are insufficient, even in those polities where domestic investigators and prosecutors seem to be bringing handfuls of perpetrators to book.
The United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) contains fine words but no real teeth. It is a hortatory instrument that kleptocrats and kleptocratic-led governments are free to ignore. And they do. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has an anti-corruption protocol – the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Officials -- that is tougher than the UNCAC document, but once again there is no enforcement mechanism. Thus, countries can sign on to both sets of guidance with little intention of adhering to either. The International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction in the corruption sphere; stealing from the people is not a war crime.
Yet, as the behavior of heads of state, vice-presidents, and sons and daughters of big-time kleptocrats shows – even the Americas – often (as in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea, but also in many other territories across the globe) domestic prosecutors and courts are too compromised or too subservient to investigate and try their own domestic malefactors, especially not their own political elites. For that reason, and because of the weakness of existing anti-corrupt methods and the malaise within existing corrupt national structures, a number of concerned nations – led by the Netherlands, Canada, and Ecuador – are contemplating the creation of a specialized new global court devoted to trying state actors who perpetrate grand corruption. Senior Federal Judge Mark Wolf some years ago saw the need for such a court and has been working ever since with like-minded colleagues, and now with inter-continental backing, to turn his idea into a functional International Anti-Corruption Court capable of helping civil societies and national entities to hold grand corrupters accountable.
Once such a court exists, there will be trained investigators to pursue large-scale malefactors who cannot be corralled domestically, experienced prosecutors to bring cases forward, and estimable international judges to render opinions and penalties. Penalizing corrupters in order to reduce the curse within a nation and to prevent that disease proliferating are two key goals. Indeed, the mere existence of such a new court may deter grand corruption. Which head of state wants to be hauled before a global tribunal for large-scale (or even minor) thefts of state resources?
Malawi can certainly manage to prosecute vice-president Saulos Chilima for accepting a $280,000 bribe offered by a British based entrepreneur who had armaments to sell. So can Angola try Isobel dos Santos for all manner of theft from the state – if Angola can manage to extradite her from London, Dubai, or wherever she is hiding with $3.5 billion of mulcted proceeds. After all, Mozambique penetrated the scam that Ndambi Guebuza, the son of a recent president, believed that he and the other high Mozambicans had concocted to swindle $2 billion from the state for mostly non-existent development projects, including a wild fishery scheme/
An international court could help, materially. It would also have the standing and skill to make good cases against the likes of Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang even though neither country might have ratified the treaty that established the new court. It could respond to civil society accusations against the likes of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Cameroonian President Paul Biya. It could assist Peru in a time of great need. If circumstances permitted and the timing was ideal, it could even find ways of addressing high-level corruption within Russia or other major powers. Perhaps, in a future case, the European Parliament would also refer to the court a case such as the one that is now riling its parliamentarians.
Given the prevalence of grand corruption across the planet, especially where dictatorship and despotism flourish, there would be no end of work for an International Anti-Corruption Court. By its very existence, it could deter outbreaks of corruption. If so, the lives and livelihoods of many global citizens would be enhanced and their countries become more prosperous and stable.
Brilliant takes on the horrors of international corruption .... truly compelling evidence of the immediate and pressing need for the kind of International Anti-Corruption Court that Professor Rotberg has so compellingly conceived and advocated. Bravo!