Transparency International welcomes unprecedented G8 accountability report on corruption despite deficits in G8 performance

• Japanese version

Transparency International spokesperson Jesse Garcia is on site at the IMC from 6 to 9 July and is available on +81 (0) 90 9967 6076 or via email at jgarcia@transparency.org

Transparency International (TI) welcomed today’s unprecedented publication by the Group of Eight (G8) of its Accountability Report: Implementation Review of G8 Anti-Corruption Commitments, while still noting the many areas that G8 performance fell short of past pledges. The report comes after over a year of pressure from Transparency International for the G8 to report back on anti-corruption commitments made since the 2002 Kananaskis Summit.

“We are pleased that the G8 have proven responsive to demands for accountability from civil society, but the report also shows just how far they have to go,” said Cobus de Swardt, Managing Director of Transparency International. “Corruption continues to undermine democratic institutions, distort public decision making as well as fueling abject poverty and inequality across the world.”

The report presents a remarkable amount of detail, although the data provided by the different countries remains unstandardised and is difficult to quantify, defying easy comparisons. And detail on certain questions, such as the United Kingdom’s failure to fully enforce the ban on foreign bribery or Germany’s failure to ratify the UN Convention against Corruption remains scant.

It is notable that Russia states its intention to become a party to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. As the only G8 member that has not already ratified the convention, which criminalises overseas bribery by corporations, and the member state with the highest levels of public sector corruption, this is a thoroughly positive development.

The report looks at each Group of Eight member country’s achievements in eight priority anti-corruption areas, namely: 1) Global legal framework against corruption (UN Convention); 2) Recovery of stolen assets; 3) Fighting foreign corporate bribery (OECD Convention); 4) Transparency and protecting financial markets from abuse; 5) Denying safe haven to corrupt individuals and their assets; 6) Fighting money laundering; 7) Transparency in trade and procurement; and 8) Good governance and Africa.

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Transparency International is the civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption.