Cologne G-8 Summit must focus on curbing corruption
“60% of OECD Countries have failed to ratify anti-corruption convention”
Transparency International has called on the G8 summit to address the issue of corruption and to urge all OECD Countries to swiftly ratify the landmark OECD anti-corruption convention. While the leading industrialised countries with the exception of Italy and France have fully ratified the convention, almost 60% of the other signatories have failed to do so yet. The OECD convention makes it a criminal offence to bribe a foreign public official.
TI Chairman Dr Peter Eigen said that "Concrete anti-corruption action is imperative if world trade and investment is to be strengthened, if young and fragile democracies in the South and in Eastern Europe are to become secure, and if poverty in the world's poorest countries is to be reduced." The annual Corruption Perceptions Index has made it crystal clear that the abuse of public office by government officials in dozens of countries is a problem of dramatic proportions. It is imperative that the forthcoming Summit in Cologne, and the Finance Ministers' Summit in Frankfurt, strengthen concrete anti-corruption actions that respond to the legitimate outrage of tens of millions of people across the world whose incomes and hopes are being wrecked by corrupt public officials, abetted by bribe-paying corporations.
Accordingly, TI, the non-profit anti-corruption organisation, calls on Summit leaders to recognise the critical linkages between curbing corruption, strengthening global commerce, building democracy and reducing poverty. And the TI movement, now active through national organisations in over 70 countries, calls on Summit leaders to consider the following specific actions:
- To highlight the importance of the ratification on February 15, 1999 of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention and of the related EU Convention of 1997 and to call upon those Summit nations - particularly Italy -, and thereafter all other nations, who have not yet ratified the Convention, to do so without further delay.
- To pledge their fullest support in monitoring the implementation of the OECD Convention in order to ensure that firm action is taken to prosecute corporations that continue to pay foreign bribes to officials to secure contracts.
- To promote efforts to ensure that the new round of international trade negotiations under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, to be launched in Seattle later this year, explicitly highlights the trade-distorting nature of corruption and seeks international agreements to fight corruption in global trade and investment.
Countries that have failed to full ratify the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officails in International Business Transactions:
|
|
|
Status of ratifacation of major international Anti-Corruption Conventions by the G-8 states:
|
OECD |
Council of Europe |
European Union* |
Organisation of American States |
|
|
Canada |
Ratified |
NOT SIGNED |
n/a |
NOT RATIFIED |
|
France |
NOT RATIFIED |
NOT SIGNED |
NOT RATIFIED |
n/a |
|
Germany |
Ratified |
Signed |
NOT RATIFIED |
n/a |
|
Italy |
NOT RATIFIED |
Signed |
NOT RATIFIED |
n/a |
|
Japan |
Ratified |
n/a |
NOT RATIFIED |
n/a |
|
Russia |
NOT SIGNED** |
Signed |
n/a |
n/a |
|
United Kingdom |
Ratified |
Signed |
NOT RATIFIED |
n/a |
|
United States |
Ratified |
NOT SIGNED |
n/a |
NOT RATIFIED |
* The only EU member state to have ratified the EU Convention on the fight against corruption involving officials of the European Communities or officials of Member States of the European Union is Finland.
** Russia has indicated its interest in signing the OECD Convention which was agreed by the 29 OECD member states plus five other countries (Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Slovakia) in 1997. It is doubtful, however, whether the OECD will include Russia in its anti-corruption activities.
For any press enquiries please contact
Mr. Jeff Lovitt,
Head of Public Relations, TI International Secretariat,
Tel: +49-30 343 8200
or
Mr. Jeremy Pope,
Executive Director, at our London office
tel. +44 (020) 7610 1400; fax. +44 (020) 7610 1550
