Guest Commentary
By Farid Rohani

There seems to be a growing perception, and a growing unease, that cheaters actually prosper. The news is full of stories of corrupt officials in business and finance who, even when they get caught, seem to pay little for their misdeeds.

Even worse are the constant reports of what is known in the international community as “grand corruption” — the abuse of public power by national leaders for private gain. As the American author and academic Michael Mandelbaum has written, there are many kleptocracies around the world where “the purpose of gaining public power is to accumulate private wealth.”

This grand corruption cannot be allowed to stand. First, it is horrendously expensive. As far back as 2004, the World Bank was estimating that corrupt officials were soaking up more than the US $1 trillion in bribes every year. The organization Global Financial Integrity estimates that illicit financial flows related solely to commercial trade often total more than $800 billion per year and occasionally top $1 trillion per year. That means developing regions lose at least ten times more to corruption than they receive in foreign aid.

Then-United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, summed up the case in 2013, saying: “Corruption kills. … The money stolen through corruption every year is enough to feed the world’s hungry 80 times over. … Corruption denies them their right to food, and, in some cases, their right to life.”

That level of corruption also undermines trust in all governments. The notion that national leaders are really just self-dealing thieves erodes public confidence in our ability to solve the big issues that face humankind — not just peace and security, but inequality, environmental degradation, and climate change. We stop thinking a better world is possible.

The problem, of course, is how to find and impose a solution to the corruption epidemic. How do we reach across borders to enforce laws that other countries are unable or unwilling to enforce themselves?

The very question reveals the first hopeful factor. Grand corruption is already illegal almost everywhere. 187 countries have signed on to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, which entered into force in 2005, and nearly all have passed the required statutes criminalizing bribery, money laundering, and misappropriation of national resources.

In other words, they have recognized (formally if not sincerely) an international legal obligation to enforce those laws against corrupt leaders. But kleptocrats who assume or seize power just don’t comply. They manipulate the media, bully the judiciary and meddle or dispense altogether with free and fair elections. They flout the law and steal with impunity.

What’s needed, then, is an International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC) that is empowered to investigate, adjudicate and enforce anti-corruption laws. The idea has gained support from the former president of Colombia and Nobel Laureate Juan Manuel Santos, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, and from the Honourable Canadian luminaries Lloyd Axworthy, Allan Rock and Peter MacKay, among many others who have signed a declaration in support of an IACC.

An IACC would be a court of last resort: that is, it would only act upon existing laws, and only when domestic investigative bodies and courts had failed to do so. It would thereby legitimize and embolden domestic enforcement and would have authority to seize illegally obtained assets and, indeed, to try and imprison offenders.

Such international rule enforcement is never easy. Kleptocrats will be unwilling to join any institution that threatens them, but their money would still be exposed to the Court’s jurisdiction if several major financial centres become State Parties.

Furthermore, in countries where corruption causes upheaval, public pressure and leadership changes could lead countries dominated by kleptocracy to join an IACC. In such transitional countries, the Court would reinforce democratic trends at the expense of kleptocrats who attempt to retain and regain power over the state.

There is a challenge and an opportunity here for Canada. A middle power with a democracy that still has credibility on the world stage, Canada has been an effective champion of everything from United Nations Peacekeeping to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

This is a worthy new cause — a necessary campaign. The legitimacy of our own government is predicated on the popular conviction that laws are fair and impartially enforced. We cannot long survive in a world in which that experience is an exception. Canada needs to step up — for our own sake as well as for all those who, today, cannot hold their own leaders to account.

We all need an International Anti-Corruption Court.

Farid Rohani is a board member of Integrity Initiatives International.