Corruption remains endemic in Ukraine and a severe impediment to democratic and economic development in the country. Support to anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine is a high political priority for the European Union.
In his opening remarks, His Excellency, Mr Urs Herren, Swiss Confederation Ambassador in Romania, emphasised how important it is to enhance the investigation and asset recovery capacities of Romanian law enforcement and justice authorities, mandated to investigate and prosecute financial crimes and recover stolen assets.
The International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) welcomes the signing earlier this week by Kenya and Switzerland of the Framework for the Return of Assets from Corruption and Crime in Kenya (FRACCK).
The FRACCK sets out good practices in relation to the return of stolen assets, including transparency and accountability, and encourages the use of returned assets to advance sustainable development and benefit the civilian population.
On 26 June 2018, the Basel Institute on Governance and the Office of Integrity and Anti-Corruption of the African Development Bank (AfDB) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at strengthening collaboration on anti-corruption projects in regional member countries of the African Development Bank Group.
Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), which represent a country’s official authority for receiving financial information disclosures, are regularly at the forefront of tackling money laundering and terrorist financing. Not surprisingly, they also play a critical role in the asset recovery process. An increasing number of investigations leading to the tracing, identification, seizing/freezing and confiscation of illegal assets are triggered by FIU reports to law enforcement agencies.
Experts from the Basel Institute's International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) conducted a five-day Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery training workshop in Ukraine from 27 to 31 August 2018.
Financial interviews are a critical component of a financial investigation. Properly conducted, they enable investigators to extract relevant financial information from informants, witnesses or suspects. This provides not only additional leads to further the investigation but also key evidence that could be used in a court of law.
To ensure positive outcomes for financial crimes and asset tracing investigations by law enforcement agencies, it is vital to help investigators gain the necessary interviewing skills.
The results of the seventh annual Basel Anti-Money Laundering Index released today support the growing concern that governments worldwide are still not doing enough to combat money laundering. The Basel AML Index is an independent, research-based ranking that assesses countries' risk exposure to money laundering and terrorist financing.
This Working Paper presents findings from a research project that sought to better understand decision-making processes on the return of illegally obtained assets using the examples of past cases of returning assets that had been stolen from Kazakhstan, Peru and the Philippines.
Publication
Working Paper 20: Corruption and human rights
It is a fact that states with a high corruption rate (or a high corruption perception) are at the same time those with a bad human rights situation. Beyond this coincidence, the paper seeks to identify a concrete legal relationship between corruption and deficient human rights protection. This seems relevant and practical terms, because the extant international norms against corruption have so far yielded only modest success; their implementation could be improved with the help of human rights arguments and instruments.
This paper therefore discusses a dual question: