The following briefing notes are taken from the concept note for a side event at the Conference of States Parties (COSP) in Abu Dhabi on 20 December 2019.

The Basel Institute's International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) is hosting a side event on "Living up to the spirit of articles 43 and 46 UNCAC" at the Conference of the States Parties to the UN Convention Against Corruption (COSP8). 

UNCAC Articles 43 and 46 deal with international cooperation and mutual legal assistance. 

What are best practices to promote transparency and accountability in the return of stolen assets?

This was the focus of a side event of the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group on 9 October 2019 at the OECD headquarters in Paris. The event gathered authorities and experts from the G20 countries plus international organisations including the World Bank and United Nations.

Child labour. Forced evictions. Confiscation of migrant-worker identity documents. Crackdowns by security forces on peaceful assemblies. Serious illness resulting from corporate pollution.

These are all examples of human rights abuses that might arise in business operations or supply chains, knowingly or unknowingly, in a company’s home country or abroad.

The ultimate aim of fighting corruption and returning stolen assets is to fight poverty and achieve sustainable development – and asset recovery is therefore not a nice-to-have but an obligation under international law.

In 2019, Estonia achieved the lowest risk score out of the 125 countries in the Public Edition of the Basel AML Index, 2.68 out of 10. In fact, Estonia has consistently been among the top performers since 2012, when the Basel AML index was first calculated.

Money laundering risks in Malta have been in the headlines recently.

During 2018 and 2019, the world has faced serious money laundering scandals involving reputable institutions. Surprisingly, abuses of financial systems were uncovered in countries that have low risk scores in the Basel AML Index, like Estonia and Sweden.

Lise Stensrud, Policy Director Anti-Corruption at the Norwegian Development Cooperation Agency (Norad), explains the four challenges in "following the money" to tackle corruption, tax evasion and organised crime. Norad has recently become a core donor of the Basel Institute's International Centre for Asset Recovery, joining the UK, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Jersey.

A high-profile asset recovery case in Peru is putting the country’s new legislation on non-conviction-based confiscation (Extinción de Dominio) to the test.

The new Extinción de Dominio legislation, which roughly translates as "extinction of possession", allows stolen assets to be recovered even if the asset holder cannot formally be convicted of a crime. Introduced in August 2018, it enables the recovery of assets from foreign bank accounts whose owners, for example, are now dead or have absconded.