The paper investigates the role of criminal networks in fostering illegal wildlife trade (IWT), and how these relational structures interact with transnational organized crime. The paper frames these topics within the debate around the opportunistic or organized nature of IWT. The aim is to understand how chaotic behaviors can transform into an ordered and organized strategy.
Publication
Papering over cracks or building stronger systems together? Financial crime in the context of covid-19
This article is the Basel Institute’s contribution to the Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development Review of Legal Experiences and Global Practices Relating to COVID-19, published in December 2021. The Global Forum is an initiative of The World Bank. The contribution was submitted in July 2020; the version below contains minor updates to hyperlinks.
Publication
Green Corruption - interview with Miljøkrim
This in-depth interview with Professor Mark Pieth and Juhani Grossmann, Team Leader - Green Corruption programme at the Basel Institute on Governance, was conducted by Marianne Djupesland and Nina Norset Little of Økokrim, the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway.
It covers:
News
Environmental corruption as a roadblock to reaching the SDGs: virtual CoSP side event on 17 December
Environmental crime is lucrative, with its profits easily realised via financial crime and corruption. What is being done to trace illicit financial flows that facilitate environmental crime? And what about the illegally obtained profits derived from it?
This collection of insights on corruption, the environment and illicit trade emerges from the monthly Corrupting the Environment webinar series between December 2020 and August 2021.
As world leaders gather this week at COP26 to negotiate their climate change commitments, we ask – will they include a credible commitment to fight corruption?
Because if there is one thing that will scupper efforts to address the climate crisis, it is corruption. Yet corruption is strangely missing from the conversation. Here are some things that deserve to be talked about louder.
The Basel Institute's Green Corruption programme has commenced two new grants funded by the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) under the IWT Challenge Fund 7th Round.
Emerging economies have long struggled with the question of how to combine economic development with sustainable use of natural resources. How does corruption factor into this combination?
Publication
The role of informal networks in promoting illegal wildlife trade: a qualitative analysis from Uganda
Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) poses a threat to many countries in Africa, Asia, South and Central America. While the role of informal networks in sustaining wildlife trafficking is ever more on the radar of scholars and practitioners, their modus operandi remains largely understudied. The literature tells us that these informal networks play a role in sustaining this illicit cross-border trade.
This Working Paper details the findings of a survey of Indonesians’ perceptions of corruption, the economy and the environment in July 2021.
The survey was a joint initiative of the Green Corruption team at the Basel Institute on Governance and leading Indonesian pollster Lembaga Survei Indonesia (LSI). It consisted of a national public opinion survey covering 2,580 respondents and in-depth interviews with 30 private-sector representatives working in various natural resource sectors.