Conviction on corruption

India must ratify the UN convention against corruption

In the same week that the central government found itself needlessly embroiled in a controversy on the appointment of the Central Vigilance Commissioner, the prime minister chose to refer the matter of India’s ratification of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) to a group of ministers (GoM). Cynics may yawn and say one more group of ministers is going to chew cud on a matter that affects millions of Indians every day. Hopefully, the GoM on the ratification of the UNCAC will consider the matter quickly and give its consent to ratification. India is in the not-so-reputable company of countries like Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and Thailand, and a few others like Germany, Italy and New Zealand, to be among the minority that has not yet ratified the UNCAC. Only 19 of the 140 signatories to the convention have not yet ratified it. India may have good reasons for having delayed ratification. Infringement of sovereignty would be one of them, considering that Indian diplomats and policy-makers resent signing up to any multilateral convention that impinges on national sovereignty. However, given the scale of corruption and, worse, India’s reputation on this count, the government should not drag its feet on ratification of an agreement to which it is already a signatory. The prime minister has done well to seek an early decision on the matter.

 

The UNCAC was adopted by the UN General Assembly in October 2003, three years after the idea was first mooted. It seeks to build on existing national and plurilateral laws, like the OECD Anti-bribery Convention, with an aim to promote integrity and accountability within each member country and encourage international cooperation and technical assistance between governments that are party to the treaty. The UNCAC has six aspects to it, namely, the prevention of corruption; links between corruption; criminalisation and law enforcement measures; the need for international cooperation in the fight against corruption; international cooperation in recovery of assets involved in corrupt practices; and cooperation in the provision of technical assistance and information exchange leading to corruption mitigation. There are both mandatory and non-mandatory provisions.

A case can be made that excessively intrusive and restrictive laws can kill enterprise and initiative in government organisations. It can also be reasonably argued that the fear of transgressing some anti-corruption law paralyses decision-making — as we have seen in recent years in the Indian defence ministry where fear of doing the wrong thing has prevented the minister and his officials from doing the right things. Hence, any law and regulatory regime must make a distinction between provable acts of corruption and other acts of omission and commission that may not be so motivated but are normal mistakes that anyone can make in taking difficult decisions. Indeed, in the Indian government, there is a case now for rewarding initiative and risk-taking, given the paralysis of decision-making in many ministries. At the same time, given the scale and scope of corruption in India, the time has come for much more determined action that will punish the really corrupt and/or at least raise the stakes. Ratifying the UNCAC would be a good step to take.