Opening Statement of the Government of the United States at the Second Conference of the State Parties to the UN Convention Against Corruption

Thank you, Mr/Madame Chairperson. As this is the first opportunity for the United States to take the floor, I would like to congratulate you on your election as President of the 2nd Conference of the State Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption. The United States has confidence in your able leadership and looks forward to a successful session.

The UN Convention against Corruption has truly globalized the fight against corruption. It provides the framework and tools for states individually and collectively to make it more difficult for corrupt officials and those who corrupt them to engage in criminal conduct and enjoy the fruits of their unlawful activities.

As a group, we worked hard to establish the shared standards and commitments found in the Convention. Working together, we have created a comprehensive framework to prevent, deter and combat corruption with ground-breaking provisions for establishing the first ever asset recovery regime.

Today, a little more than two years after the Convention’s entry into force, we face the challenge of translating our shared standards and commitments into action. While this involves individual actions at home, it is our Conference that has the power to generate true global momentum. This body must find ways to demonstrate how our desire for action against corruption, clearly evident during the negotiations for the Convention, has now transformed into concrete actions and measures against corruption.

In this regard, it is important to build on the momentum gained during the first Conference of the State Parties. A little over one year ago, we identified three specific areas for in-depth focus and discussion: 1) review of implementation, 2) asset recovery and 3) technical assistance. We must ensure that our work makes practical, concrete strides in these three areas.

Review of Implementation

First, the United States strongly advocates and supports creating an effective review process to promote implementation of the UN Convention against Corruption. As one of the 16 countries participating in the Pilot Review Program, and as a participant in three regional review processes, we have learned by experience that meaningful review is necessary for both effective implementation and the credibility of our Convention. We started our work toward a review process last year by deciding that there should be a review mechanism or body and by adopting a self-assessment checklist. We later developed the Pilot Review Program to test various potential methods of review. A satisfyingly large number of States Parties and/or signatories have responded very quickly to the checklist, demonstrating their will to inform the Conference of the status of their implementation of key articles identified by the first Conference and of their technical assistance needs regarding these key articles. The Secretariat has transformed the checklist information into pie charts and analytical reports for our use at this Conference. Let us use them wisely.

We, the States Parties, have recognized from the outset that the comprehensiveness of and broad subscription to our Convention also creates challenges for us in determining what kind of review process to develop. We have set in motion a process, a Working Group, to move ahead with purpose and the care appropriate to the challenge of the undertaking, including building on and avoiding duplication of regional mechanisms. We believe that it will be critical at this Second Conference, to continue the momentum toward creating an appropriate, sustainable and effective review mechanism.

We believe that we should focus during the second Conference on practical avenues forward to determine, first of all, what we want our review process to accomplish and, having decided that, what we need to do to get there. We believe the Conference should approve convening a series of expert-level meetings during the intersessional period for the purpose of developing procedures for how a review process would work. For the time being, the Conference should continue using the self-assessment checklist to gather useful initial information on implementation, and we should also consider how the checklist approach might be further developed into a tool that could be used in the future formal review mechanism. The Conference should recognize the efforts of the Pilot Review Program to test various review approaches, and urge continuation of that testing while we work together to create the more formal review mechanism. With these concrete measures taken, the Conference will be well on its way to establishing a firm base for a more formal review process.

Asset Recovery

Second, the groundbreaking chapter on asset recovery, of which the United States was an original sponsor, requires continued focus and advancement at the expert, practitioner level. Commissioned at the first Conference, the Asset Recovery Working Group examined ideas for building countries’ short, medium and long-term capacity in asset recovery. The Working Group further recommended a variety of measures, which give this Conference a worthy starting point. Concurrently, we must also recognize the other international initiatives rising to the occasion: for example, the Group of Eight (G8), the World Bank Stolen Asset Recovery initiative (StAR), the International Center for Asset Recovery (ICAR), and others have begun developing training and other programs in the area of asset recovery. The Conference should make progress in this concerted effort towards universally effective asset recovery regimes, while leveraging the activities of other international entities. Key components of the way forward consist of country-specific technical assistance, experts meetings targeted to specific challenges and enhanced coordination of technical assistance.

Technical Assistance

Third, and last, I urge all of us to take the following message back to capitals: governments need to take responsibility for moving the technical assistance process forward. For its part, the United States provides a comprehensive umbrella of assistance to help countries in developing and sustaining an array of governmental reforms contributing to the anti-corruption mission. In 2007, the United States provided more than $355 million towards good governance and anti-corruption assistance on the global level.

While bilateral assistance is important, multilateral efforts, including the expert work of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, also plays a fundamental role. We support UNODC’s efforts to reach out to the broader assistance community to reinforce cooperation and coordination.

Given the large number of donors answering the call for technical assistance, and the risk of overlap, duplication, and gaps, these activities require on-the-ground coordination, which is most effective when undertaken at the local level. It is therefore critical that our discussions at this Conference, including the analysis of the self-assessment checklist responses, be provided to these in-country groups in order to avoid duplication and better inform existing and planned initiatives. As a complement, UNODC can also become a repository of good practices and lessons learned that are related to anti-corruption assistance, while continuing its specialized assistance to support country implementation of the legislative aspects of the Convention.

Finally, we applaud UNODC’s initial efforts to reach out to other international organizations, including the World Bank, and member states for an open-ended dialogue on the application of the convention, as called for by the first Conference, and look forward to continued further fruitful sessions, maintaining the positive momentum.

The international community has made great progress in understanding and combating the threat of corruption. The threat will not go away, but cooperation amongst countries can reduce and effectively respond to it. Already, our Convention has become the standard. Let us show continued resolve to work together to ensure that it really makes a difference. The United States is committed to doing its part and looks forward to working with fellow States Parties and Signatories over the course of this week.