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By Kathie van Bronckhorst
In such a globalized world,
the roles that private and multinational
corporations play in the
corruption of politicians were emphasized.
The delegation of Iran
referred to it as the main root of political corruption within his
country. With that said, there was
a call for an international effort to
investigate the weak spots within
the integrity of the international
system. However, the issue of sovereignty
was reinforced.
Highlighted was the importance
to shine light on and investigate
promising practices that
are already established within
countries. The delegation of Japan,
who alongside Germany are
the only two countries who have
not signed the U.N Convention
against Corruption boasted on the
lack of corruption within its county.
The country invited others to
take inspiration from its policies
and legislations. Germany took
the stance of defending its commitment
to the fight against corruption.
However, unlike Japan
it reassured the committee of its
plans to sign the convention by
July this year.
The delegation of Germany
also called for more active work
to combat the significant lack of
awareness. The word awareness
was described as "beautiful" by
Transparency International, but
deemed pointless without the
participation of civil society. They criticized the implementation review
mechanism of the UNCAC for
its current non-mandatory nature
and the lack of published public
results. They emphasized the
need for reform and are eager for
the possibility of the E.U framework
on corruption as a possible
model for the United Nations.
This possibility of extending the
E.U Corruption framework into
the U.N. was put forward by the
European Union observers themselves
and at publishing time the
UNODC was in current discussions
and drafting working papers
on the issue. With two separate
drafting groups and two separate
working papers it will be interesting
to see whether countries will
be able to unite and create a comprehensive
but realistic solution
on such a daunting problem.
This article was published in The Clarion, official newspaper of CMUN , the Model United Nations of Barcelona. Read the other articles:
or read the whole issue here.
