The British government has turned down a strong appeal from Labour Lord Peter Hain for the UK to back the establishment of an international anti-corruption court (IACC), an idea which Hain said was gathering international momentum. 

Deputy foreign minister Tariq Ahmad told Hain in the House of Lords last week that the government had consulted widely with Britain’s international partners and had concluded that “now is not the time to endorse a new, bespoke institution of this nature”. He insisted that the government was nonetheless “fully committed to ensuring that those responsible for the most egregious acts of corruption are held to account” mainly through its own international anti-corruption unit. 

Ahmad said the government would set out further plans for combating transnational grand corruption in the second UK anti-corruption strategy later this year. 

Hain said Ahmad’s reply was “very disappointing. Money laundering represents more than 5% of global GDP, or $2-trillion each year, yet there is no effective mechanism to prosecute kleptocrats, corrupt business people, oligarchs or their professional enablers. 

“Canada, the Netherlands, Ecuador, Moldova, Nigeria and the European Parliament have recently called for the establishment of an international anti-corruption court, as have over 300 leaders from over 80 countries, over 45 former Presidents and Prime Ministers, and 30 Nobel laureates. A group of leading international jurists and other experts is now drafting a model treaty. Will the Government join with them now to tackle this terrible international scourge?”

Hain has campaigned hard against corruption, particularly in South Africa where he persuaded the Conservative government last year to ban the US-based international consultancy firm Bain & Co from doing business with the British government for three years because of its complicity in State Capture, especially of the Treasury, during the Zuma presidency. In March this year, though, the UK lifted the ban early. 

Labour Party Baroness Janet Whitaker told the Lords last week that a recent survey had showed that 70% of those polled in the G7 and BRICS countries – whose populations accounted for the majority of the world – had supported the establishment of an international anti-corruption court to deal with cases that national governments and their tribunals either would not or could not handle. 

And Labour Lord Ray Collins said the president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council had recently said that corruption costs 5% of global GDP and that as a result the world would not achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. He asked Ahmad whether the government had considered working within the UN to raise the profile of corruption and in particular if it had taken steps to promote the UN Convention against Corruption to help shift world opinion.

Ahmad, who is deputy minister for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and United Nations, said the UK’s international anti-corruption unit was a world-leading institution which had achieved much since it had been established in 2017 in close coordination with UK partners.

He said the unit has received 247 referrals of grand corruption from over 40 countries and, as a result, had disseminated 146 intelligence reports, identified £1.4-billion worth of assets, and supported the freezing of £623-million worth of assets, and the forfeit and confiscation of £74-million. In 2022 alone, intelligence collated across these jurisdictions supported the identification of a further £380-million in stolen assets. 

Ahmad said an international institution like an international anti-corruption court could only be set up with the support of a broad range of partners. Britain’s Five Eyes partners (the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with which it shares intelligence) were crucial and the UK was working very closely with them. 

The Liberal Democrat Lord Jonny Oates asked Ahmad what the government was doing to fulfil UK development minister Andrew Mitchell’s pledge earlier this year that it would stem the flow of dirty money, stolen particularly from Africa and African people. “Would not the establishment of an IACC play a key role in such efforts?” Oates asked.

He also asked Ahmad, if world opinion was not supportive of the establishment of an IACC, what the government was doing to change world opinion.

Ahmad said international corruption was an ever-evolving challenge and the government continued to work on that. The idea of an IACC “was not totally off the table”.  

He gave examples of the UK international corruption unit’s successes in Africa. In March 2021, the first £4.2-million of assets stolen by James Ibori, the former governor of Delta state, were returned to Nigeria, he said.

And he said the UK anti-corruption unit had seized 19 properties in the UK, as well as cars, including a Lamborghini and a Bentley, which had been owned by  the dual UK-Malawian national Zuneth Sattar who was alleged to have defrauded the Malawian Government of billions of kwacha. Ahmad said the unit had seen other successes in Nigeria and in Angola. 

Ahmad also said that the UK was working with all the international instruments, such as the UN Convention Against Corruption, though its effectiveness needed to be bolstered, including by adapting it to reflect challenges such as the use of technology in crimes of corruption. The UK was working with key partners at the UN to do that. 

The government was also looking at aiding and funding support structures in the Commonwealth to combat corruption, with a particular focus on Africa.

Ahmad noted that the important thing about the sanctions that the United Kingdom deployed against corruption was that there was legal oversight. “There is a real robustness for those institutions, organisations and individuals that may feel that they have been unjustifiably sanctioned, and that is a strength of the UK law.” DM