MARRAKESH, Morocco, (TrustLaw) – Campaigners yesterday accused governments at a major U.N. conference on corruption of excluding civil society from fully participating in reviewing how states are doing in enforcing the world’s biggest anti-graft convention.
More than 150 countries have ratified the U.N. Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), and the results of a review into how 26 of them are doing in implementing the treaty were discussed at the week-long conference in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh.
Campaigners and experts say the review process is shrouded in secrecy, while the lack of a mechanism to “name and shame” the countries doing least to fight sleaze raises question marks over UNCAC’s impact.
Civil society organisations attending the talks campaigned hard to be allowed to attend discussions by the convention’s main review body — the Implementation Review Group (IRG), which assesses whether governments are living up to their obligations under the convention.
But the conference ended without a commitment to broaden access for civil society, which campaigners say is all the more surprising after recent popular uprisings of the Arab Spring.
