Anticorruption

Beginning in mid-2006, the Justice Initiative began implementing a pilot project to address corruption in the resource extraction industries, such as oil, gas and diamonds. Corruption linked to natural resource extraction often results from a lack of transparency in the generation, transfer, and investment of revenues. Recent efforts, including some sponsored by OSI, have aimed to create preventive transparency mechanisms—both voluntary and mandatory—aimed at corporations, banks and governments. The Anti-Corruption Project aims to utilize legal action—civil and administrative suits, criminal investigation and prosecution, and application of regulatory norms—as a complement to these preventive transparency initiatives. We plan to pursue legal remedies in various fora, including the home countries of the multinational extractive industry corporations and banks.

To date, much of the public interest legal community’s interest in these matters has centered on human rights violations and environmental damage associated with the extractive industries. Direct legal responses to corruption remain relatively rare, despite the fact that spoliation often occurs independently of human rights and environmental abuses, and typically underlies these broader problems where they occur. The establishment of a legal environment that renders the theft of public assets, bribery, and money laundering impossible, or at least unprofitable, would be a significant step towards ending resource spoliation, and diminishing the likelihood of human rights and environmental violations that accompany it.

The initial geographic focus of the program is Africa. Activities under exploration, in close collaboration with local lawyers and NGOs, include researching resource-related corruption; initiating litigation in target countries, in third countries and before international tribunals (including the Africa regional human rights protection mechanisms and subregional bodies); and providing technical input to governments seeking to recover looted assets, document or prosecute economic crimes, and/or review their current contractual arrangements with extractive industries. The project will also aim to build national capacity for investigating and remedying financial crimes.

Contact

Ken Hurwitz: info@justiceinitiative.org