Very recommendable! This article contains some serious food for thought! There are still too many lousy dictators (kleptocrats) running too many countries on this earth!
"... Seize back the ill-gotten profits they’ve looted.
Autocrats respect hard power and cold cash. In the kleptocrat world, that translates as power at home and cash secreted abroad.
Using government to steal from the people and the state—and ever fearful of the future—autocrats and their buddies loot, and then stash the loot beyond the reach of the state they’re robbing.
Putin runs a ‘rogue mafia state’, turning Russia into ‘a gas station with nukes,’ observes the former Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
The big gambit available to the West, Kasparov writes, is to confiscate the cash the rogues stash: ‘Kick Putin’s mafia state out of the international institutions it uses and abuses to spread corruption. Seize the hundreds of billions in assets he and his cronies hide in the West and kick out the oligarchs and their families.’ ...
European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, when he announced EU sanctions on Russia and then tweeted, ‘No more shopping in Milan, partying in Saint-Tropez, diamonds in Antwerp.’ He quickly deleted the vivid tweet ...
The big gambit available to the West, Kasparov writes, is to confiscate the cash the rogues stash: ‘Kick Putin’s mafia state out of the international institutions it uses and abuses to spread corruption. Seize the hundreds of billions in assets he and his cronies hide in the West and kick out the oligarchs and their families.’ ...
European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, when he announced EU sanctions on Russia and then tweeted, ‘No more shopping in Milan, partying in Saint-Tropez, diamonds in Antwerp.’ He quickly deleted the vivid tweet ...
Going after the cash is complicated and grand corruption skips by a lot of laws. The 189 countries that are party to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption each have laws criminalising corrupt conduct. Yet kleptocrats enjoy impunity because they control the ‘justice’ in the countries they rule.
The war launched by Putin’s dark mind calls for sanctions, containment and new ways to punish and push back. One answer is to create an international anti-corruption court (IACC).
An IACC would be a court of last resort, holding kleptocrats accountable (and grabbing their accounts). The court would recover, repatriate or repurpose stolen assets, punishing corrupt officials but also professional enablers (step forward, lawyers, bankers, accountants and real estate agents).
The IACC could be established by a small number of founding member states, so long as they include several major financial hubs where lots of cash gets stashed (step forward, the UK, Europe and the US).
The existing International Criminal Court doesn’t cover crimes of corruption and amending its statute would require a two-thirds vote by its 123 member states. ...A campaign for the IACC launched last year when leading citizens from 45 countries (Nobel laureates, former heads of state and government, high court judges, former cabinet ministers, business leaders) signed a declaration of support.
The multilateral model for the fight against grand corruption is the successful international campaign to ban landmines. ...
At this early stage, Canada and the Netherlands are the countries stepping up to the diplomatic challenge of establishing the court by treaty. ..."
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