draining development.pdf - Khazar University

448 Draining Development?the money—for example, simply by writing phony letters—that arises,directly or indirectly, from being associated with the highest office in theland. There is also the ever-present threat of violence against those whoresist these people: the loss of a job and even death.The tracking down and recovery of looted assets also yield commonfeatures. In the first instance, there is no real substitute for an initialinvestigation by law enforcement agencies, ideally in the country of origin.A lack of political will to carry out or continue with such an investigationcan be disastrous. This can manifest itself in a variety of ways,from failure to pass enabling legislation to failure to mobilize resourcesto pursue malefactors and failure to pay lawyers to pursue them. Often,after initial enthusiasm for a recovery exercise within a state, politicalreality intervenes, interest wanes, people disperse, and instructions areincreasingly difficult to obtain. Attempted emasculation of anticorruptionagencies is an increasingly common phenomenon: Indonesia,Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia have all shown the experience. Donornations are starting to take action. The United States withheld aid toKenya and placed travel bans on a number of Kenyan PEPs. A great dealmore could be done. Kleptocrats and, especially, their wives and children,intensely dislike being denied the opportunity to flaunt theirwealth in developed countries. Nongovernmental organizations inFrance have, however, brought civil proceedings in Paris against threeAfrican rulers in an attempt to have their assets in France confiscated,and the proceeds of sale repatriated to the peoples of the countries concerned.36 The use of civil proceedings to recover assets is steadily beingrecognized as a powerful adjunct to criminal confiscation; the standardof proof is easier to meet, and, often, civil recovery is more attractivethan high-profile criminal prosecutions for victim states. The WorldBank recently launched a guide to nonconviction-based asset forfeitureto assist states in formulating policies and legislation in this regard(Greenberg et al. 2009).In all the cases, there can be no doubt that the immediate self-interestof those who support the kleptocrats overrides any conception of thelong-term damage corruption does to their nations. This underlinesonce again the huge importance of raising awareness of the fight againstcorruption, particularly in the developing world. The UNCAC and itsproposed peer review system is, in large measure, directed toward this