financial corruption. i mean, how do you define it? for the purposes of the court, it s political corruption. it s bribery, extortion, money laundering by a nation s rulers. but that s financial corruption perpetrated by politicians. essentially, yes. and it is obviously illegal. it s illegal in every country, and as i said, has devastating consequences. but where the rest of us might fear being punished if we violate the law, the people who rule these countries, these kleptocrats, have impunity, because they won t. .. they control the courts, often corrupt themselves, and won t permit the honest, effective investigation, prosecution and punishment of theirfamily, theirfriends and themselves. but is it reallyjust the politicians? i want to cite you a very recent case, earlier this month in november, a uk subsidiary of glencore, the mining giant, glencore energy uk, was found guilty of issuing about $310 million in bribes in africa to get access to oil. thejudge, peter fraser, said glen
so you are very closely involved in ukraine and you re obviously very distressed by what s happening to your friends in the country because of the russian war there, so given what you ve just said now, that you would like to see, judge mark wolf, russians being pursued. you have said in the past that human rights abuses and financial corruption go hand in hand. president putin and his inner circle are very wealthy as well as being accused of these human rights abuses. so, how do you think that justice would be best served in the case of ukraine and trying to pursue president putin and those around him? yes. and i ve been talking about russia, but the international anti corruption court would focus on far more than putin and russia. but with regard to ukraine,
anti corruption court is urgently needed, essentially for three reasons. first, as i could explain, grand corruption. the abuse of public office for private gain by a nation s leaders has devastating consequences that have international impacts. that grand corruption doesn t thrive because of a lack of laws. 181 countries are party to the un convention against corruption. they all have laws making corrupt conduct by their highest officials illegal. but those laws are not enforced in the countries that kleptocrats rule because they control the police, the prosecutors, and the courts. therefore, the international anti corruption court is needed as a court of last resort to enforce those laws, or a uniform counterpart of them, for countries that are unwilling or unable to do so themselves. but, look, there are many dimensions, parties and players involved in corruption. there s political corruption,
guilty plea represented corporate corruption on a widespread scale, deploying very substantial sums of money in bribes. the corruption is of extended duration and took place across five separate countries in west africa. what s the point ofjust pursuing the political leaders and letting the corporates off? we don t. this court would have jurisdiction over somebody who demanded or accepted a bribe and anybody who paid the bribe and anybody who enabled the laundering of that money. so you ve asked a very good question, but the company you describe would be within the jurisdiction of the international anti corruption court, if there wasn t, as there evidently was here in the uk, an effective national prosecution. but that s the point, though. you have to clarify that you said at the outset
to the international anti corruption court and somebody very powerful, one of these oligarchs or somebody that the oligarch has bribed gets convicted, it couldn t be fairly accused of being a partisan political prosecution. finally and briefly, judge mark wolf, you want to build this international anti corruption court. what are the odds on that happening and how soon? and why, at 76, is this still so important to you? this is important to me because grand corruption s associated with the worst abuses of human rights. supporters of this court are risking their lives. yegor sobolev is fighting in kyiv in part to eliminate corruption. vladimir kara murza is imprisoned in russia for having criticised the invasion he s a supporter of this court. and the family of the murdered maltese journalist, daphne caruana galizia, who was blown up because she was investigating and exposing corruption in malta, called for the creation of this court. and i don t want to.