Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Anti-Corruption Views – The rallying cry of an anti-corruption warrior

Trust Law

Launching a global anti-corruption movement is no mean achievement. When a band of evangelists founded Transparency International in 1993, Frank Vogl recalls they were scoffed at. The Economist magazine drew a cartoon depicting them as vainglorious Don Quixotes tilting at windmills. Bribery, like death and taxes, was viewed as unfortunate but a sin to largely tolerate.

Almost 20 years later, anti-corruption has moved to the centre of global policymaking. It was a driving force behind the Arab Spring, when protesters angered by poverty, lack of opportunity and pillaged national wealth overthrew dictatorial governments. It is discussed at meetings of G20 world leaders, enshrined in international conventions and in national legislation. Today there is a thriving lobby of specialists putting the squeeze on kleptocrats by exposing illicit money flows, revealing the revenues they pocket from oil, gas and mineral contracts and scrutinising how foreign direct aid is managed.

In this highly readable primer “Waging War on Corruption”, Frank Vogl, a former journalist and World Bank communications manager, describes how a band of former World Bank officials and lawyers angered by seeing development aid line the pockets of government and business elites, decided to do something about it. They rejected the idea that corruption is embedded in certain cultures and believed change can come from mobilising individuals. Today Transparency International has grown from its headquarters in Berlin to chapters in 90 countries around the world and is the leading voice in fighting corruption, its scoring of countries’ public sector in its Corruptions Perceptions Index followed as a benchmark. The simple but powerful idea was to hold government officials accountable, so that sunshine might have a sanitizing effect on behaviour.

The strength of Vogl’s book is in making clear the linkages between corruption and thwarted economic, political and social development; and between corruption and weakened international security. He tells a sweeping narrative of how the fall of the Berlin Wall inspired a new generation to rise up, and how the spread of communications technologies has further empowered the movement.