The UK government should back the establishment of an international anti-corruption court to prosecute corrupt leaders of countries unwilling or unable to enforce their own anti-kleptocracy laws, according to Lord Hain, the former Foreign Office minister.
Hain told the Guardian that international corruption was estimated to cost $2tn a year, or 5% of global GDP, with the impact felt worst in developing countries. The Washington-based organisation Global Financial Integrity found that from 2004 to 2013, developing and emerging economies lost $7.8tn in illicit financial flows. Such outflows had increased at an average rate of 6.5% a year – nearly twice as fast as global GDP.
Citing the examples of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the former South African president Jacob Zuma, he says too many countries have had their criminal justice systems gutted. Hain insists the idea is not a pipe dream and has already been advocated by leading judges in the US and Europe, and by members of the European parliament.
Four nation states – Canada, Nigeria, Ecuador and the Netherlands – have backed the idea, but the support of the UK, an important global legal centre with a long history of turning a blind eye to money laundering, would be seen as a step-change.