There is a quiet revolution going on in the international
struggle against corruption and for greater transparency in government.
Two years ago, I attended my first International Anti-Corruption
Conference (IACC), sponsored Transparency International and other groups, which
takes place every other year. The location was Guatemala City, a country where the per
capita annual income is only slightly more than the registration, hotel and air
fare of most participants. Sponsors included Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell and
other corporations whose own record of upholding legal and ethical standards is
far from pristine.
There were a number of sparsely-attended workshops during
the four-day conference featuring participants who emphasized the importance of
grass roots struggles to fight corruption: Walden Bello, Alejandro Bedana, Shaazka Beyerle, Giorgi Meladze and a handful of
others spoke about the successes of grassroots movements in such countries as
the Philippines, Nicaragua, Turkey, and Georgia struggling against official
corruption. However, the overall emphasis at the conference was on
strengthening laws, better oversight by international organizations, stricter
sanctions by foreign governments and corporations against corrupt local officials,
and other top-down solutions.
What a difference two years can make.
This year's IACC, which just concluded in Athens, took on a very different tone. Though
the corporate sponsorship and high visibility of current and former government
officials was still enough to give one pause, there were an unprecedented
number of participants from civil society: human rights activists, feminists,
veterans of nonviolent action campaigns, journalists from alternative media,
environmental campaigners, advocates of debt relief, and - despite the European
location - and unprecedented number of participants from the global south.
