International
BAK delegation at UN anti-corruption conference in Atlanta
Representatives of the Federal Bureau of Anti-Corruption (BAK) took part in the Tenth Session of the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption in Atlanta, USA from 11 to 15 December 2023. This is the largest global meeting on combating corruption.
This time, the Conference of the States Parties (CoSP) took place in Atlanta, USA, from 11 to 15 December 2023. A record attendance was achieved with over 2,000 government representatives from 160 countries, over 900 representatives of civil society and private organisations and young adults.
Every two years, the States Parties meet to review the implementation of the Convention and to discuss how international cooperation can be improved and how corruption can be prevented and combated more effectively.
With the adoption of the declaration "Atlanta 2023: promoting integrity, accountability and transparency in the fight against corruption", the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption sent a strong message to the world.
The Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ghada Waly, said roughly that the Tenth Session of the CoSP delivered an important message: that the objectives of the Convention are both timeless and timely, and that the Convention has great potential to have a greater impact. She roughly added that the conference showed that the Convention is more relevant than ever in these times of fragile trust and challenges to the rule of law.
Other resolutions adopted at the conference address the following key issues: the measurement of corruption and the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures, the issue of beneficial ownership, international cooperation in civil and administrative proceedings against corruption, corruption and the private sector, the implementation of the Convention in small island developing States and, for the first time, issues such as procurement, whistleblower protection and the links between corruption and organised crime.
The States Parties also decided to extend the second cycle of the mechanism to review the implementation of the Convention until June 2026 and to confirm Qatar as the host for the eleventh session of the CoSP in 2025.
Austria, which was represented by representatives of the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs and the Federal Bureau of Anti-Corruption, supported the negotiations by emphasising gender-specific aspects, references to human rights, greater involvement of civil society, strengthening the mechanism for reviewing the implementation of the Convention and calls for its timely implementation. For Austria, prevention is of central importance in the fight against corruption. For this reason, Austria is committed to prevention programmes as well as anti-corruption education, awareness-raising and research at the headquarters in Vienna.