Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption and the Additional Protocol

Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption. The Additional Protocol on arbitrators and jurors also forms part of this Command Paper.

The Convention was opened for signature on 27 January 1999. It requires signatory States to adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under their national law active and passive bribery in both the public and private sectors. The targeted activity includes bribery of members of foreign and domestic parliamentary assemblies and of officials of international organisations. The Convention also contains ancillary provisions on money-laundering, account offences, corporate liability, international co-operation and extradition.

The Additional Protocol was agreed by the Council of Ministers on 22 January 2003. It addresses a possible gap in the Convention regarding the bribery of jurors and arbitrators.

European Justice Ministers called for the adoption of a criminal law convention on corruption at their 21st Conference in 1997.

Under Article 32 (3) the Convention comes into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of a period of 3 months after the 14th ratification takes place. The 14th ratification took place on 8 March 2002, so the Convention came into force on 1 July 2002. Implementation of the Convention will be monitored by an existing international body GRECO. GRECO was set up in May 1999 and in the current phase of its work it is concentrating on overseeing the implementation of the Council of Europe’s 20 Guiding Principles for the fight against corruption (adopted by the Committee of Ministers in 1997).

In general, most of the requirements of the Convention, and of the Protocol, are met by existing law. The exceptions more important are Article 17b provides for jurisdiction over nationals, officials and elected representatives. Some signatory countries have jurisdiction over their nationals in corruption cases, but not over officials and elected representatives who are not nationals. They therefore only partially comply with Article 17b. Article 17c provides for jurisdiction over cases ‘involving’ (not necessarily committed by) nationals etc. It is not some countries (like the UK) practice to exercise this type of jurisdiction and we do not intend to apply Article 17c. Declarations not to apply these provisions are permitted under Article 17.2.

Another point is that not all of the behaviour which falls under the definition of ‘trading in influence’ in Article 12 is criminal.

Article 37 allows for reservations to be made, either on signature or ratification, to some of the Articles. Under Article 38 such reservations are valid for three years from the date on which the Convention comes into force within the State concerned.

Author: international