A special Adhoc Committee of United Nations General Assembly was authorised by the UN General Assembly to convene in Vienna and negotiate a international convention against corruption.
The Adhoc Committee initially framed its own terms of reference and later held seven successive sessions for over two years in Vienna negotiating, drafting and reading the rolling text of the UN Convention.
Pakistan has contributed much to the preparation of the convention. Mr Kofi Anan, UN Secretary General has referred to this convention as one of the most significant instrument, which shall benefit and bring welfare to millions of people around the World.
The UN Convention against corruption is the first international instrument of its kind, which will address critical issues of transnational aspects of corruption that affect the developing states.
The negotiations that were marked by a sharp divide between the developed and the developing states resulted into a balanced text, which meets the aspirations of all the informal groups of states to a considerable extent.
The delegation of Pakistan that had played a leading role on behalf of the developing states, succeeded in the inclusion of numbers of its proposals and improved upon several suggestions that proved to be very useful for the developing states.
When Ministry of Foreign Affairs referred the invitation for participation in the first UN Session, then Chairman NAB Lieutenant General Khalid Maqool nominated officers from the NAB.
However, later when present Chairman Lieutenant General Munir Hafeez took over, he realised the significance of the subsequent sessions for Pakistan and its impact on several mutual legal assistance issues that he had taken up in various jurisdictions.
Based on that he instructed to organise several inter-ministerial meetings building consensus within the Government first on various proposals that were prepared within NAB in their brainstorming sessions.
The present Chairman ensured that Pakistan continues to be solidly represented with full preparations in all the sessions.
Various officers of NAB were part of Pakistan delegations in various sessions. They included Major General Muhammad Sabir, Major General Tariq Bashir and Brigadier Tayyab.
Initially DPGA Punjab and now Consultant NAB, Mr Ahmer Bilal Soofi was send and based on his contribution in initial sessions, Pakistan mission in Vienna repeatedly requested for his inclusion in the delegation.
NAB conducted various sessions firming up proposals, which were presented as formal proposals in various negotiating sessions.
Pakistan delegation remained one of the most active delegations during the negotiations and was able to help G-77 Group to finalise its own positions.
Pakistan delegation continued to work with informal ease in particular with delegations from China, Indonesia, Iran, UAE, Russia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc.
Pakistan delegation took the floor numerous times in each session making points, improving positions for supporting favourable arguments.
FOLLOWING ARE ONLY SOME OF THE POSITIONS THAT PAKISTAN EVOLVED AND SUPPORTED THAT ARE NOW PART OF THE FINAL UN CONVENTION:
1. Incorporation of illicit enrichment as a stand alone offence.
2. The issue of mandatory crimes and optional offences.
3. Creating concealment as a stand-alone crime as distinguishable from the money laundering as concealment is to be viewed as a continuing offence.
4. Diluting the requirement of mens rea by statutory inference from the objective circumstances.
5. Support for stand-alone provision demolishing the defence of bank secrecy.
6. Provision enabling a state to cancel international contract or concession if it was found as being based on corruption.
7. Diluting substantially the requirement of dual criminality by making the conduct the basis of mutual assistance as opposed to features of offence.
8. Rare inroad made in Mutual legal assistance provisions, in a multilateral treaty, whereby non-coercive measures are to be allowed as an obligation even where dual criminality is established.
9. Details of mutual legal assistance request making it convenient for the requesting state.
10. Promptness implicit as an obligation in mutual legal assistance proceedings.
11. Allowing for admissibility of material generated from special investigative techniques.
12. Improving upon the provision of money laundering and linkage with predicate offence.
13. Support for direct measures in case of asset recovery.
14. A rare entitlement of a state to claim illicit money on the basis of its being a damaged state even where it is unable to prove title to the said money.
15. Recognition of the obligation to return the illicitly acquired assets where its ownership is proved by the requesting state.
16. No sharing in the event of the title established by the requesting state.
17. Technical assistance for implementing of the preventive measures.
One of most significant proposal tabled by Pakistan, as mentioned above, was eventually accepted, relates to giving a right to a state whereby it could rescind an international contract in case of corruption.
Such a provision would become very useful in cases of corruption found in the awards of international agreements and contracts that adversely affect public interest. The case in hand being the infamous power plant agreements in Pakistan.
Another important issue from the viewpoint of developing countries was the issue of returns of proceeds of corruption to the countries of origin.
The developed countries, which had been dragging their feet on this issue finally yielded to the pressure of the Group of 77 & China, which had, lend its full support to the provisions tabled by Pakistan in this regard.
The final text provides for the facilitation of return of illicitly acquired assets to the developing countries.
The Convention can prove to be a helpful tool in the Governments effort to recover the ill-gotten wealth derived form the high level corruption in Pakistan and hidden in the Western countries.
The Convention, which will be adopted later this month by the UN General Assembly, provides for the criminalization of a wide range of corruption offences and the prosecution of the criminals through International Cupertino.
White-collar crime will henceforth not go unpunished for the want of co-operation among states.
The contributions by the author proved to be decisive towards the finalisation of a large number of provisions in the Convention to the satisfaction of Pakistan.
He was appointed as one of the only 14 member Consistency Group which is a recognised composition of experts in the negotiations to review the draft negotiated by the member states and make correction in order to ensure consistency in the legal language of the Convention.
Most significantly, the author played an instrumental role in the settlement of the issue of definition of corruption, which had dogged the negotiations through out the work of the Adhoc Committee.
The solution suggested by him, as the Chairman Working Group, tends to broaden the scope of the convention to cover a wide range of crimes of corruption even beyond those offences found in the text of the convention.
In the rare gesture of appreciation for the contribution made by Pakistan, the Adhoc Committee burst in applause for the Pakistan delegation at the concluding session of the Adhoc Committee subsequent to the Chair's note of thanks for Pakistan in assisting the Committee to complete its work successfully.
The outcome of negotiation in the nature of the UN Convention on Corruption - a multilateral treaty- is an achievement for the Government of Pakistan and in particular NAB can rightly take credit for the quality input that resulted in the treaty.
Pakistan should now ratify the Convention, make an implementing legislation and based on the Convention model, make requests for MLAs even to states that have not yet ratified the same.
It must be noted that the Convention contains provisions on exchange of information, extradition mutual legal assistance etc that are also instructive and can be used as a model formulation in several other areas in which the Government has serious stakes such as terrorism, narcotics, human smuggling and money laundering etc.