The fight against corruption requires leadership, commitment, and action by all countries, according to Craig A. Kelly, U.S. Ambassador to Chile.

In remarks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Meeting of Government Anticorruption Experts September 25, Kelly said that corruption is detrimental to all countries in many ways.

"Corruption jeopardizes free markets and sustainable growth. It provides sanctuary to the forces of global terror. It facilitates the illicit activities of international and domestic criminals. It saps the legitimacy of democratic economies and can, in its extreme forms, threaten democracy itself," the ambassador said. Corruption also harms countries by diverting investment from areas that promote social development, such as education and health care, and by eroding trust in government, he added.

Kelly urged APEC countries to implement the APEC Transparency Standards, which were developed in response to criticisms of the region's economies following the global financial crisis of 1997, and to coordinate with other multilateral and regional organizations to help implement the U.N. Convention Against Corruption.

The ambassador said the United States hopes APEC will make a commitment at the November 2004 Leaders' Summit in Santiago, Chile, "to deny safe haven to corrupt officials, those who corrupt them, and their assets." He noted that the Group of Eight's (G8) Evian Declaration and the Special Summit of the Americas' Declaration of Nuevo Leon both include similar "No Safe Haven" provisions.

"President Bush ... [has] remarked that 'fighting corruption is essential to meeting the great challenges of our time,'" Kelly said. He added that the United States believes "the global campaign against corruption requires a shared responsibility among all nations and between governments and civil society."

Santiago Commitment to Implement APEC Leaders' Course of Action on Fighting Corruption and Ensuring Transparency

Craig A. Kelly, Ambassador to Chile
Statement to APEC Meeting of Government Anticorruption Experts
Santiago, Chile
September 25, 2004

The United States is honored to be joining so many of our distinguished APEC senior officials and experts here today who are committed to making progress in the fight against corruption in APEC economies.

We applaud President Ricardo Lagos, as Chair of APEC in 2004, for advancing the Leaders' commitment made in Bangkok last year calling on APEC economies to work cooperatively to fight corruption and ensure transparency. We are grateful to your Excellency, Minister of Justice Bates, for hosting and chairing this meeting.

We applaud our Korean colleagues for co-sponsoring this important initiative, as well as the efforts of all of our APEC partners for working together to develop a governance pillar to strengthen the integrity of our institutions, promote accountability, and ensure greater transparency.

Corruption Hurts All APEC Economies

No country is immune from corruption. As a recent report by the World Bank Institute has documented, corruption imposes an enormously high cost on economies by undermining good governance, weakening institutions and hindering their full potential for economic development. The fight against corruption is critical to realizing our shared interests, aspirations and goals within APEC for increased trade and investment, economic growth, prosperity, and security.

Corruption jeopardizes free markets and sustainable growth. It provides sanctuary to the forces of global terror. It facilitates the illicit activities of international and domestic criminals. It saps the legitimacy of democratic economies and can, in its extreme forms, threaten democracy itself.

It also diverts public investment away from areas such as public sector modernization and social development--including education and health care--and into projects where bribes and kickbacks are more readily available.

Dishonest, corrupt, and unethical behavior among public officials undermines the trust and confidence of the people that government can do "good" and advance the public interest.

As Secretary of State Colin Powell has articulated on numerous occasions, people throughout the world are rejecting the notion that corruption is inevitable. Success in fighting corruption requires leadership, commitment, and action.

APEC Leadership in Strengthening Global Efforts on Fighting Corruption and Ensuring Transparency

APEC can send a strong message internationally by embarking on a course of action to combat corruption and signal our commitment to integrity, transparency and accountability. Our efforts can indeed strengthen the open trade and investment that help to drive our economies. We can work together to ensure that donor and government resources benefit a wide range of citizens, not only a select few. When these conditions are secured, they combine to create faith in the institutions of a civil society.

A cornerstone of our commitment should be to fully utilize existing capacities within APEC, and coordinate with other multilateral and regional organizations in order to facilitate timely implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).

The Convention's emphasis on prevention, criminalization, international cooperation and asset recovery form a comprehensive framework for combating corruption.

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption is an historic instrument and a lasting enshrinement of the new global consensus on corruption. Corruption is now widely considered unacceptable and international cooperation is a key element of our respective efforts to combat this scourge.

The United States looks forward to working with other APEC economies and the international governmental community to implement the commitments from this important Convention.

Implementing the APEC Transparency Standards is a critical component in our efforts to fight corruption. Among the lessons learned from the 1997 financial crisis was that corruption and poor transparency inhibit the development of fair and efficient markets.

Corruption and the lack of transparency also discourage the adoption of appropriate laws and regulations to inhibit malfeasance, fraud, financial sector abuses and diversion of government budget revenues.

This awareness propelled us to strive in APEC to develop transparency standards, particularly openness of systems. In 2003, APEC Leaders agreed to promote transparency by implementing our general and area-specific transparency standards through our Transparency by 2005 Strategy. We believe that ensuring transparency and fighting corruption are twin pillars in developing fair and efficient markets and are relevant to broader APEC efforts to promote economic development and prosperity.

Moreover, consistent with the spirit of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, and its transparency provisions, these Standards will be an important APEC-led contribution to achieving a successful outcome for the WTO Doha Development Agenda.

U.S. Leadership and International Efforts

U.S. policy is based on the understandings that the global campaign against corruption requires a shared responsibility among all nations and between governments and civil society.

The United States continues to make fighting corruption and improving transparency, two of our foreign policy priorities because we believe they are central to supporting sustainable development, creating stable democracies, and advancing our national security interests.

President Bush, in a statement to representatives of over 120 countries at the Third Global Forum on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity in Seoul, Korea, in May 2003, remarked that "fighting corruption is essential to meeting the great challenges of our time."

Over the years, we have contributed the political commitment and expertise to the global effort to fight corruption. We were the first country to outlaw bribery of foreign public officials in 1977 when the U.S. Congress enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

We demonstrated leadership in helping to develop the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention and a number of regional anticorruption conventions, and the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering.

The United States continues to advance anticorruption principles and international cooperation through the Global Forum on Fighting Corruption. Last year in Seoul the United States committed to deny safe haven to corrupt officials, those who corrupt them, and their assets.

The U.S. has strongly encouraged other nations to undertake similar commitments, leading to inclusion of the so-called "No Safe Haven" provision in both the G-8 Evian Declaration and the Special Summit of the Americas' Declaration of Nuevo Leon.

The U.S. continues to work vigorously to advance this commitment through implementation of a Presidential Proclamation to deny entry to certain corrupt officials, those who corrupt them, and their dependents and by promoting increased mutual legal assistance and monitoring among nations.

We hope that APEC will adopt a similar commitment at the November 2004 Summit in Santiago.

The United States provides technical assistance and financial support for countries that are implementing their commitments pursuant to many of the regional anti-corruption conventions, including the Asian Development Bank-OECD Anticorruption Initiative for the Asia-Pacific region, and the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption.

We hope that new and exciting trans-Pacific capabilities can be developed in APEC through shared experience and innovative capacity-building tools that enable us to achieve our desired goals as part of this initiative.

Moving Forward

We look forward to working with our APEC partners to fight corruption: to translate the vision that our Leaders laid out in Bangkok into effective and concrete actions. Through mutual cooperation, we can reduce corruption and have a lasting impact that helps all economies fulfill their potential and distribute the benefits of increased economic activity more equitably.

We hope that the fruits of our labor over the next several months in shaping an APEC Anticorruption Course of Action will sustain our fight against corruption well into the future.

The envisaged APEC Anticorruption Course of Action will reinforce the message that APEC Leaders' are strongly committed to fighting corruption, and that it is more than merely a passing common interest among economies. It is a compact to offer hope to our people.