Defining Corruption

Corruption is traditionally defined as the abuse of public office for private gain, including bribery, nepotism and misappropriation; extra-legal efforts by individuals or groups to gain influence over the actions of the bureaucracy; the collusion between parties in the public and private sectors for the benefit of the latter; and more generally influencing the shaping of policies and institutions in ways that benefit the contributing private parties at the expense of the broader public welfare.Footnote ⁷ The benefits are customarily seen as financial, and many people become rich through corruption.

However, the corruption that is eating into the vitals of global society today is more than just the material corruption of bribery, extortion or embezzlement for personal gain. It is any undue preference given to personal or private gain at the expense of the public or collective interest, including the betrayal of a public trust or office in government, but also the manipulation of a corporate responsibility for self-enrichment, the distortion of truth and denial of science to manipulate the public for ideological ends, and even the misuse of a religious responsibility to acquire power and wealth. Corruption is just one expression of the priority given to oneself over others, of egoism over altruism, of personal over collective benefit.Footnote ⁸ It is often said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. One of the first effects of corruption in government is to reduce the capacity of a public administration to fight corruption, creating a vicious circle from which a government has difficulty extricating itself. Corruption at the governmental level is now so widespread that it is an obvious area for international governance to set standards and intervene in the common interest.

A related issue is organized crime, which exists largely through collusion with governments. This can take the form of turning a blind eye to criminal behavior, perhaps for kickbacks or other advantages, directing government procurement or other contracts to criminal enterprises in return for a share of inflated contracts, and interfering with the course of justice to the benefit of criminals. There is potential for such corruption at all levels, from the individual police officer who rents a gun to robbers at night, to heads of state who accept large cash donations in return for favors. Where governments are incorruptible and prosecute criminal activity with vigor, organized crime has difficulty gaining a foothold.

Corruption and associated organized crime are not just a marginal issue. The illegal economy from organized crime is now estimated at US$2 trillion per year, roughly equivalent to all the world’s defense budgets. Bribery has been estimated to amount to US$1 trillion,Footnote ⁹ with the vast majority of bribes going to people in wealthy countries. Ten percent of all public health budgets are lost to corruption.Footnote ¹⁰ Much of this money escapes from national control and oversight along with many international financial flows, as another negative dimension of globalization.

The impacts of corruption are not limited to financial losses and diversions or political inefficiency or failures. If leaders are corrupt, others will be inspired to follow the same model. There are many secondary effects of corruption that spread throughout society. For example, the impact of corruption on environmental destruction and mismanagement is often underestimated because, as an illegal activity, it escapes from statistics; yet it is a principal reason for the failure of many efforts at environmental protection and management, whether from traffic in endangered species, illegal logging and fishing, or ignoring or evading environmental regulations. Both the public and private sectors are heavily implicated in this form of corruption, as is organized crime.

Normally it is a government’s responsibility to prohibit, investigate and prosecute corrupt behavior within its borders or for which its nationals are responsible. However, there are frequently cases where the highest levels of government are themselves corrupt, or where corruption has become so widespread that it is seen as a normal and legitimate part of politics and simply a cost of doing business.Footnote ¹¹ In many cases, the police and courts that should be investigating and prosecuting corrupt behavior are themselves caught up in the system. Criminal prosecutions may then simply become an instrument for eliminating political opponents. Guarantees of immunity from prosecution are another tool used by the corrupt for their own protection. In such situations, national sovereignty becomes a shield behind which to hide illegal activity from international scrutiny.

It is not unknown for a government motivated by corrupt intentions to use legislation or judicial interpretation to render legal those practices that in other states or contexts would be considered corrupt and illegal. For example, removing all limits to the amount of money that individuals or corporate enterprises can donate to the campaign funds of politicians essentially amounts to vote-buying, with politicians becoming dependent on and beholden to the highest bidder.

Only international standards of honesty and definitions of corruption with appropriate means of enforcement will make it possible to intervene in the general public interest where a government has opened the door to corrupt behavior at the expense of its own people. To prevent the rot from spreading, and to protect the public who ultimately pay the price for such corruption, global standards and mechanisms for international intervention are essential.

Corruption Within the Development Process

After many years of authorities turning a blind eye, corruption has finally emerged as a central issue in discussions about the effectiveness of development policies. It is now recognized that corruption comes from many sources and undermines the development process in multiple ways. While various remedies have been proposed and are being used in various parts of the world, the results are mixed.

The period since the late 1990s has witnessed a remarkable change in the understanding of what factors matter in creating the conditions for sustainable economic development. The economics profession has come to a new comprehension of the role of such factors as education and skills, institutions, property rights, technology, transparency and accountability. With this broader outlook has come an implicit recognition that promoting inclusive growth requires tackling an expanding set of nontraditional concerns.

One of these concerns is corruption, a subject that has gone from being very much on the sidelines of economic research to becoming a central preoccupation of the development community and of policy-makers in many countries. Experiences and insights accumulated during the postwar period, and reflected in a growing body of academic research, throw light on the causes and consequences of corruption within the development process and on the question of what can be done about it.

Within the development community, the shift in thinking about the role of corruption in development was tentative at first; multilateral organizations remained reluctant to touch on a subject seen as largely political even as they made increasing references to the importance of “good governance” in encouraging successful development. What factors contributed to this shift? One was linked to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the associated collapse in the late 1980s of central planning as a supposedly viable alternative to free markets. As the international community faced the need to assist formerly socialist countries in making a successful transition to democratic forms of governance and market-based economies, it was clear that this would take far more than “getting inflation right” or reducing the budget deficit. Central planning had collapsed not because of inappropriate fiscal and monetary policies but because of widespread institutional failings, including a lethal mix of authoritarianism (with its lack of accountability) and corruption. Overnight, the economics profession was forced to confront a set of issues extending far beyond conventional macroeconomic policy.

Related to the demise of central planning, the end of the Cold War had clear implications for the willingness of the international community to recognize glaring instances of corruption in places where ideological loyalties had earlier led to collective blindness. By the late 1980s, the donor community cut off President Mobutu of (then) Zaire, for instance, no longer willing to quietly reward him for his loyalty to the West during the Cold War.

A second factor was growing frustration with entrenched patterns of poverty in Africa in particular, as well as in other parts of the developing world. The global fight against poverty had begun to produce gains, but these were concentrated largely in China; in Africa, the number of so-called extremely poor people was actually increasing.Footnote ¹² During the late 1980s and early 1990s, staff at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) began to look beyond macroeconomic stabilization to issues of structural and institutional reform. Corruption could no longer be ignored.

A third factor had to do with developments in the academic community. Research began to suggest that differences in institutions appeared to explain an important share of the differences in growth between countries. An increasing number of economists began to see corruption as an economic issue, and this led to a better understanding of its economic effects.

An important role was also played by the intensifying pace of globalization beginning in the 1980s. Globalization and its supporting technologies have led to a remarkable increase in transparency as well as to growing public demand for greater openness and scrutiny. The multilateral organizations were not immune to these influences. How could one overlook the hoarding of billions of dollars of ill-gotten wealth in secret bank accounts by the world’s worst autocrats, many of them long-standing clients of these organizations?

Paralleling these developments, and further raising international public awareness of corruption, were the many corruption scandals in the 1990s involving major political figures. In India and Pakistan, incumbent prime ministers were defeated in elections largely because of corruption charges. In South Korea, two presidents were jailed following disclosures of bribery. In Brazil and Venezuela, bribery charges resulted in presidents being impeached and removed from office. In Italy, magistrates sent to jail a not insignificant number of politicians who had ruled the country in the postwar period, exposing the vast web of bribery that had bound together political parties and members of the business community. In Africa, there was less progress in holding leaders to account, but corruption became harder to hide as new communication technologies supported greater openness and transparency.

Globalization also highlighted the importance of efficiency. Countries could not hope to continue to compete in the increasingly complex global market unless they used scarce resources effectively. And rampant corruption detracted from the ability to do this. Meanwhile, business leaders began to speak more forcefully about the need for a level playing field and the costs of doing business in corruption-ridden environments.

In the 1990s, the US government made efforts to keep the issue of corruption alive in its discussions with OECD partners, further raising international awareness. The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 had forbidden American executives and corporations to bribe foreign government officials, introducing stiff penalties, including prison terms, for those doing so. Because other OECD countries did not impose such restrictions – in fact, most continued to allow tax deductions for bribe payments, as a cost of doing business abroad – American companies began to complain that they were losing business to OECD competitors. Academics sifting through the data showed that US business activity abroad declined substantially following passage of the law. These developments gave impetus to US government efforts to persuade other OECD members to ban bribery practices, and in 1997 the OECD adopted the Anti-Bribery Convention, an important legal achievement.

Another factor contributing to this shift in attitude was the work of Transparency International, including the publication, beginning in 1993, of its Corruption Perceptions Index. That corruption existed everywhere was a well-known fact. What Transparency International showed was that some countries had been more successful than others in curtailing it. The organization’s work helped to focus public attention on corruption and legitimize public discourse on the issue, easing the transition of the multilateral organizations into doing the same.

Transparency International was soon assisted in its efforts by the international organizations themselves. In a speech at the IMF–World Bank annual meeting in 1996, then World Bank President James Wolfensohn did not mince words, saying that there was a collective responsibility to deal with “the cancer of corruption.” More importantly, Wolfensohn gave strong backing to efforts by Bank staff to develop a broad range of governance indicators, including indicators specifically capturing the extent of corruption. This made it possible for the Bank, through the use of quantified indicators and data, to focus attention on issues of governance and corruption while not appearing to interfere in the political affairs of its member countries.

Poor Government and Corruption: Intimate Bedfellows?

What are the sources of corruption, and what factors have nourished it and turned it into such a powerful impediment to sustainable economic development? Economists seem to agree that one important source of corruption stems from the distributional attributes of the state.

For better or for worse, the role of the state in the economy has greatly expanded over the past century. In 1913, the world’s 13 largest economies had public expenditure averaging around 12 percent of GDP. By 1990, this ratio had risen to 43 percent, and in some of these countries to well over 50 percent. Many other countries saw similar increases. Associated with this growth was a proliferation of benefits under state control and also of the ways in which the state imposes costs on society. A larger state need not be associated with higher levels of corruption – the Nordic countries illustrate this. The benefits range from improved infrastructure, public education, health and welfare, to environmental protection and reining in the monopolistic tendencies of corporations. It is not the size of government itself that is the problem. But the larger the number of interactions between officials and private citizens and the weaker the ethical framework determining socially acceptable behavior, the more opportunities there are for citizens to pay illegally for benefits to which they are not entitled or to avoid costs or obligations for which they are responsible.

From the cradle to the grave, the typical citizen has to enter into transactions with government offices or bureaucrats for countless reasons – to obtain a birth certificate, get a passport, pay taxes, open a new business, drive a car, register property, engage in foreign trade. Indeed, governing often translates into issuing licenses and permits to individuals and businesses complying with regulations in myriad areas. The World Bank’s Doing Business report, a useful annual compendium of the burdens of business regulations in 190 countries, paints a sobering picture. Businesses in many parts of the world endure numbing levels of bureaucracy and red tape. In fact, the data in the report eloquently portray the extent to which many governments discourage the development of entrepreneurship in the private sector.

Not surprisingly, the prevalence of corruption is strongly correlated with the incidence of red tape and cumbersome, excessive regulation, which is not generally linked to the public interest. Figure 18.1 compares the rankings of 177 countries on Transparency International’s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index with their rankings on the Doing Business report’s Ease of Doing Business Index for the same year. The figure speaks for itself: the greater the extent of bureaucracy and red tape, the greater the incidence of corruption – the correlation coefficient is close to 0.80.

Figure 18.1. Rankings of 177 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index and Ease of Doing Business Index, 2018.

Sources: Transparency International data; World Bank, Doing Business 2018 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017)

As many surveys have shown, businesses allocate considerable time and resources to dealing with unnecessary bureaucracy. They may often perceive paying bribes as a way to save time and enhance efficiency – and, in many countries, as possibly the only way to get business done without undermining their competitive position relative to those that routinely pay bribes. The more dysfunctional the economic and legal system and the more onerous and ill-conceived the regulations, the greater the incentives to short-circuit the system by paying bribes. The literature is full of examples: the absurdities of central planning in the Soviet Union induced “corruption” on the part of factory managers, to add some flexibility to a system that made a mockery of efficiency in resource allocation. The more irrational the rules, the more likely that participants in the system will find themselves breaking them.

In an insightful analysis in 1964, the Harvard researcher Nathaniel Leff argued that those who viewed corruption as an unremittingly bad thing were implicitly assuming that governments were driven by benevolent motivations and committed to implementing policies that advanced the cause of economic development. In reality, Leff thought, policies in many countries were geared largely to advancing the interests of the ruling elite. Leff and his Harvard colleague Joseph Nye both suggested that corruption was partly a response to market distortions, red tape, excessive and unreasonable regulation and bad policies, but that these were themselves affected by the prevailing levels of corruption – in a symbiotic two-way form of causality that turned corruption into an intractable social and economic problem.Footnote ¹³

Features of government organization and policy may (wittingly or unwittingly) create incentives for corrupt behavior in numerous ways. The tax system is often a source of corruption, particularly where tax laws are unclear or otherwise difficult to understand. This lack of clarity presumably gives tax inspectors and auditors considerable leeway in interpretation, allowing unwholesome “compromises” with taxpayers. The provision of goods and services at below-market prices also creates fertile ground for corruption. It invariably gives rise to some form of rationing mechanism to manage excess demand, requiring the exercise of discretion by government officials. At a meeting at the Central Bank of Russia in May 1992, IMF staff were shown a several-page list of the exchange rates that applied for importing items, from medications and baby carriages to luxury cars. Bureaucrats had managed to come up with criteria for establishing dozens of different prices for foreign exchange. Needless to say, the list allowed considerable latitude for discretion.

A similar regime existed for export quotas, allowing those who obtained an export license to benefit from the huge gap between the domestic and international price. Another legacy of the Soviet Union was a system of directed credits, essentially highly subsidized loans to agriculture and industry. At rates of interest that were absurdly negative in real terms, these credits were in strong demand and, of course, the criteria for allocating them were extremely opaque.

The incentives for bribes provided in these examples are easy to see; the resulting losses in economic efficiency are similarly evident. Directed credits in Russia did not generally end up with farmers. Instead, they ended up with the highest bidder, who then used the proceeds to buy foreign exchange and finance capital flight (while never repaying the credits or doing so only in deeply depreciated rubles). Export quotas resulted in massive losses for the Russian budget, at a time when the country was going through a severe economic contraction and there were therefore enormous pressures for increased social spending. Susan Rose-Ackerman, one of the leading experts on corruption, refers to the kinds of bribes in these examples as those that clear the market or that equate supply and demand.

Some bribes are offered as incentive payments for bureaucrats. These can take a variety of forms. One is “speed money,” ubiquitous in many parts of the world and typically used to “facilitate” some transaction or to jump the queue. Some economists have argued that this kind of bribery could improve efficiency, since it provides incentives to work more quickly and allows those who value their time highly to move faster. Gunnar Myrdal, writing in 1968, pointed out that, over time, incentives could work the other way: bureaucrats may deliberately slow things down or, worse, find imaginary obstacles or create new ones in order to attract facilitation fees. So, in the end, “speed money” is paid not to speed things up but to avoid artificial delays created by corrupt bureaucrats.

Indeed, some of the regulations enforced in many parts of the world are so devoid of rationality that one can only infer that they were introduced to create opportunities for bribery. Far from being a way to enhance efficiency, paying bribes preserves and strengthens the bribery machinery.

All this is not to say that government regulation is inherently wrong. On the contrary, the World Economic Forum has shown that appropriate environmental and social regulations, fairly enforced, can increase business competitiveness and efficiency in meeting social goals. Where corruption makes it possible to get around the regulations, the result is bad for both business and the public welfare.Footnote ¹⁴

Nine Reasons Why Corruption Is a Destroyer of Prosperity

No matter its source, corruption damages the social and institutional fabric of a country in ways that undermine sustainable economic development. A review of some of its consequences helps show why corruption destroys human prosperity.

First, corruption undermines government revenue and therefore limits the ability of the government to invest in productivity-enhancing areas. Where corruption is endemic, people will view paying taxes as a questionable business proposition. There is a delicate tension between the government as tax collector and businesses and individuals as taxpayers. The system works reasonably well when those who pay taxes feel that there is a good chance they will see a future payoff, such as better schools, better infrastructure and a better-trained and healthier workforce. Corruption sabotages this implicit contract.

When corruption is allowed to flourish, taxpayers will feel justified in finding ways to avoid paying taxes or, worse, become bribers themselves. To the extent that corruption undermines revenue, it undermines government efforts to reduce poverty. Money that leaks out of the budget because of corruption will not be available to lighten the burden of vulnerable populations. Of course, corruption also undermines the case of those who argue that foreign aid can be an important element of the fight against global poverty – why should taxpayers in richer countries be asked to support the lavish lifestyles of the kleptocrats in corrupt states?

Second, corruption distorts the decision-making process connected with public investment projects, as the IMF economists Vito Tanzi and Hamid Davoodi demonstrated in a 1997 analysis. Large capital projects provide tempting opportunities for corruption. Governments will often undertake projects of a greater scope or complexity than is warranted by their country’s needs – the world is littered with the skeletons of white elephants, many built with external credits. Where resources are scarce, governments will find it necessary to cut spending elsewhere. Tanzi plausibly argued in 1998 that corruption will also reduce expenditure on health and education, because these are areas where it may be more difficult to collect bribes.

Third, there is solid empirical evidence that the higher the level of corruption in a country, the larger the share of its economic activity that will go underground, beyond the reach of the tax authorities. Not surprisingly, studies have shown that corruption also undermines foreign direct investment, because it acts in ways that are indistinguishable from a tax; other things being equal, investors will always prefer to establish themselves in less corrupt countries. Shang-Jin Wei, in a 2000 analysis of data on direct investment from 14 source countries to 45 host countries, concluded that “an increase in the corruption level from that of Singapore to that of Mexico is equivalent to raising the tax rate by 21–24 percentage points.”

Fourth, corruption discourages private sector development and innovation and encourages various forms of inefficiency. Budding entrepreneurs with bright ideas will be intimidated by the bureaucratic obstacles, financial costs and psychological burdens of starting new business ventures and may opt to take their ideas to some other, less corrupt country or, more likely, desist altogether. Thus, whether corruption is a barrier to entry into the market or a factor in precipitating early departure, it harms economic growth.

A high incidence of corruption will also mean an additional financial burden on businesses, undermining their international competitiveness. Unlike a tax, which is known and predictable and can be built into a company’s cost structure, bribes are unpredictable and will complicate cost control, reduce profits and undermine the efficiency of companies that must pay them to stay in business. In a 1995 analysis using indices of corruption and institutional efficiency, the IMF economist Paulo Mauro showed that corruption lowers investment and thus economic growth.

Fifth, corruption contributes to a misallocation of human resources. To sustain a system of corruption, officials and those who pay them will have to invest time and effort in developing certain skills, nurturing certain relationships and building up a range of supporting institutions and opaque systems, such as secret bank accounts and off-the-books transactions. Surveys of businesses have shown that the greater the incidence of corruption in a country, the greater the share of time that management has to allocate to ensuring compliance with regulations, avoiding penalties and dealing with the bribery system that underpins them – activities that draw attention and resources away from more productive tasks.

Sixth, corruption has disturbing distributional implications. In empirical work done at the IMF in 1998, Gupta, Davoodi and Alonso-Terme showed that corruption, by lowering economic growth, perceptibly pushes up income inequality. It also distorts the tax system, because the wealthy and powerful are able to use their connections to ensure that this system works in their favor. And it leads to inefficient targeting of social programs, many of which will acquire regressive features, with benefits disproportionately allocated to the higher income brackets – as with gasoline subsidies to the car-owning middle classes in India and dozens of other countries.

Seventh, corruption creates uncertainty. There are no enforceable property rights emanating from a transaction involving bribery. A firm that obtains a concession from a bureaucrat as a result of bribery cannot know with certainty how long the benefit will last. The terms of the “contract” may have to be constantly renegotiated to extend the life of the benefit or to prevent its collapse. Indeed, the firm, having flouted the law, may fall prey to extortion from which it may prove difficult to extricate itself. In an uncertain environment with insecure property rights, firms will be less willing to invest and plan for the longer term. A short-term focus to maximize short-term profits will be the optimal strategy, even if this leads to deforestation, say, or to the rapid exhaustion of non-renewable resources.

Very importantly, this uncertainty is partly responsible for a perversion in the incentives that prompt individuals to seek public office. Where corruption is rife, politicians will want to remain in office as long as possible, not because they are even remotely serving the public good but because they will not want to yield to others the pecuniary benefits of high office, and may also wish to continue to enjoy immunity from prosecution. Where long stays in office cease to be an option, a new government, given a relatively short window of opportunity, will want to steal as much as possible as quickly as possible.

Eighth, because corruption is a betrayal of trust, it diminishes the legitimacy of the state and the moral stature of the bureaucracy in the eyes of the population. While efforts will be made to shroud corrupt transactions in secrecy, the details will leak out and will tarnish the reputation of the government. By damaging the government’s credibility, this will limit its ability to become a constructive agent of change in other areas of policy. Corrupt governments will have a more difficult time remaining credible enforcers of contracts and protectors of property rights.

Ninth, bribery and corruption lead to other forms of crime. Because corruption breeds corruption, it tends soon enough to lead to the creation of organized criminal groups that use their financial power to infiltrate legal businesses, to intimidate, and to create protection rackets and a climate of fear and uncertainty. In states with weak institutions, the police may be overwhelmed, reducing the probability that criminals will be caught. This, in turn, encourages more people to become corrupt, further impairing the efficiency of law enforcement – a vicious cycle that will affect the investment climate in noxious ways, further undermining economic growth. In many countries, as corruption gives rise to organized crime, the police and other organs of the state may themselves become criminalized. By then, businesses will not only have to deal with corruption-ridden bureaucracies; they will also be vulnerable to attacks from competitors who will pay the police or tax inspectors to harass and intimidate.

In fact, there is no limit to the extent to which corruption, once unleashed, can undermine the stability of the state and organized society. Tax inspectors will extort businesses; the police will kidnap innocents and demand ransom; the prime minister will demand payoffs to be available for meetings; aid money will disappear into the private offshore bank accounts of senior officials; the head of state will demand that particular taxes be credited directly to a personal account. Investment will come to a standstill, or, worse, capital flight will lead to disinvestment. In countries where corruption becomes intertwined with domestic politics, separate centers of power will emerge to rival the power of the state.

At that point, the chances that the government will be able to do anything to control corruption will disappear and the state will mutate into a kleptocracy, the eighth circle of hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Alternatively, the state, to preserve its power, may opt for warfare, engulfing the country in a cycle of violence. And corrupt failed, or failing, states become a security threat for the entire international community – because, as Heineman and Heimann wrote in Foreign Affairs in 2006, “they are incubators of terrorism, the narcotics trade, money laundering, human trafficking, and other global crime – raising issues far beyond corruption itself.”Footnote ¹⁵ More recently, Chayes has tracked the regional and international security implications of kleptocracies in such countries as Afghanistan, Egypt and Nigeria, among others, noting the transnational effects of systemic corruption as akin to an “odourless gas” fueling the various identified threats “without attracting much policy attention.”Footnote ¹⁶ “When every government function is up for sale to the highest bidder,” she notes, “violations of international as well as domestic law become the norm.”Footnote ¹⁷ The sale of Pakistani nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya is just one dramatic example.

Tackling Corruption

As all of these points demonstrate, corruption is a major impediment to effective governance, transparency, economic development and the proper allocation of public funds for public good, as well as the source of a range of very serious transnational security risks. As corruption in governments and the private sector has globalized, so must the efforts to tackle it. An international legal framework for corruption control is essential to deal with its cross-border effects, and fortunately a strong foundation already exists.

New, well-designed international implementation and enforcement tools should give significantly greater effect to existing international conventions in this field, such as the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), with 186 parties (entry into force December 2005), and the 1997 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, with 43 states parties (entry into force February 1999). In addition to these conventions, there are also a range of regional treaties covering Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

Unlike the OECD convention, the UNCAC creates a global legal framework involving developed and developing nations and covers a broader range of subjects including domestic and foreign corruption, extortion, preventive measures, anti-money-laundering provisions, conflict-of-interest laws and means to recover illicit funds deposited by corrupt officials in offshore banks. As UNCAC only possesses a weak monitoring mechanism, and the implementation of its provisions in effect has been “largely ignored,”Footnote ¹⁸ enforcement should be a priority in strengthened international governance. Until such enhanced tools are developed, the effectiveness of the UNCAC as a deterrence tool will very much depend on the establishment of adequate national monitoring mechanisms to assess government compliance. Many countries need technical assistance to develop the capacity to comply with the UNCAC’s provisions. Multinational corporations are both originators of bribery and frequent victims of extortion, and need strong internal controls and sanctions to protect themselves against malfeasance with its resulting damaging revelations and large fines. Additional international legislation may also be required for types of corruption that are insufficiently regulated, and for novel forms of corruption enabled by new technologies.

Others have argued that another workable approach to fighting corruption may be more robust implementation of the anticorruption laws in the 43 states that have signed the OECD’s Anti-Bribery Convention. Governments will need to do better in holding to account companies that continue to bribe foreign officials. They have at times been tempted to shield companies from the need to comply with anticorruption laws, in a misguided attempt to avoid undermining their competitive position in other countries. Trade promotion should not be seen to trump corruption control. Governments continue to be afflicted by double standards, criminalizing bribery at home but often looking the other way when bribery involves foreign officials in non-OECD countries.

Another international dimension that is closely related to corruption is the necessary monitoring of international financial flows, only a small part of which reflect real investment in the economy. Apart from speculation, these flows represent major channels for the profits of international organized crime and money laundering, which might be detected with better regulation and monitoring. There is also the crucial issue of offshore financial havens used for tax evasion, transfer pricing and unethical minimization of tax liabilities.Footnote ¹⁹ A surprising number of wealthy countries also have their own tax-free havens (domestic and in overseas territories) allowing secret ownership, front corporations, little or no reporting, and other mechanisms to facilitate accumulating and hiding wealth. Only international legislation to plug such loopholes will allow more transparency and accountability for the world’s wealth.

One other issue requiring international attention is a more ethical approach to the residual liabilities from past corruption. Too many poor and indebted countries have been drained of their resources and wealth for years by corrupt leaders.Footnote ²⁰ When the leaders eventually fall, successor governments are still expected to pay back all the accumulated debt with interest. This is one cause of the continuing net transfer of wealth from poor to rich countries, undermining efforts to reduce poverty by 2030 as called for in the Sustainable Development Goals. On the one hand, countries that make effective efforts to stamp out corruption should be rewarded with debt forgiveness, in the context of a program of coherent economic reforms. On the other hand, much stronger international mechanisms are required to track down and recuperate the ill-gotten gains stashed abroad by corrupt leaders and their families.Footnote ²¹

General Strategies to Fight Corruption

The best defense against corruption is to avoid it happening to begin with, and to reduce or eliminate those situations in which corruption breeds. Much of this is best accomplished at the national level where the will exists, but much can be done within the framework of international governance to facilitate and reinforce national processes. Beyond increasing the benefits of being honest and the costs of being corrupt, one of the present authors has recently summarized some of the options.Footnote ²²

For governments that can still hope to reduce corruption, what are some options for reform? Rose-Ackerman, writing in 2016, recommended a two-pronged strategy aimed at increasing the benefits of being honest and the costs of being corrupt, a sensible combination of reward and punishment as the driving force of reforms. While this is a vast subject, some complementary approaches can be proposed.

Pay civil servants well. Whether civil servants are appropriately compensated or grossly underpaid will clearly affect their motivation and incentives. If public sector wages are too low, employees may find themselves under pressure to supplement their incomes in “unofficial” ways. The IMF economists Caroline Van Rijckeghem and Beatrice Weder’s 2001 empirical work revealed that in a sample of developing countries, lower public sector wages are associated with a higher incidence of corruption – and higher wages with a lower incidence.Footnote ²³

Create transparency and openness in government spending. Governments collect taxes, tap capital markets to raise money, receive foreign aid and develop mechanisms to allocate these resources to satisfy a multiplicity of needs. Some do this in ways that are relatively transparent, with a clear budget process with fiscal targets and priorities, clear authorizations and execution, public disclosure of performance, and independent reviews and audits, and try to ensure that resources will be used in the public interest. The more open and transparent the process, the less opportunity it will provide for malfeasance and abuse. The ability of citizens to scrutinize government activities and debate the merits of public policies also makes a difference. Thus, press freedoms and literacy levels will shape the context for reforms in important ways. An active civil society with a culture of participation can also be important in supporting strategies to reduce corruption.

Cut red tape. The strong correlation between the incidence of corruption and the extent of bureaucratic red tape suggests the desirability of eliminating needless regulations while safeguarding the essential regulatory functions of the state necessary for environmental and social protection, health and safety. The sorts of regulations on the books of many countries – requiring certifications and licenses for a plethora of reasons – are sometimes not only extremely burdensome but also no longer relevant. Rose-Ackerman suggests that “the most obvious approach is simply to eliminate laws and programs that breed corruption.”

Replace regressive and distorting subsidies with targeted cash transfers. Mindless subsidies, often benefiting the wealthy and vested interests, are another example of how government policy can distort incentives and create opportunities for corruption. As noted previously, according to a 2015 IMF study, consumer subsidies for energy products amount to some US$5.3 trillion a year, equivalent to about 6.5 percent of global GDP.Footnote ²⁴ These subsidies are very regressively distributed: for gasoline, over 60 percent of benefits accrue to the richest 20 percent of households. Subsidies often lead to smuggling, to shortages and to the emergence of black markets. Leaving aside the issue of the opportunity costs (how many schools could be built with the cost of one year’s energy subsidy?), and the environmental effects associated with artificially low prices, subsidies can often put the government at the center of corruption-generating schemes. It would be much better to replace expensive, regressive subsidies with targeted cash transfers.

Deploy smart technology. Frequent, direct contact between government officials and citizens can open the way for illicit transactions. One way to address this problem is to use readily available technologies to encourage a more arm’s-length relationship between officials and civil society. The use of online platforms has been particularly successful in public procurement, perhaps one of the most fertile sources of corruption. Purchases of goods and services by the state can be sizable, amounting in most countries to somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of GDP. Because the awarding of contracts can involve bureaucratic discretion, and because most countries have long histories of graft, kickbacks and collusion in public procurement, more and more countries have opted for procedures that guarantee adequate openness and competition, a level playing field for suppliers, clear bidding procedures and the like.

Chile has used the latest technologies to create one of the world’s most transparent public procurement systems. ChileCompra, launched in 2003, is an Internet-based public system for purchasing and hiring that serves companies, public organizations and individual citizens. It is by far the largest business-to-business site in the country, involving 850 purchasing organizations. In 2012, users completed 2.1 million purchases totaling US$9.1 billion. The system has earned a worldwide reputation for excellence, transparency and efficiency.

Many other areas of reform can contribute to reducing corruption. A viable legal system with clear laws, independent judges and credible penalties, supported by a tough anticorruption agency and an ombudsperson to investigate requests for bribes, can show that a government takes the issue seriously. In aid programs, donors can do much more to ensure that the funds provided are used properly and achieve the intended results.

More generally, the types of development projects that are encouraged or supported should also be examined critically from an anticorruption perspective. For example, the tax-free zones and similar arrangements that have been established in many countries to attract foreign businesses and create employment require government subsidies and tax breaks with often ephemeral results that are not cost-effective, but local politicians love them because it is so easy to siphon off money from both government and business.

In many of these measures, the underlying philosophy is to remove the opportunity for corruption by changing incentives, closing loopholes and eliminating misconceived rules that encourage corrupt behavior. But an approach that focuses solely on changing the rules and incentives, along with imposing appropriately harsh punishment for violating the rules, is likely to be far more effective if it is also supported by efforts to buttress the moral and ethical foundations of human behavior. One of the underlying causes of corruption is the general decline or vacuum in moral standards and ethical values, and the corollary glorification of greed and excessive wealth across many societies. Efforts, whether in education, local communities or faith-based organizations, to strengthen values such as honesty, trustworthiness and aspirations that reach beyond the purely material, will always be the best defense against corruption. Such stronger ethical standards will provide a new source of strength in the struggle against corruption, complementing the progress made in recent years in improving the legal framework designed to combat bribery and corruption.

An International Anticorruption Court

To support and enhance all of these efforts to fight corruption at lower levels, binding international juridical oversight must also be established. Supranational judicial mechanisms are necessary to prosecute individuals and entities violating established norms on corruption when nations are unable to carry out such prosecutions; such a state of affairs is all too frequently the case when the political establishment and the justice system have been captured by corrupt elites. Such mechanisms could also ensure the effective adjudication of cases of corruption at the international level that escape from or fall between national jurisdictions, or that involve multinational corporations, international criminal syndicates or other transnational actors that may be difficult for any one nation to prosecute. New international mechanisms could take the form of a free-standing international court focusing on anticorruption, a special chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) or of an International Human Rights Tribunal, in combination with a companion technical training and implementation body.

Among the most promising proposals that has emerged to date is for a new, stand-alone International Anticorruption Court that would generally follow the model of the ICC, as currently advocated by US Senior Judge Mark Wolf and others engaged in the Integrity Initiatives International (III).Footnote ²⁵ Judge Wolf notes that federal jurisdiction at the US national level is commonly employed to address state-level corruption, to deploy appropriate expertise, resources and independence to tackle embedded corruption effectively at the more local level. By analogy, to ensure meaningful prosecutions of corrupt national officials around the world, a higher level of oversight and enforcement is required at the international level.

The IACC model proposed by Wolf and colleagues would embrace the complementarity principle of the ICC, only stepping in with investigations and prosecutions when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute. Such a court could in particular target “grand corruption,” or the abuse of public office for private gain by a country’s leaders, which often translates directly into entrenched systemic national norms of corruption, and impunity for the same, as those same leaders control the law enforcement and justice apparatus.Footnote ²⁶

A companion technical institute established at the same time as the proposed IACC could moreover have the capacity to provide innovative and unprecedented internationalized (or “hybrid”) ad hoc technical bodies for review and enforcement audits and support of prosecutions at the national level, when appropriate, in addition to general technical training. Such a body could make assessments about whether technical assistance and training would be effective in a given country (and, if so, to whom and when to deliver such training), and could consider possible hybrid prosecutions or “loaning” of highly skilled international staff in service of national prosecutions, according to specific country conditions. An international anticorruption technical institute could build on sound initiatives already begun at the international level, for example, the International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre (IACCC), recently established and initially seated in the United Kingdom, with the goal of facilitating international cooperation and information exchange on the prosecution of grand corruption.Footnote ²⁷ An international institute could also develop and consolidate crucial techniques and cooperative approaches to international asset location and recovery.

In order to set up an IACC (and a supporting technical institute), a transnational network could be established, akin to that which was instrumental in setting up the ICC, to advocate for this new, badly needed international institution. The global public is yet to become sufficiently aware of the comprehensive dimensions of the issue of grand corruption, including the persistent risks of cross-border infection across a range of serious issues of public concern (transnational organized crime, tax evasion, the theft of foreign development aid, sale of weapons of mass destruction, etc.). The III has set out to raise such transnational public awareness, working in particular to establish a global network of youth and young professionals throughout the world who are dedicated to fighting corruption in their home countries and at the global level.

As with proposals for the establishment of other significant international institutions, a concern commonly raised in relation to an IACC is its cost. However, corruption at the international level involves the loss of trillions of dollars every year; this staggering sum would make the funding of a new international court pale in comparison (the ICC, for example, currently costs about US$167 million annually). Moreover, convictions at the IACC would likely normally also entail the restitution of stolen funds or assets, as well as the imposition of fines, which might be used to subsidize the costs of the court.Footnote ²⁸

Building Public Support

A government of “we the peoples” needs to have the full understanding and general support of the populations governed. Any system of governance that becomes too remote from those benefitting from the governance will fail to gain support and ultimately become ineffective. At the global level, it is particularly challenging to ensure that the entirety of the world’s population is educated in the imperative necessity of global governance in particular areas of international responsibility, and to the relevance of proposals such as those presented in this book. This should be the subject of public debate with wide participation. Early attempts to assemble popular support for efforts at substantial UN reform failed because they lacked the “immense works of preparing world public opinion for new political leadership.”Footnote ²

Fortunately, with information technologies, this is no longer an unrealistic goal. One prerequisite may be the initial support of a range of governments, as their cooperation will be important in reaching their populations through, among others, the formal school system and national media. Engagement of at least some governments would add significant weight to an influential international campaign for strengthened global governance, which could be planned and implemented with the support of the relevant educational institutions, mass media, information platforms and organizations of civil society. In particular, any model including a legislative mechanism based ultimately on universal suffrage must be supported by international civics education, and a generally well-educated and informed global public.

Even before the point of government adoption, civil society organizations, citizen and youth groups, and groups active in social media can increase and coordinate their actions to sensitize the public to the issues at hand and to encourage government action. Efforts are needed to create collective consensus and multiple global fora for vital dialogue and exchange, based on wide partnerships in favor of effective global governance (see Chapter 21). This may in turn catalyze a wide range of governments to act through more formal channels.

Even if some governments are not fully engaged or committed to international cooperation, their citizens will often still have access to the Internet and to radio and television broadcasts from outside their borders, bringing positive messages to their populations. It will be important to reveal and refute disinformation spread by those who may be opposed to certain institutional reforms for reasons of self-interest.

Central Messages

At the heart of public education for global governance lies the concept of the interdependence and unity in diversity of the global human community, as discussed in Chapter 20. Shared human identity is a biological fact, and greater international solidarity among peoples has become technologically possible in a world physically reduced to a neighborhood.Footnote ³ The advantages of thinking in a more unified manner at the global level and the many merits of establishing a workable “peace system” through international institutions (see Chapter 10) will need to be explained clearly. People should be reassured that their national autonomy, cultural diversity and personal freedom and initiative will be safeguarded through secure institutional checks and balances, and that no one will be left behind. There should be a collective expectation that, around the world, leaders and civil servants will be held to the highest standards of integrity and accountability (see, e.g., Chapter 18).

Public education also needs to take account of the emotional and psychological dimensions of reform processes, whether these are in the form of opposition that comes from the fear of change, or the positive desire to contribute to a better world. Conspiracy theories in some countries about the threat of a “New World Order” or global government revoking their freedom, disarming and enslaving them, need to be addressed. The frustrations of those who have not benefited from globalization or who have lost their dignity and place in society, leaving them open to populist messages, should be resolved. Fundamental global economic, social, cultural and humanitarian goals, already embedded in the UN Charter, must be emphasized and also meaningfully realized in new approaches and institutions, to correct the deficit in current economic globalization that has given “globalism” a bad name (see Chapter 14).

Today’s nationalism, nativism and xenophobia are rooted in fear of the “other,” which can be prevented and countered through education. Fear generally comes from ignorance. Usually the “other” is a fantasized caricature of the unknown, as once people get to know each other personally, prejudices and misconceptions are usually dispelled. As E.B. White satirically wrote in 1946 (criticizing what he viewed as a too-weak UN):

Opportunities should be created for nations, races, classes and creeds to mix, work and socialize with one another, with, for example, their children growing up together, as is already happening in many parts of the world. The inevitably increasing migrations driven by climate change and sea level rise, among other driving forces, might be viewed as a constructive mixing of peoples if supported by education that presents human diversity in a positive light. Relatively successful national policy approaches to build cultures of diversity proactively, such as those employed in Canada or Singapore, should be meaningfully explored as models and improved upon at the international level.

Education lies at the very heart of community building, at whatever scale, whether it concerns how we welcome new neighbors from foreign countries, or how we consider the consequences of our own actions and those of our own cities or countries on citizens of other nations. Learning about our shared human identity and basic human rights, values and responsibilities is central to creating a sense of community, including a community of nations (see Chapter 20).Footnote ⁵ Such education needs to start at a very early age, and will be necessary in the context of the global implementation of shared human rights norms, among the range of other reforms suggested.

While global governance may seem very distant from local communities throughout the world, communities are in fact the ultimate foundation for all levels of governance. The expression “think globally, act locally” captures this idea well. Our proposals for a reformed General Assembly, a World Parliamentary Assembly and a Chamber of Civil Society would help to provide better linkages and public accountability. The steadily increasing involvement of civil society organizations in UN processes already represents a remarkable level of public and grassroots engagement helping to drive UN policy change. The healthier local communities are, the stronger the foundation will be. When principles of participation in local governance, and collective reflection, consultation and common action, are implemented in neighborhoods, villages and communities, they provide a bottom-up complement to, and understanding of, government at higher levels. The values of unity in diversity, solidarity, moderation and service to others are as important at the local as at the global level and should be reflected in educational activities for all age groups in communities. Local action can be linked to global awareness by emphasizing the idea that each person is playing a small part in the global enterprise of constructing a positive, sustainable peace in the world.

Formal Education

UN member states have pledged to promote education for human rights and global understanding, and a detailed plan of action was approved in 1993 that can equally be applied today to education for global governance.Footnote ⁶ It identifies all the levels of education that should be included, the variety of non-formal settings where such education should be carried out, the specific contexts and difficult situations where relevant education should be targeted to people whose rights are in danger and the specific vulnerable groups to be included.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights requires governments to “strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms” (see Preamble and Art. 26).Footnote ⁷ Article 29 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that states parties – which include virtually every nation of the world – provide children with education directed to:

1. – The development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and for the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations;

2. – The development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own;

3. – The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin.Footnote ⁸

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and many other international agencies seek to nurture our common humanity and to help learners become active global citizens.Footnote ⁹ However, the implementation of these promises, which is currently left to the national level without sufficient monitoring or support, falls short, and people in most of the world receive no education or information about human rights, global issues or the role of global institutions.

The essential foundation for an active citizenry, of course, is universal basic education, so that the entire world population becomes literate in line with the Quality Education Goal 4 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A literate and educated public is essential for the effective functioning of democratic processes and public participation at any level. While progress has been made in many countries, there were still 745 million illiterate people in 2015.Footnote ¹⁰ As required in SDG4, every child should be taught about her or his common humanity, global issues and governance. UNESCO has focused on global citizenship education for over a decade,Footnote ¹¹ and has also prepared objectives and competences for a universal core curriculum for the SDGs in general and sustainable development in particular.Footnote ¹² The challenge is universal implementation by governments in their school systems. Schools across the world can now be linked online to share experiences of global issues so that students come to understand their shared humanity and the planet they all inhabit. Universal quality education must be a priority for all governments. Where governments are unable to provide this, it should become a responsibility of the international community and the UN system to supply the necessary means. A small fraction of the amount presently spent on arms would be sufficient.

States have already obligated themselves to work on education to address specific global risks. For example, in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Article 6 states that parties “shall promote and facilitate … the development and implementation of educational and public awareness programmes on climate change and its effects.”Footnote ¹³ If parties had taken this obligation seriously, the Paris Agreement would have a more solid foundation, as the publics and policy-makers at various levels in all countries, which need to identify their own ambition levels, would have been much better informed about what is at stake.Footnote ¹⁴

A second, later step will be to define a more systematized universal core curriculum for the different levels of formal education that would include essential ethical principles, human rights, civic responsibilities, grounding in the roles and functions of international institutions (and the ideals on which they are founded) and the SDGs as long as they are in effect. This would be integrated into the formal educational systems of all countries, both as a separate subject and integrated into other disciplines, while leaving ample space for cultural, national, and regional specificities to maintain the richness of human diversity.

Even once content appropriate to living in a globalized world has been developed, there will be practical and institutional challenges in its translation into all the necessary global languages and its integration into the curriculum of schools at the national level. Education ministries are notably conservative about change, requiring special efforts to help them to understand their important role. This should be one essential component of the commitments governments make to support steps to strengthen global governance. There would also be the need to train millions of teachers in the use of the materials through focused in-service training. Several years would then be required for students to have passed through a sufficient part of the curriculum to have grasped its essential messages. Given the inevitable time required for educational reform to have an impact, such changes should begin as soon as possible so that their effects will influence and reinforce the processes needed to transform global governance systems.

In tertiary education, there will be significant educational and research opportunities across the range of areas requiring global governance. International institutions will need well-trained civil servants, and national governments will also need to strengthen their structures that interface with global institutions. This may challenge academic institutions structured along disciplinary lines, as many governance issues are transdisciplinary and require integration across many fields. Certain core skills such as systems thinking and the ethical principles upon which governance is founded need to be widely taught as part of general education. Student exchange programs between universities at the international level (which are already occurring with unprecedented frequency) can be further systematized, also reinforcing a sense of global citizenship, as the European Union has employed the Erasmus inter-European student exchange program, building a new generation of European citizens.

The time may well come in the future when governments will see the need for an official international auxiliary language (e.g., a shared, common global language, spoken by all, in addition to local language(s)) that could be chosen or created to provide everyone with a means for inter-communication within an evolving global system, while still protecting national and subnational language diversity. Research could already be undertaken on what would be the most desirable characteristics for such a language, how it might be developed or selected, and how it could be introduced gradually to support better communication and understanding.

Informal Education

One important group to reach and educate about global governance is the members of the world’s parliaments and political assemblies, political leaders and influential personalities. Despite their responsibilities, they may often be behind even the majority of the citizens they should be serving in their understanding of global issues and priorities. Since such leaders and influencers are often isolated within their groups of advisors or entourage and access to them is limited, special events to reach such circles will need to be organized, where objective information, relevant ethical principles, and the issues and challenges can be discussed frankly.

Moreover, there are many other channels for education beyond the formal school system. Many civil society organizations have great capacities to reach their own target groups. They can find their particular messages within the global governance framework and add their support to the educational process. Religious organizations, in particular, have both formal educational institutions and Sunday schools, madrasas, children’s classes or other community educational activities. The moral and ethical values behind a more peaceful, just and sustainable world, including good governance, social justice, respect for others, moderation and other spiritual values, can easily find their place in these educational programs.Footnote ¹⁵

Generations that are beyond formal schooling will need to be reached with public education campaigns. Their fears and doubts should be addressed and reassurance provided that a strengthened layer of governance at the planetary level will not be threatening, but will contribute fundamentally to ensuring peace and prosperity for all. Their justifiable skepticism based on poor experiences with discredited national governments will have to be overcome. This is a formidable challenge but an important support to the necessary transformation.

Special attention should be given to all those whose livelihoods are linked to those parts of the economy that will be negatively impacted by the transition to a true collective security system with the peaceful settlement of disputes at the international level, as discussed in Chapter 9 on disarmament. They will need guarantees of retraining for new, more constructive forms of employment.

Information Technologies and Social Media

The potential of the Internet to reach the vast majority of humanity has expanded so rapidly that we are far from understanding the best ways to employ this potential for the common good. The UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation has recommended a strengthening of international governance of this new potential in order to foster global digital cooperation, build an inclusive digital economy and society, develop human and institutional capacity, protect human rights and human agency, and promote digital trust, security and stability.Footnote ¹⁶At present it is excessively dominated by too few companies in a near-monopoly position motivated primarily by profit, without due regard for public service. At the same time, there is enormous capacity to use social media and Internet platforms, together with the wide spread of mobile phone technologies extending their reach even in least developed countries, to provide most of the world’s population with access to information at a scale never before imagined. As mentioned previously, it is the new information and communications technologies that bring universal education into the realm of practical possibility. This potential should be developed in positive service to the shared ideals that will emerge as global governance is strengthened and becomes more effective. The popularity of social media should be harnessed to spread the main messages about the cultivation of global solidarity, the ethical principles being applied and the practical steps being taken to make enhanced and functional global governance a reality for everyone – delivering on the various promises enshrined in the Charter with respect to social and economic development, human rights, peace and security, and so on. Public institutions and civil society organizations should be increasingly proactive in using modern media for public education, countering forces driven exclusively by the profit motive, movements manipulating public opinion and the excesses of youth or immaturity. A well-informed public is in a better position to hold governments to account for the commitments they have made.Footnote ¹⁷ There are already many small-scale efforts in this direction that could be scaled up.

Resources on UN reform and global governance should be freely available on the Internet and the range of social media platforms in forms and languages accessible to many audiences, with coverage and explanations of the main events as reform is discussed and implemented. Transparency is an essential part of building public confidence that the global transformations are in the collective best interests.

The capacity of online education, whether in courses offered by formal educational institutions, massive open online courses (MOOCs) that can reach many thousands, or less formal opportunities for continuing education, all have great potential to build human capacity with a minimum of resources. Reform processes should be accompanied by a wide range of online educational opportunities, both to build public understanding and to prepare people for the many emerging opportunities for service and employment.

The Mass Media

As public opinion in most countries is formed by the mass media, it is clear that the media should have an important role in covering and explaining the various steps taken to reform and strengthen the United Nations system. Better education of journalists on these issues would be one important measure, along with the provision of access to reliable sources of information for journalistic communities. The media could also be encouraged not only to report the negative news regarding all the problems of the world, but also to tie them to some discussion of workable solutions. Widespread debate will be essential to inform the decisions to be taken by the governments of the world as they move forward to transform governance at the international level. Transparency is important to build public trust. The media themselves will need to rise above traditional roles that may include the defense of national interests and insular views. Journalists should be kept well informed of each step in the process through newswires and accessible reports, both from official sources and from civil society.

Given the importance of the mass media and news organizations in informing the public and shaping public opinion, the UN should consider the adoption of a universal ethical code for objective and responsible reporting,Footnote ¹⁸ also assuring the independence of journalists, initially as voluntary guidelines and later after General Assembly reforms with mechanisms for its enforcement. It is important to ensure protection of the media from manipulation by special interests while encouraging transparency and the expression of a full range of viewpoints and perspectives. There are challenges today from journalists who are killed or imprisoned; authoritarian regimes that stifle debate; hidden filters in search engines that facilitate confirmation bias; the fabrication of alternative facts and false news; the intentional spread of rumors and conspiracy theories to create fear, mistrust and disunity; the covert infiltration of the media by foreign powers for political ends including the destabilization of states; and the monopoly position of a few multinational corporations profiting from information technologies. Many of these problems escape today from national legislation and control and require an international framework.

Responsibility in the UN

The United Nations should itself play a leading role in building public understanding of its purpose and actions in the common global interest. It already has UNESCO, with extensive experience in education but limited means or influence on governments. There is a problem in terms of the coordination of international educational programming within the present UN system, where efforts are fragmented. The UN produces excellent publications but they are poorly distributed. A reformed UN system will therefore need a coherent collective strategy for education for global citizenship and civic engagement. It should build networks and partnerships with all those involved in the creation, communication and transmission to future generations of knowledge relevant to global governance and planetary sustainability.

Its functions should be to:

• strengthen cooperation between knowledge centers in the UN system and governments, universities, business, Internet companies and civil society, and ensure that Internet access is accessible, secure and trustworthy;

• increase capacity in all countries to take part in global governance, and provide leaders, civil servants and other actors with the necessary abilities and qualities;

• ensure equal access to knowledge, particularly in developing countries;

• connect global knowledge platforms to every government and parliamentary website to give policy-makers, politicians and citizens direct access to global knowledge through their own governance portals;

• promote information in ways that enable citizens and decision-makers to find and use knowledge effectively.

Educational outreach by the UN system should be linked to its own internal efforts at knowledge management, which recognize knowledge as a strategic asset.Footnote ¹⁹ The UN has an enormous pool of information and experience relevant to global governance that should be maintained and transmitted as reforms are instituted and the system is upgraded for its new responsibilities.

The current UN News Service should be significantly expanded in order to provide impartial and quality information on UN programs and processes to populations worldwide, so that this knowledge becomes commonplace and enhanced UN powers are understood.

Without undermining the complementary role of independent journalism, the UN News Service should explain the sometimes-arcane ways of international diplomacy in stories that the general public can understand. It should earn the confidence of people everywhere, so that questions concerning the veracity of other reports can be compared with a reliable and objective global source. The built-in bias of national perspectives is well known, particularly where there are issues of conflict between states. This could be neutralized with facts from the UN itself. A reinforced and adequately funded UN would have the means to do this.

The constructive role of the UN and its agencies around the world also needs to be told more clearly, so that people can see the benefits that they will derive from UN action as well. A global sense of solidarity needs to emerge concerning people in need, the victims of disaster and the constructive actions that have overcome past problems and built resilience and reassurance in formerly suffering communities. Positive stories are needed to counterbalance the negative news that frequently makes headlines.

Leadership

Leadership and governance are often closely associated, as most forms of national governance have featured strong individual leaders such as kings or queens, autocrats, dictators or presidents. Unfortunately, this focus on personal leadership too often brings to the top people (historically mostly men) with strong egos and a desire for power and wealth, who will often employ any means to achieve their ends and then wish to hold on to power indefinitely. Many political processes reinforce this selective pressure. The characteristic old leadership styles, whether authoritarian, paternalistic, “know-it-all,” or manipulative, all commonly seek to dominate decision-making, serve an egoistic need for power and neglect to develop the potentialities of the group being led.Footnote ²⁰ The result is governance that is generally not in the best interest of those being governed. This bad reputation is one reason why some are opposed to the concept of a world government, since they assume that any such government could be taken over by an autocrat or an elite or corrupt class that could never be dislodged.

Nor is the world and its citizenry protected from politicians, seemingly mentally healthy when they first come to high office, who may become thoroughly corrupted by the exercise of power and increasingly detached from reality, trying to hold on to office as they come to believe that they are indispensable to their respective nations’ stability and prosperity.Footnote ²¹ Narcissistic personality traits may push people to seek leadership but are not conducive to effective leadership.Footnote ²² As citizens we are not entrusted with the responsibility of driving a car without providing evidence to the relevant authorities that we are familiar with traffic rules and the workings of an automobile. We think nothing, however, of entrusting vast responsibility and, in some cases, the possibility of wreaking havoc on the world through the misuse of that power, without any evidence of suitability (mental, moral, psychological) for the job. An improved system of global governance should consider implementing proper checks on potential leaders, to be embedded in various institutional processes (e.g., through expert psychological review panels, which are now being employed in the private sector and for many leadership roles). It does not require much imagination to think about the calamities that could have been averted if such safeguards had been in place during our blood-soaked twentieth century.

To avoid these risks, any system of global governance needs safeguards to prevent any tendency to autocracy, both by ensuring that the roles of individuals with power and authority are minimized and properly limited, and by a strong program of selection and ongoing education to ensure that all those within the system reflect attributes of altruism, service and dedication to the common good.

This means that the qualities of good leadership in institutions of global governance may be quite different from leadership as currently understood or commonly tolerated in some governments or businesses. In studies about leadership competencies, the most important were to have high ethical and moral standards and humility, and to be focused on the truth.Footnote ²³ This would be particularly important in global governance, where giving priority to the global collective good will be of great importance.

There has been considerable work on values-based leadership, or “moral leadership,” which can suggest some of the qualities to be sought in selecting and educating leaders for global governance.Footnote ²⁴ In summary, these explore three aspects of leadership: the objective or mission of leadership, the style of leadership, and the individual morality and motivational drive needed for a leadership role in societal change. Motivation concerns the personal values of the leader, and whether they are driven primarily by self-interest or altruism.

Education at all ages can cultivate in people the ability to move away from the all-too-common “cultures of contest,” where egos strive for themselves or their own group, to a culture of cooperation for the benefit of themselves and all others.Footnote ²⁵ It is possible to nurture a culture of global solidarity through education or processes of cooperative interaction.Footnote ²⁶ A moral leadership framework can have considerable potential to clarify or change people’s motivation to serve their communities.Footnote ²⁷ The need to consider the implications of actions with consequences for many generations brings a spiritual, ethical or philosophical dimension to leadership.Footnote ²⁸

One “moral leadership” framework that has been developed since the late 1990s is based on interrogating and transcending traditional, unconscious mental models and developing new capabilities, such as utilizing participatory techniques as well as practicing more horizontal and less vertical power structures. It is a model of leadership dedicated to personal and collective transformation, committed to moral values and principles, based on the value of truthfulness and guided by the exercise of capabilities in service of the common good. It has a clear vision of the society it wishes to create and the strategies that will help bring it into being, and acts on the basis of this vision and these strategies. It entails a deep personal commitment to strive for individual transformation through the development and exemplification of a life based on ethical principles, characterized by qualities of integrity and empathy. It aims for collective transformation through actions that promote community cohesion and justice. In summary, it is leadership characterized by service to the common good, selfless, listening, reflective and persevering.Footnote ²⁹ Such a framework at the core of education for leadership in global governance, combined with high levels of technical and administrative capacity of officials, could ensure the efficacy of any institution.

Complementary to the proactive training of good leaders with requisite qualities is the establishment of safeguards to hold leaders and governments to account for the most serious violations of international standards, including the proposed International Anticorruption Court (Chapter 18), the International Criminal Court (Chapter 10) and the proposed International Human Rights Tribunal (Chapter 11).

Another complementary approach is to favor group leadership, in which authority is vested in a consultative body that brings diverse perspectives together in a common search for the global interest. This can draw on the strengths of each individual present, while neutralizing their shortcomings. The ideal would be to reach a consensus, but majority voting would also be possible. Since no individual would have power or authority, many of the risks of individual leadership would be avoided. This more collaborative model has some common features with the consensual system of government in Switzerland, and with some religious systems of governance.Footnote ³⁰

It will also be important that leadership in international organizations be gender balanced and fully reflect human cultural differences, moving further away from the political interests and power politics of some of the present United Nations appointment processes for leadership positions, to rather emphasize competence and commitment to the global common good.

Forming an International Civil Service

The staff of the UN Secretariat, its programs and specialized agencies, is recruited from all parts of the world, with certain guidelines to respect a balance of nationalities. If international governance is to respect the principles of unity in diversity and leaving no one behind, then the people within the system need to reflect the spectrum of human diversity and to bring their unique perspectives to the administration of the global community.

One of the enabling mechanisms to ensure coherence and efficiency in the international civil service will be education on the principles of the UN Charter and other founding documents, the core values and ethical principles that every civil servant should respect and the basic procedures of administration. Since such education will not necessarily be available to every recruit, and setting standards too high may exclude more disadvantaged groups from such opportunities for service, the UN system itself should provide enhanced more educational opportunities on recruitment and through regular in-service training. The UN Staff College should also give existing staff new skills as they move up to higher responsibilities.

Special training would also be needed for the personnel of an International Peace Force and its reserves (see Chapter 8), so that volunteers receive not only the necessary military skills but also a clear understanding of the high purpose of their missions and the ethical principles that should guide all their actions in the common interest, in the performance of such a sensitive function. Accepting that the use of force may sometimes be necessary to bring or restore peace will always involve careful operations to achieve enforcement without a motive of retribution or harming the innocent.

An International Judicial Training Institute (see Chapter 10) is likewise imperative to ensure that members of the international judiciary have the requisite levels of independence, knowledge base and technical skill required for the enhanced new international legal institutions that are crucial for effective, balanced and fair global governance.

The UN has always aimed to recruit the most able staff available. The Noblemaire principle, first formulated in the early days of the League of Nations, states that:

By extension, every effort should be made to recruit the most able staff from everywhere in the world, compensating through education where necessary the deficiencies in training available in more disadvantaged countries.

Service in international governance should be seen as a highly attractive vocation if it is to attract the most able candidates. The combination of general education on governance and civic responsibility and on the high ideals of the UN system throughout the world will enhance its attractiveness for the most able and highly motivated people to join the international civil service, increasing its effectiveness even further.Footnote ³²

Information as an Intervention

A global government needs means of enforcement if it is to resolve key global problems. The ultimate means is the use of force, which could be justified in extreme situations, for example, against a government that has itself resorted to force in a serious breach of international law or to aggress its neighbors. Obviously, any other means of intervention short of force should be used whenever possible. Information and education should be considered among those options.

One specific challenge in the implementation of UN actions for peace and security, and other relevant global issues, is the need to counteract disinformation, propaganda and hate speech, which can too easily incite violence. The case of Rwanda, where extremist radio stations incited the population to genocide with great effect,Footnote ³³ shows the importance of a UN capacity to neutralize or counter such messages, providing alternative sources of information in which the population can have confidence. This can be one form of intervention among others in crisis situations.

There may be many other situations where governments malfunction, or extremist movements try to hold sway over a population, where objective information from a neutral UN source could defuse a dangerous situation and restore order. Educational countermeasures could be employed for preventive action within vulnerable groups, for example, to counter terrorist organizations which use information channels to attract recruits.

Access to Knowledge

Behind every educational effort lies the basic principle of access to knowledge for everyone. Education both conveys knowledge and teaches how to access it. Global governance must ensure that every person on the planet can acquire the knowledge needed to be a constructive and informed member of society. Every community should be invited to collect, preserve and transmit the knowledge of its history, culture, arts, agriculture and industries, and every nation has its own rich heritage. The advancement of science depends on the free exchange of knowledge, in which everyone, everywhere should participate. An evolving global civilization will increasingly reflect the knowledge required to live peacefully and sustainably on this planet.

One challenge that will require some innovative global legislation and regulation in the framework of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will likely be to modify the present regimes for intellectual property to ensure and facilitate a universal global right of access to knowledge. The present regimes are too slanted to favor private interests profiting from knowledge and artistic creations sold for the highest price the market can bear. The patent system for inventions and chemical or medical innovations also places too much emphasis on the profits of the holders of the patents above widespread sharing for the general good. The limited time of a patent’s validity is intended to allow the inventor a reasonable return for the effort of discovery and development to market, but under current systems this often excludes the poor majority of humanity from any benefit until the patent has expired. In the case of life-saving medicines at least, this is ethically questionable.

Before the development of the Internet, knowledge was distributed on material supports that had a cost, such as books, journals, records, films or compact discs, or performed in theaters or shown in galleries or museums. With new information technologies, knowledge and creative works have dematerialized, and can be made available at little or no cost to everyone around the world with the necessary technology to access them. Information should not be a scarce resource to be rationed through the market. On the contrary, it gains in value to society the more it is shared.

A helpful distinction may be made between two types of knowledge and creative works. Universal access should generally be facilitated or guaranteed to those that serve to inform, educate, enlighten and uplift the individual through the arts and culture, or that advance scientific knowledge and understanding, furnish citizens with news and necessary information, improve health and well-being, provide a basis for policy-making, and facilitate technological innovation and thus contribute to the general good. On the other hand, it is appropriate for the entertainment industry to charge for its productions. The knowledge necessary to be good global citizens and to develop each individual’s capacity to be of service to society should always be accessible, regardless of ability to pay.

Today the intention of intellectual property rights to reward the creators has in many quarters been captured by corporate actors focused too narrowly on profit. One salient example is scientific knowledge. If scientists want to publish their findings in reputable journals or books, they must sign away their intellectual property rights to the publisher while receiving no remuneration, only the recognition that comes from having their work read by others. In some cases, they must pay high page charges for open access. Peer reviewers also contribute their knowledge and judgment without any personal benefit as part of the open culture of science. Currently the major scientific publishers have bought up the journals of scientific societies and consolidated into a few large multinationals. Expensive books and journal subscriptions go only to the best-endowed university libraries. Individual scientists outside such institutions, or in economically disadvantaged countries that cannot afford to buy the literature, can access the scientific literature online, but only by paying a high fee to read each article, even those that they have authored, which is generally beyond their means. This recent privatization of the commons of scientific knowledge effectively restricts cutting-edge science to only the wealthiest countries and researchers in institutions.Footnote ³⁴ A new kind of scientific poverty is thus spreading around the world; this trend must be actively countered and reversed at the international level to ensure the steady advancement of science, knowledge generally and innovation at the global level. There is a counter-movement toward open access, but it still covers only a fraction of the scientific literature, and not the most significant part.Footnote ³⁵

Recommended Actions

It is clear that a reformed United Nations needs capacities in a range of domains relevant to education, including support to public education for global citizenship, a news flow on UN reform and actions around the world, a significant presence on the Internet and in social media, and close links with the national governments it serves. Internally it needs to give more profound education in UN values to new recruits and all staff, and continuing education to build staff capacities. It should create a global framework for ethical journalism, the free access to science and other knowledge necessary for the good functioning of global governance, and safeguards against any infringements on every individual’s rights to education, general knowledge and objective information. As the global system matures, the UN could become a guarantor of the quality of leadership at the national level in service to the common good, both nationally and internationally.