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	Foreign bribery rages unchecked in over half of global trade by Transparency International   Sep. 2018   There are many losers and few winners when companies bribe foreign public officials to win lucrative overseas contracts. In prioritising profits over principles, governments in most major exporting countries fail to prosecute companies flouting laws criminalising foreign bribery.   What is missing is active enforcement. Transparency International's new report, Exporting Corruption, finds that only 11 major exporting countries - accounting for about a third of world exports - have active or moderate law enforcement against companies bribing abroad in order to gain mining rights, contracts for major construction projects, purchases of planes and other deals.   Country by country, the report names the top offenders as well as the flaws in national legal systems that allow this crime to continue unchecked. One of the most shocking examples exposed in recent years is the massive foreign bribery scheme carried out by the Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht involving about US$788 million in bribes to government officials and political parties in at least 12 countries.   The cost of foreign bribery   Foreign bribery has huge negative consequences for the economies of the nations targeted. Money gets wasted on deals that are overpriced or do not yield real benefits. Limited resources are diverted to benefit a few individuals while citizens are denied vital public services, such as access to clean water, safe roads or basic health services.   Around the world, competitors that offer better products lose out in an unfair marketplace and this triggers a race to the bottom, with some companies choosing to engage in bribery because others are doing it.   This is why the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention requires parties to criminalise bribery of foreign public officials and introduce related measures, such as investigating suspicious cases. Its goal is to create a corruption-free level playing field for global trade.   The Exporting Corruption report rates the performance of 44 leading exporters, including 40 of the OECD Convention signatories. For the first time, it rates four non-OECD Convention exporters: China, the world's largest exporter, as well as Hong Kong, India and Singapore, accounting for about 18 per cent of world exports.   Not enough progress   The good news is that eight countries accounting for 7.1 per cent of world exports have improved their performance since the last report in 2015. Seven countries are now in the active enforcement category, compared with four in 2015. They are Germany, Israel, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom.   The bad news is that there is still a long way to go. Four countries, accounting for 6.7 per cent of world exports, have deteriorated in their performance and a total of 33 exporters, accounting for about 52 per cent of world exports, still have limited or little to no enforcement against foreign bribery. That includes all four of the exporters not party to the Convention - China, Hong Kong, India and Singapore - all of which get the lowest rating of little or no enforcement.   The results show that we are far from bringing enforcement against foreign bribery to a tipping point. Governments must scale up their foreign bribery enforcement. This means investigating allegations and pressing charges, as well as courts convicting guilty individuals and companies, and imposing substantial sanctions where appropriate.   What needs to be done   The enforcement gap that exists in China, Hong Kong, India and Singapore needs to be closed by joining the OECD Convention and, along with all other countries involved in global trade, stamping out foreign bribery with the necessary legislation and enforcement.   Transparency International also recommends that governments:   Address weaknesses in their legal frameworks and enforcement systems, including inadequate resources for cross-border enforcement;   Ensure settlements of foreign bribery cases are reached transparently, accountably and through appropriate processes, with dissuasive and even-handed sanctions;   Improve accountability and deterrence, by publishing up-to-date statistics and information on court cases; Assist cross-border investigations by sharing more information with other countries.   In addition, the OECD Working Group on Bribery should make greater use of public announcements to name and shame countries that are not enforcing against foreign bribery, just as Transparency International is doing in this report. It should also create a public database of enforcement data and case information, and conduct a cross-country study of information sharing performance across all parties.   To learn more about foreign bribery - globally and relating to 45 exporters - and how to prevent it, read Exporting Corruption - Progress report 2018: assessing enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.   http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/exporting-corruption-2018 Visit the related web page
	Brazil must put human rights before austerity, warn UN experts as child mortality rises by UN human rights office (OHCHR)   Aug. 2018   A group of UN human rights experts is urging Brazil to reconsider its economic austerity programme and put the human rights of its population, who are suffering the harsh consequences, at the centre of its economic policies.   'People living in poverty, and other marginalised groups, are disproportionately suffering as a result of the stringent economic measures in a country once considered as an example of progressive policies to reduce poverty and promote social inclusion', the experts said.   'Data recently made available reveals a rise in Brazilian child mortality rates for the first time in 26 years. This increase, attributed to various factors, including the Zika epidemic and the economic crisis, is cause for serious concern, especially with the budgetary restrictions for the public health system, and other social policies, which severely compromise the State's commitment to guarantee human rights for all, especially children and women.   'Some of the financial and fiscal decisions made in the last years affect the enjoyment of several rights, including to housing, food, water, sanitation, education, social security and health, and are worsening pre-existing inequalities', the experts noted.   'While the Government underlines various measures to alleviate the adverse consequences of those economic decisions, according to information we have received, those measures are largely insufficient.   Women and children living in poverty are among those hit hardest, as are Brazilians of African descent, rural populations, and people living in informal settlements', said the experts.   'We regret that efforts in relation to targeted policies addressing systemic discrimination against women have not been sustained', they added.   The experts stressed that austerity measures should never be seen as the only or first solution to economic problems, especially given their impact on the most vulnerable.   'There is a common misunderstanding among governments and international financial institutions that economic crises can justify any and all cuts to essential services and to economic and social rights. But just the opposite is true'.   'Austerity measures should be taken only with the most careful analysis of their impact, in particular as they would affect the most disenfranchised individuals and groups. They must be considered only after a comprehensive human rights impact assessment'.   'Such an assessment should seriously contemplate less harmful policy alternatives, like raising taxes for the richest before even bigger burdens are put on the shoulders of the least well-off. Steps to reduce public debt and to regain not only financial but also social sustainability should also be considered', the experts stressed.   Brazil, once a champion in the fight against hunger and malnutrition, is dramatically reversing major policies on food security. In the area of housing, the landmark programme 'Minha Casa Minha Vida' has suffered drastic cuts. Regarding water and sanitation, a third of the budget will be reduced according to 2018 forecasts.   Given Constitutional Reform No. 95, also known as 'EC do Teto', it is expected that public spending will remain capped at this level for 20 years, leaving no hope of improvement in the near future. This fact makes it even more necessary to review economic policies with a human rights lens.   'Achieving macroeconomic and growth targets cannot be at expense of human rights: the economy is society's servant, not its master', they concluded. http://bit.ly/2M2MLP2   * Access reports to the 39th session of the Human Rights Council: September 2018. List of themes and country situations to be addressed per mandates, via the link below: http://bit.ly/2Nruwnn   June 2018   Statement by Mr. Philip Alston Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights to the 38th session of the Human Rights Council.   'Later this month the Board of the IMF is expected to approve a credit line of up to $50 billion to Argentina. The stakes for the Fund are high. First, it has to show that it has learned the lessons of its failed austerity policies of past decades. Second it has to demonstrate that it can come up with prescriptions that promote fiscal consolidation while not inflicting misery upon the poorest members of society. And third, it has to transcend its image of the unreflective purveyor of neoliberal economic policies that have generated widespread resentment of globalization and helped to provoke the rise of populism in many countries.   It is no coincidence that the Fund has shown a newfound interest in promoting social protection. Last month it announced that it is moving to develop a new 'strategic framework on social spending', designed to ensure that its adjustment policies will protect rather than undermine social insurance and assistance, as well as basic education and health programs for the poor.   The main driving force is the need to avoid the social and political instability that have undermined its programs in the past and provoked widespread protests in the developing world.   This year has seen large-scale popular demonstrations in Argentina; the resignation of Jordan's Prime Minister; and anti-IMF riots in various African countries. In the past the Fund has held firm against such street protests, claiming that it was merely playing the role of a doctor called to the emergency room. It argued that it had no alternative but to prescribe drastic surgery, because the disease had been permitted to fester for so long that the patient would otherwise die.   But if the Fund is to show that it has really learned the lessons of its past failures, it must take this social spending floor seriously, in a way that has not done up until now.   For some years it has included 'indicative targets' for such floors in its loan agreements, but these have remained largely cosmetic and done very little in practice to ensure that the most vulnerable members of society are protected from the otherwise potentially devastating effects of the sudden fiscal consolidation prescribed by the Fund.   Strikingly, given its admirable predilection for evidence-based policies, the Fund does not evaluate either the impact of its own interventions on the welfare of vulnerable groups or whether social protection has increased or decreased as a result of its programs. Admittedly such evaluations are complex, but so too are the calculations on which the Fund bases many of its policies.   To date, many Fund officials have viewed social protection as a temporary, stop-gap measure rather than a set of policies that can stimulate growth, provide a better workforce, avoid the drain on emergency services, and improve economic security. They have fetishized the narrow targeting of benefits, despite compelling evidence that the proxy means tests used are deeply flawed, and result in major leakages to the well-off and widespread exclusion of the truly needy. And such unrealistically ambitious targeting has meant that very few people benefit, thus eliminating any broad-based political support for such programs.   The biggest challenge for the Fund is whether it can show that it is prepared to break with the neoliberal economic policies that it has been advocating for decades and which are clearly linked to the rise of populism in the world. As the most influential global actor in terms of fiscal policies, the Fund bears an outsized responsibility for the dramatic rise in inequality, the rapid growth of economic insecurity for workers, and the absence of meaningful social protection that have become the hallmarks of globalization and have laid the groundwork for popular revolt.   Following the Fund's script, globalization has brought many good things, but it has also exacerbated inequality and marginalization, while facilitating the capture of immense wealth by a handful of elites.   This is not to suggest that the Fund is directly responsible for the growth of illiberalism, the reinvigoration of racist and anti-immigrant sentiment, or the assault by many governments on the rule of law. But by prescribing 'fiscal consolidation' policies that have paid little heed to extreme inequality, extreme poverty, and economic insecurity, the Fund has created the conditions that have nurtured these very outcomes.   My report contains a series of recommendations designed to promote a better awareness of the centrality of social protection.   * Report focusing on the International Monetary Fund and its impact on social protection:   http://srpoverty.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/international-monetary-fund-impact-on-social-protection-2018.pdf http://srpoverty.org/thematic-reports/ Visit the related web page
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