10 December 2006?
(By Permanent Mission to the Vienna)
The First Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the
United Nations Convention against Corruption was held in Amman,
Jordan, from 10-14 December 2006. By November 2006, the Convention
had 140 Signatories and 80 States Parties.
On the December 10th, H.E. Li Jinzhang, head of the Chinese
Delegation and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, made a statement
at the Conference. The following is the full text of the
statement:
The Chinese government is pleased to see the entry into force of
the Convention against Corruption only 2 years after its adoption
by the UN General Assembly. Today the number of States Parties of
the Convention has reached 80. The fact that it has been less than
5 years since the Convention was first drafted till its formal
entry into force fully demonstrates the strong political will of
the international community to prevent and combat corruption, to
carry out international cooperation for that purpose. The Chinese
Delegation extends its warm congratulations on the entry into force
of the Convention and the convocation of this Conference of the
States Parties.
China attaches great importance to the United Nations Convention
against Corruption, and as a State Party, China will fulfill all
the obligations provided for in the Convention. China is now
working to build a mechanism on the combating and prevention of
corruption that is consistent with the socialist market economy and
puts equal emphasis on education, regulation and supervision. This
mechanism follows the same aim and spirit with the Convention and
provides the same as the Convention. To ensure effective
implementation of the Convention, China has established a
coordinating body inviting twenty-five governmental departments at
the ministerial level. Up to now, the departments concerned have
made a comprehensive and systematical study on the implementation
of the Convention and the issue of compatibility between China's
national legislation and the Convention and, on that basis, started
to make institutional adjustments on anti-corruption, revise
related laws and enhance the building of the legal system. To meet
the requirements of the Convention, China's legislative authority
is now working on the amendment of the Criminal Law and the
Criminal Procedure Law, including the possible amendment to
establish bribery and corruption as predicate crimes for money
laundering, and the modification of the constituent elements of
such crimes as bribery, corruption and embezzlement. On 31st
October 2006, the Chinese legislative authority adopted the
Anti-Money Laundering Law. The Law sets up the customer information
verification system, record-keeping system, and reporting of
large-value and suspicious transactions and inside supervision
system, and identifies illegal proceeds from bribery, corruption
and other financial crimes as the key targets for anti-money
laundering monitoring. This Law will come into effect on 1st
January 2007.
In order to address both the symptoms and root causes of
corruption, China has taken multi-faceted measures in the judicial,
law enforcement, and administrative fields, to prevent and combat
corruption. Such measures have proved to be effective and
efficient.
In the judicial field, the Chinese judicial organs have taken
more forceful measures against corruption, and investigates,
prosecutes and adjudicates bribery and corruption cases according
to law. In law enforcement, governments at all levels have
formulated conduct code for civil servants and taken more stringent
measures to ensure that officials act according to law and exercise
probity and self-discipline. Meanwhile, the government and law
enforcement agencies encourage and are receptive to supervision
from the general public and the media. A public reporting system
has been set up to facilitate public participation in the fight
against corruption. It is fair to say that in the fight against
corruption in China, the legislative, judicial and administrative
departments work hand in hand and the government, community and
individual all take part thus forming an enabling environment in
the anti-corruption campaign.
While working on domestic legislation to ensure its
compatibility with the Convention, the Chinese Government also
attaches great importance to international cooperation against
corruption. Not long ago, China successfully hosted the First
Annual Conference of the International Association of
Anti-Corruption Authorities, which was attended by over 900
professionals from more than 130 countries and regions as well as
relevant international organizations. During the Conference,
participants discussed effective implementation of the Convention
Against Corruption, formed the International Association of
Anti-Corruption Authorities and adopted the Resolution of the First
Annual Conference and General Meeting of the International
Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities, laying down a solid
foundation for reinforcing international cooperation in combating
embezzlement, bribery and other corruptive offences.
The United Nations Convention against Corruption is the first
global legal instrument against corruption. It establishes the
norms acceptable to all countries in their joint campaign against
corruption. It sets up principles and rules for recovering assets
related to corruption, and for the first time at international
level, puts in place mechanisms of enhancing international
cooperation in assets confiscation and mutual legal assistance, of
technical assistance, and of review mechanism of implementation of
the Convention. We hope all States Parties will demonstrate the
political will for sincere cooperation on the basis of mutual
respect for sovereignty, equality and mutual benefit, so that the
Convention will truly serve as a legal foundation and a powerful
tool for international anti-corruption cooperation. For this
purpose, we wish to put forward the following proposals on the
implementation of the Convention for the review of this
Conference:
With regard to the review mechanism of the implementation of the
Convention, we hold that at the current stage, focus should be kept
on the current provisions of the Convention and all work be based
on the mechanism of the Conference of the States Parties and the
Secretariat as provided for by the Convention. Experience should be
accumulated as the Convention is put into actual implementation. In
order to explore and gradually set up a review mechanism for
implementation that best fits into the actual circumstances of the
implementation of the Convention, a step-by-step approach should be
adopted.
On asset recovery, since asset recovery is an innovative and
unique legal system set by the Convention, and given the absence of
judicial practice of asset recovery under the Convention, which
came into force only recently, as well as the complex legal
procedures on asset recovery stipulated by the Convention, the
specific implementation of the legal framework of asset recovery
will depend, to a large extend, on how relevant domestic laws are
linked up with the provisions of the Convention. We hold that the
Conference of the States Parties should put asset recovery high on
its agenda and focus on the following two aspects: at the political
level, special attention should be given to strengthening the
political will among States Parties for cooperation in this field.
Efforts should be made to prevent the criminals from misusing the
judicial procedures of the country where they hide to evade to
extradition and deportation, which weakens the effect of asset
recovery. At the legal level, special efforts should be taken to
overcome the legal obstacles between the requesting states and the
requested states, in order to close the possible loopholes caused
by discrepancies in legal systems between the requesting states and
the requested states of which the criminals might take advantage.
In general, deliberation of the Conference of the States Parties on
this issue should facilitate the states parties to make more
effective use of the criminal law measures including tracing,
seizure, freezing and confiscation, civil law measures including
initiating civil action in the requested states, and measures for
international cooperation such as mutual legal assistance and
extradition, in order to promote the recovery of the assets.
With regard to technical assistance, we suggest that targeted
projects and plans on technical assistance be identified through
studies to address the possible difficulties developing countries
may encounter during the process of implementation the Convention,
so that developing countries will get more assistance in terms of
human and technical resources in preventing and punishing
corruption and effectively implementing the Convention, and their
capacity of implementation will be enhanced. This is of crucial
importance to the full and effective implementation of the
Convention.
We are glad to note that another three forums are going to be
held during the Conference. We hope that discussions in these
forums be practical and constructive, in order to contribute to the
effective implementation of the Convention. We wish all three
forums yield satisfying results.
This gathering of representatives to the conference of the State
Parties in Jordan will send a clear signal to the world: that is,
the international community bears no tolerance for corruption,
which undermines the interests of our country, our society and our
people. I wish to reiterate that the Chinese government is resolute
in combating corruption, and that its position on strengthening
international anti-corruption cooperation is unequivocal. China
will work with the international community, and contribute our part
to the effective implementation of the Convention, so that together
we will foster a healthy legal environment for the economic and
social development of China and the world.