In 2016, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime launched a global programme to promote a culture of lawfulness. It includes the creation of a Global Judicial Integrity Network to share best practices and lessons learned on the fundamental challenges and new questions relating to judicial integrity and the prevention of corruption.
This is an important step for the creation of a common language and a common perspective amongst different domains of the United Nations. In my capacity as Special Rapporteur, I have already expressed my full disposal to collaborate in the implementation of this programme.
In partnership with the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) and the Judicial College of England and Wales, UNODC's training workshop was held in Brussels this month, with participants from Jamaica, Mozambique, Brazil, the Solomon Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Uganda and Mauritius. These countries, as part of the larger group of pilots site jurisdictions which also includes Pakistan, Madagascar, Tunisia and Belize, will become the first group of trainers, initiating themselves the implementation of their learning in their respective jurisdictions.
"Finding the perfect balance between integrity, transparency, accountability and judicial independence is absolutely essential," said UNODC's Oliver Stolpe at a special event on preventing corruption in the justice sector held on the margins of this week's Seventh Session of the Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).
Speaking on this issue, he was joined by others including Tilman Hoppe, a consultant with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH ; Christina Tarna, an anti-Corruption Expert in the Republic of Moldova; and Judge Rafael Menezes, vice-president of the International Association of Judges.
This week, the final regional preparatory meeting for the upcoming Global Judicial Integrity Network was held in Namibia for Anglophone and Lusophone African countries. From 16 to 17 October, Chief Justices and senior judges from 17 countries gathered to add their voices to what will be the world's first-ever global platform dedicated exclusively to upholding judicial integrity and preventing corruption within the justice system once launched in April 2018.
The meeting - jointly hosted by UNODC and the Office of the Judiciary of the Republic of Namibia - follows similar regional events held over the past year in Asia, Europe, Francophone Africa, and Latin America.
As part of UNODC's anti-corruption efforts, a series of meetings and discussions with Chief Justices and senior judicial officers are currently taking place across the world ahead of the 2018 launch of the Global Judicial Integrity Network.
To ensure that voices and views from across Africa are taken into account in the development of the Network, a preparatory meeting was held in early-October in Ouagadougou, following similar events in Asia (Bangkok), Europe (Vienna) and Latin America (Panama). The event brought together some 30 high-level attendees, including eight Supreme Court presidents as well as those from the Courts of Cassation and other representatives of judicial institutions from 15 countries across the region.
