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| Manmohan Singh's government has been hit by a number of corruption scandals recently |
India has ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Thursday 12th May.
The move will help the Singh government deflect criticism that it is soft on corruption, after being rocked by a number of scandals in recent months.
"The ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption is a reaffirmation of our government's commitment to fight corruption and to undertake vigorously administrative and legal reforms to enable our law-enforcement agencies to recover the illicit assets stolen by corrupt practices," Singh said in a statement on Thursday morning.
The convention, which is legally binding, was adopted by the General Assembly of the UN on 31st October 2003, by Resolution 58/4. It entered into force on 14th December, 2005 after being ratified by 30 states. It has now been signed by 140 states.
India signed the convention in December 2005, and according to Singh, has been considering ratification since September 2010, when a group of ministers was appointed to oversee it.
Before ratifying the convention, the government had to amend domestic laws to bring about greater transparency in funding election campaigns and political parties, as well as other legislative steps to bring it into line with the convention's requirements.
The convention sets out ways for countries to prevent and criminalise corruption, and it requires countries to return assets obtained through corruption to the state they came from.
It also prescribes disciplinary and other measures against public officials who violate established standards.
Some of the world's largest economies, including Germany and Japan, have yet to ratify the convention.
Sources: The Hindu, Times of India, Wall Street Journal
For more information, please see the Menas ACCS website, here.
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