than i ever was before, because in the last 18 months, 300 international leaders, world leaders, including 45 former presidents and prime ministers, and one current president, signed a declaration calling for the court, the. can ijust stop you there? that s exactly the point. 45 former prime ministers and 0ne one current president. yeah. but here. that s not a great deal of global. well, let me. ..support for your initiative. yes, let me carry on. creating this court is now part of a coalition of countries to establish the court and is now part of the official foreign policy of canada and the netherlands. two weeks from today, they and ecuador are convening in the hague, 57 ministers. they ve invited ministers, foreign ministers and their subordinates, from 57 countries. i will be addressing them. there are a number of other countries that have already
then, from the icc, the international criminal court, based in the hague, which pursues those accused of crimes against humanity or war crimes and human rights abuses, because i want to tell you what professor matthew stephenson of harvard university says in relation to your idea for an international anti corru ption court. he says the icc, the international criminal court, suggests the limits rather than the promise of an international anti corruption court because he says it would require a radical re conceptualisation of the icc model, one that states have never shown a willingness to embrace. i brought. i ve introduced mr stephenson to some of his work in corruption, but he s never investigated or prosecuted a case the way many prosecutors have. the international anti corruption court would be different than the international criminal court
in some very significant material ways. the international criminal court is criticised because it s prosecuted exclusively, almost africans. exactly. it goes after the weaker states, yeah. that would not be the case with the international anti corruption court. i think the international criminal court is too much criticised. it s done more good than it s given credit for. but africans have been prosecuted exclusively. a, that s where the crimes within the jurisdiction of the international criminal court have largely occurred crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide. grand corruption exists throughout the world. that s one. two, the international criminal court can have any investigation vetoed by the un security council. china vetoes investigations of north korea. mm hm. it is our present intention to create this court outside of the united nations so there wouldn t be this opportunity for the big political powers to protect their friends and allies.
in the international anti corruption court. all right, so you ve made it quite clear that this international anti corruption court, the. the iacc, would be a court of last resort, just as the international criminal court, the icc, in the hague, prosecutes alleged war criminals if their own national systems can t do it. but in the case of financial corruption, you often find, particularly in countries in africa and some in asia, that it s notjust one or two leaders, it s the entire political system that s corrupt. what are you going to do, arrest everybody? no, but i think this is why the court would be focused on the highest officials of these countries and their co conspirators, because if you want to tackle that endemic corruption, that has to start from the top down. and if you this was my experience prosecuting corrupt public officials in the united states, in massachusetts, when a corrupt official is removed from office, it creates the opportunity for
successive governments to tackle the problem of illicit flows of money from russian kleptocrats . and i fully agree with that. it s a major reason that i m here again after the pandemic. the international anti corruption court would operate on the principle of complementarity, so would prosecute only officials of countries that are unwilling or unable to do so themselves. it would create an incentive for the uk, among others. so would you have pursued former british prime ministers? because parliamentary committee says that successive governments have basically turned a blind eye to this. if. there would be a process for determining fairly whether a country was unwilling or unable to pursue it, and if it was determined to be unwilling, then officials of that country would be subject to prosecution