that this is this court, in your view, is needed to pursue the kleptocrats, the politicians who perpetrate financial crimes, bribery, extortion and so on. so you now want to say that you could actually pursue the private sector in the court? i was trying to be succinct originally. yes. anybody who conspires with a kleptocrat or another high official within the jurisdiction of the court. all right. anybody who aids and abets that crime, anybody who participates in laundering the money in a criminal way would be subject to prosecution along with the principal, the kleptocrat, in the international anti corruption court. but if we ve got the laws that already exist and we ve got international bodies like the oecd, which has a very robust anti corruption charter, you mentioned the united nations convention against corruption, which requires laws criminalising bribery, embezzlement, money laundering and all the rest of it. we have financial services regulatory authorities in a lot of countri
but this is an effort that really has substantial support from these countries malaysia and africa, latin america. so a very different model, 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 been introduced to mr stephenson, to some of his work in corruption, but he s never investigated
optimistic about creating this court, and i m more hopeful 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 one 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. 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,
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.
a house of commons foreign affairs select committee injune this year, talking about london and its role in money laundering as a hub, said that there has been little commitment of 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