Today we're talking about the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, Uncac, with my guest, Candace Welsh.

Candice is the chief implementation support section, Corruption Branch of the UNODC.

In that role, she manages the team responsible for the implementation of the

Uncac. Thank you for joining me, Candace.

Oh, it's a pleasure to be here.

The Uncac turns 15 this year. I guess it was adopted in 2003, but came into force in 2005.

Can you walk us through the negotiations that led up to it?

Sure. It started really with the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized

Crime, which was focusing on organized crime, but did have one provision on corruption

and the recognition that organized crime is often facilitated by corruption. And I think the adoption of that convention then really led states' parties to recognize the importance of having a global instrument that focused more specifically on corruption.

And so after the UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime was adopted, they really worked hard.

And within a couple of years,

which by UN Convention Standards is very quick, they had agreed to the text of the UN Convention

Against Corruption. There will be listeners. I'm confident. I hear this often at conferences

who are curious about how the UN Convention differs from other conventions. We have the OECD

convention that we hear a lot about, the OAS, the African Union Convention. Why was there a need

for this convention? A lot of it comes from the global nature. So I think with states around the

world recognizing the important of the problem and wanting

to elevate that to a global standard. And particularly if we look at the OACD Convention on

bribery, which has had a huge impact, but that convention is really focused on foreign bribery.

So it's focused on a particular type of corruption. And I think that really drove states parties to want to have a more comprehensive and a more

global approach to the convention.

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