You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service.

This is Hard Talk with me, Sean Lay.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program, and I hope you enjoy it.

Judge Mark Wolf, welcome to Hard Talk.

Why do you think we need an international anti-corruption court?

We need an international anti-corruption court because grand corruption, the abuse of public office for private gain, is endemic.

It flourishes in many countries throughout the world. It has devastating consequences.

Ten times more is lost to corruption in developing countries than they receive in foreign aid.

Indignation at corruption generates constituents for terrorist organizations like

Boko Haram and the Taliban, which have positioned themselves as the prime opponents of corrupt

governments in their capitals.

There's a virtual complete correlation between the countries that are most corrupt at the top

and those that are most abusive of their citizens' human rights.

Navi Pile, when she was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, correctly said corruption kills.

The amount lost to corruption every year could feed the world's hungry 80 times over.

And if I can just add, the problem is not a lack of laws. 183 countries have signed the UN Convention against

corruption. They all have laws making bribery and extortion, misappropriation, national

resources illegally. But many of them do not enforce those laws against their corrupt leaders because

those leaders control the police, the prosecutors, and the courts.

In those circumstances, given that donor countries are losing vast sums of money,

giving that there is anger in the countries themselves affected, why haven't we had an anti-corruption

court by now? What's the obstacle?

...