A four-day conference, in Xianghe of Hebei Province, attended by over 900 delegates representing anti-corruption authorities from 137 countries and regions as well as 12 international organizations, ended up with the establishment of the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities (IAACA) on October 25.

"To establish such an association was a common wish of many countries in the world, especially China," Chu Huaizhi, a law professor of Peking University, was quoted by the Beijing News as saying on November 3. Chu is also a member of the Consulting Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

According to the Ministry of Public Security, at the end of 2005, China had over 500 economic criminal suspects at large, most of them corrupt officials, and money involved totaling 70 billion yuan (US$8.9 billion).

Given current circumstances, in its fight against fugitive criminals, China has trouble with fund recovery, evidence collection, and extradition, Chu said.

"To recover embezzled money, a fugitive's property needs to be confiscated at first," he said. However, since trial in absentia is not part of China's penal code, expropriation based on a court decision is impossible.

A court in a foreign country may be asked to conduct a trial, but this requires the Chinese government to prove the money was obtained illegally. Nevertheless, China's evidence system is very different from that of Western countries, "leading to a non-acceptance of evidence it has gathered by foreign judicial organs in most cases," Chu said.

For instance, Yu Zhendong, former president of the Kaiping city branch of the Bank of China in Guangdong Province, who was accused of embezzlement of public funds, transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign accounts. So far, only a fraction of this has been recovered.
 
Most high-ranking officials embezzling vast sums of money usually escape to developed countries like the US, Canada and Australia, with which China has no extradition treaties. "This explains why the repatriation of Lai Changxing was delayed again and again," Chu said. Lai, the mastermind of a US$10 billion scheme, fled to Canada in 1999 with his wife and children and was described as "China's most wanted fugitive."

The UN Convention Against Corruption was adopted in October 2003 and entered into vigor in December 2005. It will facilitate global cooperation in fighting graft, helped by special international organization playing a coordinating role. "The IAACA emerged at the right moment," Chu said.

"The IAACA's regulations adopted at the Xianghe conference explicitly state its nature as an independent, non-governmental, non-political, non-profit international organization," IAACA Secretary-General Ye Feng told the Beijing News on November 1. Ye also serves as director of the Foreign Affairs Bureau of China's Supreme People's Procuratorate.

International judicial collaboration is a highly complex issue, involving many sensitive issues such as human rights, death penalty, various political factors and national interests. As an NGO, the IAACA composed of procuratorial organs in charge of anti-corruption in member states combines authoritativeness with efficiency and flexibility, and provides a multilateral opportunity to boost the global fight against corruption, Ye said.

The Xianghe conference also formulated IAACA's development strategy, including:

• Establishing efficient information exchange mechanisms;
• Providing technical training enabling member states to educate each other in anti-corruption work;
• Building up direct cooperation mechanisms to gather evidence, chase and extradite fugitives, and return embezzled money;
• Holding annual meetings, regional conferences and regular symposiums to promote direct anti-corruption efforts.

Direct cooperation is very difficult, Prof. Huang Feng of Beijing Normal University said, "requiring full confidence among member states, norms that can be jointly adhered to, and a professional and highly efficient permanent institution."

"Offering training to personnel from developing nations is one of IAACA's functions that merit cheers," Prof. Chu Huaizhi said, adding that as concerning developing countries, learning from the experience of procuratorial bodies in developed countries or regions is essential for their fight against corruption. Last year China's Hong Kong received 80 judicial officials from 24 countries to take 10 anti-corruption training programs.

(China.org.cn by Shao Da, November 10, 2006)