India Ratifies United Nations Convention Against Corruption
On May 12, 2011, India became the 152nd country to ratify the United Nations Convention against Corruption (“UNCAC”). The UNCAC which was originally adopted by the UN General Assembly on October 31, 2003, and entered into force on December 14, 2005.
India is the fourth country to ratify the UNCAC this year, following ratification by Iceland, Thailand, and Nepal in March. According to press reports, India’s Prime Minister characterized the ratification as a reaffirmation of India’s commitment “to fight corruption and to undertake vigorously administrative legal reforms to enable our law enforcement agencies to recover the illicit assets stolen by corrupt practices.”
The UNCAC contains mandatory and non-mandatory provisions related to five principal topics: (1) prevention of corruption; (2) criminalization and law enforcement measures; (3) international cooperation; (4) asset recovery; and (5) technical assistance and information exchange.
