As part of its Rule of Law services Bretton Woods Law offers an anti-corruption training course for staff working in peace operations in a post conflict environment.
Corruption can seriously hamper efforts to establish governance and restore rule of law in post-conflict countries. While some level of corruption is a common feature in many societies, it can have a devastating effect on a peace mission’s reform efforts in particular in the area of rule of law and can put the entire mission at risk.
Frequently host countries emerging from conflict have high or endemic corruption. Corruption is often both a cause and a consequence of conflict, and effectively addressing it is key for post-conflict state building and the re-establishment of the rule of law in which missions are involved.
Peace operations in post-conflict countries have rarely addressed corruption as a priority focusing instead on more pressing issues such as establishing peace and security. We believe one of the more serious risks in post-conflict which should be addressed is corruption, due to its negative effects on power distribution and longer-term stabilization and ultimately on a mission’s impact and its credibility in the host country.
The deployment of a mission involves major flows of resources and funds, very often without adequate accountability mechanisms, and those key resources are particularly susceptible to corruption and staff need to understand corruption risks within mission operations and arising from it.
A better knowledge and understanding by mission staff of corruption risks and anti-corruption in respect of the host country they support and the mission they work for is central to the success of peace operations.
The training course is offered at two levels, one is introductory providing participants a useful and essential overview of corruption risks and anti-corruption tools in a post-conflict context. The intermediate level training course is designed for those working on host government support and in particular rule of law assistance with a special focus on the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).
The trainers are experienced practitioners in anti-corruption, rule of law and post-conflict environments. They include the Head of BWL Rule of Law Team and BWL’s Lead Counsel Lee Marler who used to be the Director of Operations of the World Bank Group’s Anti-Corruption office and Chief of International Law of UNRWA, BWL’s Lead Counsel Neil Macaulay, a former Senior Prosecutor within the U.K. Revenue and Customs Prosecution office and Antje Kunst, Senior Counsel and former senior legal adviser with UN peace operations.