A California Crime Caper
Larry Lohmann
The bestselling Los Angeles crime novelist James Ellroy is known for his entertaining re-imaginings of US history between 1940-1970. His novels reflect his dark vision of what police, politicians, bureaucrats, criminals, movie stars and intellectuals were really thinking and doing behind the scenes, but never appeared in the official record. Ellroy calls it the news that was “unfit to print.”
Comments for the California Air Resources Board on the California Tropical Forest Standard and Draft Environmental Analysis
Larry Lohmann
California’s Air Resources Board has postponed until April 2019 any decision on whether to endorse a Tropical Forest Standard (TFS). The TFS purports to be a step toward ensuring the "environmental integrity" of schemes to use carbon-storing forests to generate greenhouse gas pollution rights for California industry. The postponement came after a 15 November 2018 public meeting featuring testimonies by academics and activists criticizing the TFS.
A Proposal for the 2015 Paris Climate Summit
Oilwatch International
During 20 years of UN climate negotiations, countries classified according to the UN climate convention as Annex I and II have prevented specific and binding actions to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, the root of global warming. The international Oilwatch network is proposing a new Annex – Annex Zero – of the Indigenous Peoples and nations, provinces, states, sub-national regions and localities that actually are doing something to keep fossil fuels in the ground, and is collecting commitments from like-minded people who would like to be part of Annex Zero.
Larry Lohmann
In autumn 2015 California's Air Resources Board invited comments on its White Paper entitled “Scoping Next Steps for Evaluating the Potential Role of Sector-Based Offset Credits under the California Cap-and-Trade Program, Including from Jurisdictional 'Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation' Programs ”.
Both the White Paper and The Corner House's submission on it are available here.
A Submission to the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on International Corporate Responsibility
The Corner House
A UK Treasury-financed, off-balance-sheet vehicle may be hiding the extent of the financial liabilities of UK Export Finance (formerly the Export Credit Guarantee Department) and may also be concealing its use of taxpayer funds to cover operational expenses.
In addition, UK Export Finance has failed to put in place procedures that would enable it to comply with its legally-binding obligations (notably with respect to human rights) under Article 21 of the Lisbon Treaty.
These are among the conclusions of a recent Corner House submission to a UK Parliamentary group, one part of a broader questioning by civil society groups of the human rights and sustainability practices of Britain's official export subsidy apparatus.
NGO submissions and correspondence
The Corner House and others
In December 2009, the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) announced a public consultation on proposed revisions to its Business Principles, including wide-ranging changes to its environmental, social and human rights safeguard policies and its anti-bribery and corruption measures. The Corner House and others submitted a joint response detailing the potentially signficiant negative impacts triggered by the proposed changes to policies on child labour and forced labour, greenhouse gas accounting, transparency, anti-bribery and financial risks.
Memoranda to the Joint Committee on Human Rights
The Corner House
The Joint Committee on Human Rights of the UK Parliament requested evidence for its inquiry into business and human rights on the State's duty to protect against human rights abuses by businesses; corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and the need for individuals to have effective access to remedies when their human rights are breached. The Corner House submission to the Committee focused on the policies and practices of the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) in the context of the state's duty to protect human rights. The Committee subsequently called for supplementary evidence on the government's Draft Bribery Bill and the Industry and Exports (Financial Support) Bill, which The Corner House provided.
Memoranda to Joint Committee scrutinising the Bill
The Corner House
On 25 March 2009, the UK Ministry of Justice published its long-awaited Draft Bribery Bill, the stated aim of which is "to reform the criminal law to provide a new, modern and comprehensive scheme of bribery offences that will enable courts and prosecutors to respond more effectively to bribery at home or abroad". The Corner House was requested by the Joint Parliamentary Committee scrutinising the Bill to submit evidence on the proposed new offence of bribing foreign public officials.
Memorandum to Environmental Audit Committee Inquiry
The Corner House
Memorandum from The Corner House to the Environmental Audit Committee
The Corner House
This Corner House submission to a 2008 inquiry by the Environmental Audit Committee into the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department and Sustainable Development critiqued the ECGD's decision-making procedures concerning sustainable development; its inadequate Business Principles and need for a proactive approach; its due diligence and monitoring; information disclosure; and the OECD and ECA reform.
The Corner House
This Corner House submission to a parliamentary committee scrutinising the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill argues that the proposed legislation does not sufficiently protect the independence of prosecutors and creates a grave risk of abuse by the Government of national security arguments.
Dinah Rose QC, Ben Jaffey, Richard Stein and Jamie Beagent
The UK Government's draft Constitutional Renewal Bill proposes to create a new power for a political appointee and member of the Government, the Attorney General, to stop a criminal investigation or prosecution on the grounds of 'national security' without explanation or accountability to Parliament, the Courts or international bodies.
The Corner House
This Corner House submission to the Law Commission's public consultation on reforming the UK's antiquated corruption laws looks at corporate liability and at the role of the Attorney General in halting prosecutions of corruption offences where national security concerns have been raised.
from The Corner House
Dr Susan Hawley
This Corner House submission urges the Woolf Committee, set up by BAE, to look in detail at BAE's use of agents and consultants to obtain contracts, lobbying policies, covert monitoring of NGOs, failure to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, and at how BAE should deal with allegations of its past malpractice.
Assessment Against ECGD Policies on Project Acceptability
The Corner House, Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland), WWF-UK
Any ECGD support for the Anglo-Dutch petrochemical multinational Shell to develop two oil and gas fields off Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East would breach international guidelines and conflict with the UK's sustainable development commitments and its international environmental obligations.
The evidence so far from the OECD Working Group on Bribery Phase 2 reviews
Susan Hawley for ECA-Watch
The OECD's Working Group on Bribery regard export credit agencies (ECAs) as essential to combating bribery and believe that ECA procedures to do so could be significantly improved. The Group's reviews of various OECD countries emphasise the importance of ECAs having proper procedures in place to detect and report bribery suspicions to law enforcement agencies, and to exclude companies convicted of corruption from further export credit support.
Response to the Stakeholder Consultation
The Corner House and RAID
The OECD "Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises" are a set of voluntary principles and standards to which multinationals are expected to adhere. Since 2000, NGOs and others can submit complaints against OECD-based companies to OECD government offices set up to promote adherence to the Guidelines. This document is a submission to the UK Government's assessment of the Guidelines' implementation in the UK.
Susan Hawley
There need to be considerable improvements to the UK's enforcement regime to combat corruption and money laundering. Laws on non tax-deductibility of bribes are not being adequately enforced. The UK government should take further measures to raise awareness of bribery; introduce preventative measures and new corruption legislation; and establish a fair and workable debarment system.
Dr Susan Hawley
On 21 October 2005, the ECGD announced several proposed changes to its anti-corruption procedures. This document outlines The Corner House's concerns about these proposals, particularly the weak audit clause and the non-requirement to supply the identity of agents.
A historic opportunity
ECA-Watch
This submission to the OECD Working Group on Export Credits and Credit Guarantees argues that a strong new OECD Action Statement on Combating Bribery in Officially Supported Export Credits should be agreed in October 2005 and recomends key anti-bribery measures to be incorporated into it.
Dr Susan Hawley
This document outlines ways in which the UK Government can implement a new EU Procurement Directive requiring Member States to exclude companies and individuals convicted of corruption from being awarded public procurement contracts.
The Agenda for 2005
Dr Susan Hawley
This submission to the EU Council Working Group on Trade details how the OECD Action Statement on Combating Bribery in Officially Supported Export Credits should be strengthened and how European Export Credit Agencies should improve their anti-bribery procedures. It was prepared for a special meeting held between the EU Council Working Group on Export Credits and NGOs on 22 June 2005.
Dr Susan Hawley
In January 2005, the UK's export credit agency, ECGD, announced a public consultation into its weakened anti-corruption procedures, introduced following industry lobbying. This submission to that consultation argues that the ECGD should revert to its revised procedures if it is to prevent bribery in the projects that it supports.
Memorandum from The Corner House
Dr Susan Hawley
At the beginning of 2005, the UK Parliament's Trade and Industry Select Committee conducted an inquiry into the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD). During its inquiry, it interviewed the Government Minister responsible for the ECGD about the Department's watering down of its anti-bribery procedures following industry lobbying. In March 2005, the Committee published a report, Implementation of ECGD's Business Principles, that was highly critical of the changes the Department had made to its procedures. This document is The Corner House's submission to the Committee's inquiry.
Memorandum to Environmental Audit Committee Inquiry
Nicholas Hildyard and Susan Hawley
This submission from The Corner House documents in detail how the ECGD’s policies and practices fall far short of compliance with the Government’s sustainable development commitments. It makes several recommendations to address the ECGD’s institutional and procedural failures, and to bring the Department in line with the Government’s sustainable development policies and objectives.
The Corner House
This submission outlines how and why the UK Department for International Development (DfiD), and the multilateral agencies and non-governmental agencies to which its contributes, should act to curb emissions of greenhouse gases in developed countries. It recommends that the UK should support: initiatives to keep fossil fuels in the ground; alternative sources of energy; and movements working towards these ends.
Britain's Role in Promoting Corruption, Cronyism and Graft
The Corner House
This Corner House submission to British House of Commons' International Development Committee's Inquiry into corruption urges the Committee to examine the structural causes of corruption in the countries of the South, such as the policies and programmes that Western governments and agencies push on these countries. It recommends that the Committee focus less on the perceived "lack of political will" to tackle corruption and more on those vested interests that generate immense political will to block investigations when they are initiated and to undermine anti-corruption drives.
and Other Institutional Matters
Larry Lohmann
The decisive piece of evidence for the cosmetic nature of the World Bank's periodic claims to be reforming itself is that its staff are given no incentives to change their ways. The operative incentives for those who want to get anywhere at the Bank have always been to move lots of money, to find jobs for the boys, and to get and stay involved in lots of projects. This talk illustrates this predicament by referring to an "implementation review" of the Bank's forest policy.
