View our December 2018 newsletter here.
Introduction by Gretta Fenner, Managing Director, Basel Institute on Governance:
It’s been a great year is the title of our fourth and last newsletter of this year.
That may sound cynical. We have seen more and even bigger corruption scandals revealed, money laundering risks are on the rise, and journalists around the world have lost their lives over reporting about corruption. This is anything but great.
View the August 2018 newsletter here.
Introduction from Gretta Fenner, Managing Director, Basel Institute on Governance:
A summary of groundbreaking research into social norms and attitudes towards corruption by our Public Governance team has been published in Ellis, Jane (ed.) Corruption, Social Sciences and the Law – Exploration across the disciplines. Published by Routledge, the book is part of a series entitled The Law of Financial Crime.
This eye-opening exploration of social norms and attitudes towards corruption appears in Chapter 12 of Ellis, Jane (ed.) Corruption, Social Sciences and the Law – Exploration across the disciplines, published by Routledge on 15 May 2019 as part of a series entitled The Law of Financial Crime. See the publisher's flyer with full details of the book and a 20% discount code.
Gold Laundering – the dirty secrets of the gold trade and how to clean up is the latest book by Professor Mark Pieth, President of the Basel Institute on Governance. Published by Salis Verlag in English and German, Gold Laundering looks at how the global gold market works, its fundamental role in shaping economic and political history, and its relation to human rights violations, environmental destruction, corruption and other major problems.
In this eye-opening book, Mark Pieth gives an in-depth insight into how the global gold market works, what role Switzerland plays in it, where the hidden abuses lie and how human rights in the gold industry can be protected in a credible way.
Anti-corruption compliance doesn’t have to be complicated. Even small and mid-sized companies can easily build the basics of an effective anti-corruption compliance programme.
Start by asking yourself: are you doing these five things?
From the Taliban in Southwest Asia to al Shabaab in the Horn of Africa to drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico, the behavior, capabilities, and ultimate success or failure of terrorist, criminal, and other transnational threats are closely tied to economic and financial factors.
The key determinants of whether particular species and ecosystems will live or die today are social factors – criminal behavior, political corruption, consumer behavior, land use decisions, cultural norms and practices, individual psychology, conflict, poverty, local livelihood choices, socio-economic inequalities, et al. But despite recognizing that our current biodiversity catastrophe has human, social roots, conservationists and environmentalists have yet to translate such consensus into action to save wildlife and the natural environment on a wide scale.
One of the most serious security threats posed by poaching and wildlife trafficking may also be one of the least well documented: their relationship with organised crime.
To shed light on the subject, this chapter analyses the most common narratives on the link between poaching, wildlife trafficking and organised crime – and the security threat this link poses in African source and transit countries.