What are the International Anti-Corruption Conventions?

In recent years, the world has become aware of the negative effects of corruption on good governance and on the development of countries. Fighting corruption has become an important theme on the international agenda. This has led various international organizations to develop International Anti-Corruption Conventions (IACC).
These tools are multilateral agreements or treaties between States which seek to prevent or combat acts of corruption. They have two basic objectives:

• To work towards a standard document which will provide an internationally agreed definition of what constitutes corruption since it does not exist such a definition . Various conventions include as acts of corruption bribery, trading of influence and illicit gain, amongst others.
• To recommend strategic directions to help countries to combat corruption.

Since 1996, 7 IACC have been adopted and entered into force:

• The Inter-American Convention against Corruption (ICAC) of the Organization of American States (OAS)
• The Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (Anti-Bribery Convention of the OECD)
• The United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC)
• The Penal and Civil Conventions on Corruption of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO)
• The Convention of the African Union (AU) to Prevent and Combat Corruption
• The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), which deals with corruption in a specific area: transnational organized crime.