From 2 to 4 June 2021, the world came together at the first-ever General Assembly special session against corruption, titled “Special session of the General Assembly on challenges and measures to prevent and combat corruption and strengthen international cooperation”, also known as “UNGASS 2021”, taking stock of progress made and lessons learned in tackling corruption and adopting a strong political declaration to step up anti-corruption action and accelerate implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
Through a comprehensive set of commitments, the political declaration addresses the “classical chapters” of UNCAC, namely prevention, criminalization and law enforcement, international cooperation, asset recovery and technical assistance. It also looks, however, at the future by tackling cross-cutting, emerging issues such as corruption and gender, better research and education, or the role of modern technologies in combating corruption. Through the adoption of the political declaration by the General Assembly at its special session against corruption, Member States recognized the importance of mainstreaming transparency and anti-corruption as a cross-cutting enabler for the broader development agenda and stressed that anti-corruption measures can help promote gender equality, human rights, address organized crime, safeguard sport from corruption, and ensure crisis responses are effective and efficient.
In paragraph 85 of the political declaration adopted at the special session, Member States committed to implementing the declaration and invited the Conference of the States Parties to the Convention, as the treaty body with prime responsibility for promoting and reviewing the implementation of the Convention, to follow up and build on the declaration.
In its resolution 9/2 entitled “Our common commitment to effectively addressing challenges and implementing measures to prevent and combat corruption and strengthening international cooperation: follow-up to the special session of the General Assembly against corruption”, the Conference of the States Parties to the Convention responded to the call by the special session and committed to following up and building on the political declaration. The Conference directed its subsidiary bodies, within their mandates, to take appropriate measures to follow up on the political declaration.
