The countries that have signed but not ratified the Treaty yet are Montenegro, Serbia and Moldova. Experts call on other countries to adhere to the Treaty as well.
The Treaty was drafted by the Regional Anti-Corruption Initiative (RAI) with the support of the representatives of anti-corruption bodies of South Eastern Europe and other stakeholders, including the Basel Institute of Governance, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, United Nations Development Programme, World Bank, and the European Commission. The agreement is based on the provisions of such international anti-corruption documents as:
- Article 43, paragraph 1, of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (hereinafter, the UNCAC) in accordance to which the States parties shall consider assisting each other in investigations of and proceedings in civil and administrative matters relating to corruption;
- Resolution 6/4 of the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption “Enhancing the use of civil and administrative proceedings against corruption, including through international cooperation, in the framework of the United Nations Convention against Corruption”.
The purpose of the Treaty is to ensure direct exchange of information about asset declarations between its parties.
The information that can be shared concerns:
- Taxes;
- Bank accounts;
- Securities;
- Real estate;
- Vehicles and other movable property;
- Enterprises, companies, trusts, foundations and similar legal persons related to the declarant;
- Intellectual property rights.
In order to exchange information, States parties need to create focal points responsible for sending and receiving requests of information sharing, provision of necessary data, including accumulation of such data from competent domestic authorities, publication of statistics regarding the requests received/sent.
The Treaty provides for the exchange of information:
- Upon request;
- Automatically, where the relevant information sharing mechanisms are in place;
- At the initiative of the focal points to whose knowledge the information that can be reasonably related to the achievement of the objectives of the Treaty comes.
Additionally, the Treaty provides for the establishment and regular update of a central registry of open-access online databases of the States parties.
Any country able autonomously to accomplish the purpose of the Treaty and member State of the European Union can join the Treaty.
It should be highlighted that given that verification of asset declarations is a preventive measure, the use of mutual legal assistance mechanisms applicable only to criminal cases is impossible for these purposes.
At the same time, experts highlight that corrupt officials often conceal their assets, including ill-gotten gains, abroad, and the bodies that verify asset declarations do not have access to the information in other jurisdictions. This is the main reason indicated by the verifying authorities that explain why they can use the potential of asset declarations only to a very limited extent: tracing of assets usually stops at the internal borders, and neither the UNCAC nor any other international treaty solves this problem.
The mechanism of exchange of information on assets provided by the Treaty can enhance the effectiveness of the relevant corruption prevention tool, and ratification of the Treaty will allow its States parties to exchange respective information outside criminal proceedings.
