Publication: Orders without Borders: Direct Enforcement of Foreign Restraint and Confiscation Decisions
Loading...
Files in English
646 downloads
Published
2021-12-13
ISSN
Date
2021-12-08
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This book offers an in-depth analysis of the concept of the direct enforcement of foreign restraint and confiscation orders, a crucial step in the process of asset recovery, including existing legal approaches and related challenges. In order to provide a balanced and informed overview, 31 jurisdictions, representing different United Nations regional groups and legal systems (civil law / common law / mixed systems), were selected as the focus of the analysis. This approach provides a meaningful picture of the situation worldwide from which generally applicable guidance could be drawn. The study suggests a series of practical steps and good practices for consideration by (1) countries exploring the possibility to introduce a direct enforcement mechanism into their domestic legal frameworks and (2) countries already in a position to directly enforce foreign confiscation orders but that are considering options to streamline processes and maximize results obtainable via direct enforcement approaches. This new StAR Initiative knowledge product is addressed to a broad range of law enforcement, justice, and asset recovery practitioners, as well as bodies involved in legislative and regulatory processes, and will be useful tool in their work.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Betti, Stefano; Kozin, Vladimir; Brun, Jean-Pierre. 2021. Orders without Borders: Direct Enforcement of Foreign Restraint and Confiscation Decisions. International Development in Focus;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36691 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Barriers to Asset Recovery : An Analysis of the Key Barriers and Recommendations for Action(World Bank, 2011-06-20)Theft of public assets from developing countries is an immense problem with a staggering development impact. These thefts diverts valuable public resources from addressing the abject poverty and fragile infrastructure often present in such countries. Although the exact magnitude of the proceeds of corruption circulating in the global economy is impossible to ascertain, estimates demonstrate the severity and scale of the problem at $20 to $40 billion lost to developing countries each year. What this estimate does not capture are the societal costs of corruption and the devastating impact of such crimes on victim countries. Theft of assets by corrupt officials, often at the highest levels of government, weakens confidence in public institutions, damages the private investment climate, and divests needed funding available for core investment in such poverty alleviation measures as public health, education, and infrastructure. This study's key objective is to mobilize policy makers on the existing difficulties in stolen asset recovery actions and convince them to take action on the featured recommendations. Such action will enhance the capacity of practitioners to successfully recover stolen assets.Publication Asset Recovery Handbook : A Guide for Practitioners(World Bank, 2011-01-18)The handbook is organized into nine chapters, a glossary, and ten appendixes of additional resources. Chapter one provides a general overview of the asset recovery process and legal avenues for recovery, along with practical case examples. Chapter two presents a host of strategic considerations for developing and managing an asset recovery case, including gathering initial sources of facts and information, assembling a team, and establishing a relationship with foreign counterparts for international cooperation. Chapter three introduces the techniques that practitioners may use to trace assets and analyze financial data, as well as to secure reliable and admissible evidence for asset confiscation cases. The provisional measures and planning necessary to secure the assets prior to confiscation are discussed in chapter four; and chapter five introduces some of the management issues that practitioners will need to consider during this phase. Confiscation systems are the focus of chapter six, including a review of the different systems and how they operate and the procedural enhancements that are available in some jurisdictions. On the issue of international cooperation, chapter seven reviews the various methods available, including informal assistance and mutual legal assistance requests; and guides practitioners through the entire process. Finally, chapters eight and nine discuss two additional avenues for asset recovery-respectively, civil proceedings and domestic confiscation proceedings undertaken in foreign jurisdictions.Publication Asset Recovery Handbook(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-12-10)The Asset Recovery Handbook: A Guide for Practitioners has been updated in 2020 by the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) initiative, a joint initiative of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime and the World Bank focused on encouraging and facilitating a more systematic and timely return of stolen assets. Designed as a how-to manual, the handbook guides practitioners as they grapple with the strategic, organizational, investigative, and legal challenges of recovering assets that have been stolen by corrupt leaders and hidden abroad. It provides common approaches to recovering stolen assets located in foreign jurisdictions, identifies the challenges that practitioners are likely to encounter, and introduces good practices. By consolidating into a single framework, information that is dispersed across various professional backgrounds, the handbook has enhanced the effectiveness of practitioners working in a team environment. After 10 years of serving as a recognized reference for practitioners and trainers since it was first published in 2011, the StAR initiative decided to develop this updated version by incorporating developments based on the experience collected during this decade, including new legislation and case examples. This 2020 second edition emphasizes the need to utilize innovative strategies and technical tools, including in the context of international cooperation.Publication Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism - A Comprehensive Training Guide : Workbook 5. Domestic (Inter-agency) and International Cooperation(World Bank, 2009)"Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism: a Comprehensive Training Guide" is one of the products of the capacity enhancement program on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Funding of Terrorism (AML/CFT), which has been co-funded by the Governments of Sweden, Japan, Denmark, and Canada. The program offers countries the tools, skills, and knowledge to build and strengthen their institutional, legal, and regulatory frameworks to successfully implement their national action plan on these efforts. This workbook includes seven training course modules: effects on economic development and international standards (module one); legal requirements to meet international standards (module two); regulatory and institutional requirements for AML/CFT (module three a ); compliance requirements for financial institutions (module three b); building an effective financial intelligence unit (module four); domestic (interagency) and international cooperation (module five); combating the financing of terrorism(module six); and investigating money laundering and terrorist financing (module seven).Publication Stolen Asset Recovery : A Good Practices Guide for Non-conviction Based Asset Forfeiture(World Bank, 2009)The guide is organized into three major parts: Part A first provides an overview of the problem of stolen assets and the problem of recovering the assets once they are transferred abroad. Second, it describes how the international community has taken steps to respond to the problem through United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative. UNCAC introduced a new framework to facilitate the tracing, freezing, seizing, forfeiture, and return of assets stolen through corrupt practices and hidden in foreign jurisdictions. The StAR Initiative developed an action plan to support the domestication and implementation of asset recovery provisions under UNCAC, to facilitate countries' efforts to recover stolen assets that have been hidden in foreign jurisdictions, and ultimately, to help deter such flows and eliminate safe havens for hiding corruption proceeds. Third and finally, Part A introduces non-conviction based (NCB) asset forfeiture as one of the critical tools to combat corruption, describing the situations when it is useful, how it differs from criminal forfeiture, its usefulness in civil and common law jurisdictions, and the support it has gained internationally. Part B contains the 36 key concepts. The concepts have been grouped together by topic area, including prime imperatives, definitions of assets and offenses subject to NCB asset forfeiture, measures for investigation and preservation of assets, procedural and evidentiary concepts, determining parties and ensuring proper notice, judgment proceedings, organizational considerations and asset management, and international cooperation and asset recovery. The concepts are illustrated through examples from cases and excerpts from different jurisdictions' NCB asset forfeiture legislation. Part C contains a number of special contributions written by individual practitioners. The contributions focus on the general practice of NCB asset forfeiture and international cooperation in specific jurisdictions, namely Colombia, Guernsey, Ireland, Kuwait, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. In addition, some contributions illustrate a selection of NCB asset forfeiture practices, such as asset management, delegating certain roles to the executive branch, and pursuing forfeiture based on illicit enrichment.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Building Stability Between Host and Refugee Communities(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06)The resettlement of refugees in host communities increases (perceived) competition for scarce economic and non-economic resources, which can contribute to tensions between the communities. This study tests the impact of a TVET program in Jordan and Lebanon that aims to tackle stresses associated with competition, particularly in the labor market. The authors test the impact of the program on economic outcomes, economic and life optimism, experience and perception of economic competition and ingroup-outgroup discrimination using a range of survey measures and behavioral experiments. They also conduct heterogeneity analyses to assess whether the intervention affects host and refugee communities similarly. The authors show that by the end of the training, the program has not yet achieved its employment aims for either hosts or refugees. However, for refugees, there are significant improvements in optimism and decreases in the experience of short-term economic stress. There are also improvements in inter-group behavior for refugees. These results provide insights on how to better tailor labor market programs to host and refugees while being conflict sensitive.Publication Improving Logistics Costs for Transportation and Trade Facilitation(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-03)Access to basic infrastructure services - roads, electricity, water, sanitation - and the efficient provision of the services, is a key challenge in the fight against poverty. Many of the poor (and particularly the extreme poor) in rural communities in Latin America live on average 5 kilometers or more from the nearest paved road, which is almost twice as far as non-poor rural households. There have been major improvements in access to water, sanitation, electricity, telecommunications, ports, and airports, but road coverage has not changed much, although some effort and resources have been invested to improve the quality of road networks. This paper focuses on the main determinants of logistics costs and physical access to services and, whenever possible, provides evidence of the effects of these determinants on competitiveness, growth, and poverty in Latin American economies. The analysis shows the impact of improving infrastructure and logistics costs on three fronts - macro (growth), micro (productivity at the firm level), and poverty (the earnings of poor/rural people). In addition, the paper provides recommendations and solutions that encompass a series of policies to reduce the prevalent high logistics costs and limited access to services in Latin America. The recommendations rely on applied economic analysis on logistics and trade facilitation.Publication Thriving : Making Cities Green, Resilient, and Inclusive in a Changing Climate(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2023-05-18)Globally, 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions emanate from cities. At the same time, cities are being hit increasingly by climate change related shocks and stresses, ranging from more frequent extreme weather events to inflows of climate migrants. This report analyzes how these shocks and stresses are interacting with other urban stresses to determine the greenness, resilience, and inclusiveness of urban and national development. It provides policymakers with a compass for designing tailored policies that can help cities and countries take effective action to mitigate and adapt to climate change.Publication Unexplained Wealth Orders(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-28)Several countries have in recent years introduced the unexplained wealth order (UWO) as a tool to improve recoveries of the proceeds of crime—particularly kleptocracy, the fruits of corruption by government officials. While it is too early to be able to draw any definite conclusions as to its effectiveness in curbing corruption, the UWO contains novel ideas that are worth examining in more depth. UWOs oblige persons suspected of corruption or other serious crimes in these countries to explain the origin of their wealth and discrepancies between their legitimate sources of income and the value of their assets. UWOs are a civil, not criminal action and can be an invaluable tool in asset recovery cases in which cross-border identification and tracing of criminal and corrupt assets is a challenge for relevant investigative agencies and prosecutors. The report provides suggestions on approaches to develop similar policies and makes recommendations for future efforts to use UWOs to combat money laundering and corruption. The purpose of this study is to provide policy makers with an overview of UWO systems by placing them in the context of other asset recovery tools and drawing lessons for countries contemplating the introduction of UWO-type legislation. While the design and implementation of UWO systems are very much in a state of evolution, they may fill a gap in asset recovery systems. UWO systems, like other legal tools, depend on other legal and institutional aspects in each jurisdiction. If a country considers implementing a UWO system, it should form part of a more comprehensive whole of policies and must be adapted to the specific legal context. For example, countries that have established a strong forfeiture system based on value confiscation or civil confiscation, not requiring prosecutors to show a link between assets and a crime, may not need UWOs as much as other countries that have not.