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Independent Inquiry Committee
The Paul Volcker Committee (Independent Inquiry Committee) was formed to investigate alleged corruption and fraud in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq. The committee was appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan during April 2004, following calls for a Security Council inquiry, which was approved in Resolution 1538. The three member inquiry was chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman and United Nations Association of the United States of America director Paul Volcker. The other members of the inquiry were South African Justice Richard Goldstone and Swiss Professor of Criminal Law Mark Pieth. The committee's 60 members of staff, which included three support personnel on loan from the UN, operated on a $30 million budget drawn from the UN Oil-for-Food escrow account. The Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme released its interim report during February 2005. See also * Oil-for-Food Program Hearings The Oil-for-F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Corruption
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though it is not restricted to these activities. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is also considered political corruption. Over time, corruption has been defined differently. For example, in a simple context, while performing work for a government or as a representative, it is unethical to accept a gift. Any free gift could be construed as a scheme to lure the recipient towards some biases. In most cases, the gift is seen as an intention to seek certain favors such as work promotion, tipping in or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organizations Established By The United Nations
An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from the Greek word ''organon'', which means tool or instrument, musical instrument, and organ. Types There are a variety of legal types of organizations, including corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, political organizations, international organizations, armed forces, charities, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and educational institutions, etc. A hybrid organization is a body that operates in both the public sector and the private sector simultaneously, fulfilling public duties and developing commercial market activities. A voluntary association is an organization consisting of volunteers. Such organizations may be able to operate without legal formalities, depending on jurisdiction, includi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oil-for-Food Program Hearings
The Oil-for-Food Program Hearings were held by the U.S Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations beginning in 2004 to investigate abuses of the United Nations (UN) Oil-for-Food Programme in which the economically sanctioned country of Iraq was intended to be able to sell limited amounts of oil in exchange for vital food and medicine for its population. In December 2004, the subcommittee's chairman Senator Norm Coleman called for UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan to resign because of the "UN's utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses" of the program and because of related fraud allegations against Annan's son. In May 2005, the subcommittee held the hearings on their investigation of abuses of the program, including oil smuggling, illegal kickbacks and use of surcharges, and Saddam Hussein's use of oil vouchers for the purpose of buying influence abroad. These hearings covered certain corporations and several well-known political figures, including Russia's Vladimir Zhiri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Escrow
An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacting parties. Examples include an account established by a broker for holding funds on behalf of the broker's principal or some other person until the consummation or termination of a transaction; or, a trust account held in the borrower's name to pay obligations such as property taxes and insurance premiums. The word derives from the Old French word , meaning a scrap of paper or a scroll of parchment; this indicated the deed that a third party held until a transaction was completed. Types Escrow generally refers to money held by a third party on behalf of transacting parties. It is mostly used regarding the purchase of shares of a company. It is best known in the United States in the context of the real estate industry (specifically in mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Pieth
Mark Pieth (born 9 March 1953) is Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Basel, Switzerland and a prominent anti-corruption expert. Pieth's career as a legal expert, defence lawyer, judge and compliance advisor includes several roles on the international stage, such as a member of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, Chair of a United Nations Intergovernmental Expert Group on illicit drug trafficking and 24 years as Chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery, which monitors the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. He is known for spearheading initiatives to combat corruption and money laundering in all its forms through regulations, country monitoring, compliance, advocacy and arbitration. In the field of commodities, he was appointed by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the Independent Inquiry Committee into the Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme. He is President of the Basel Institute on Governance The Basel Institute on Governance is an independent, internation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law is established by statute, which is to say that the laws are enacted by a legislature. Criminal law includes the punishment and rehabilitation of people who violate such laws. Criminal law varies according to jurisdiction, and differs from civil law, where emphasis is more on dispute resolution and victim compensation, rather than on punishment or rehabilitation. Criminal procedure is a formalized official activity that authenticates the fact of commission of a crime and authorizes punitive or rehabilitative treatment of the offender. History The first civilizations generally did not distinguish between civil law and criminal law. The first written codes of law were designed by the Sumerians. Around 2100–2050 BC Ur-Nammu, the N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors are usually experts in their field and teachers of the highest rank. In most systems of List of academic ranks, academic ranks, "professor" as an unqualified title refers only to the most senior academic position, sometimes informally known as "full professor". In some countries and institutions, the word "professor" is also used in titles of lower ranks such as associate professor and assistant professor; this is particularly the case in the United States, where the unqualified word is also used colloquially to refer to associate and assistant professors as well. This usage would be considered incorrect among other academic communities. However, the otherwise unqualified title "Professor" designated with a capital let ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swiss People
The Swiss people (german: die Schweizer, french: les Suisses, it, gli Svizzeri, rm, ils Svizzers) are the citizens of Switzerland or people of Swiss abroad, Swiss ancestry. The number of Swiss nationality law, Swiss nationals has grown from 1.7 million in 1815 to 8.7 million in 2020. More than 1.5 million Swiss citizens hold multiple citizenship. About 11% of citizens Swiss abroad, live abroad (0.8 million, of whom 0.6 million hold multiple citizenship). About 60% of those living abroad reside in the European Union (0.46 million). The largest groups of Swiss descendants and nationals outside Europe are found in the Swiss Americans, United States, Brazil and Swiss Canadian, Canada. Although the Switzerland as a federal state, modern state of Switzerland originated in 1848, the period of romantic nationalism, it is not a nation-state, and the Swiss are not a single ethnic group, but rather are a Confederation, confederacy (') or ' ("nation of will", "nation by choice", tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Goldstone
Richard Joseph Goldstone (born 26 October 1938) is a South African former judge. After working for 17 years as a commercial lawyer, he was appointed by the South African government to serve on the Transvaal Supreme Court from 1980 to 1989 and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa from 1990 to 1994. He is considered to be one of several liberal judges who issued key rulings that undermined apartheid from within the system by tempering the worst effects of the country's racial laws. Among other important rulings, Goldstone made the Group Areas Act – under which non-whites were banned from living in "whites only" areas – virtually unworkable by restricting evictions. As a result, prosecutions under the act virtually ceased. During the transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy in the early 1990s, he headed the influential Goldstone Commission investigations into political violence in South Africa between 1991 and 1994. Goldstone's work enabled mul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility and arguments of the parties, and then issues a ruling in the case based on their interpretation of the law and their own personal judgment. A judge is expected to conduct the trial impartially and, typically, in an open court. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions, the judge's powers may be shared with a jury. In inquisitorial systems of criminal investigation, a judge might also be an examining magistrate. The presiding judge ensures that all court proceedings are lawful and orderly. Powers and functions The ultimate task of a judge is to settle a legal dispute in a final and publicly lawful manner in agreement with substantial p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Volcker
Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. (September 5, 1927 – December 8, 2019) was an American economist who served as the 12th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure as chairman, Volcker was widely credited with having ended the high levels of inflation seen in the United States throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. He previously served as the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1975 to 1979. President Jimmy Carter nominated him to succeed G. William Miller as Fed chairman and President Ronald Reagan renominated him once. Volcker did not seek a third term at the Fed and was succeeded by Alan Greenspan. After his retirement from the Board, he chaired the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2011 during the subprime mortgage crisis. Early life and education Volcker was born in Cape May, New Jersey, the son of Alma Louise (née Klippel, 1892–1990) and Paul Adolph Volcker (1889–1960).Treaster (200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
