The Alliance Franco-Camerounaise Center in Buea recently hosted a symposium on Corruption and its implications for human rights organized by the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA).
The keynote speaker was Southern Methodist University's Distinguished University Professor, Ndiva Kofele-Kale, who presented a paper on Elevating Corruption to the Status of a Crime in Positive International Law. Other speakers included CHRDA Executive Director, Barrister Felix Nkongho; former SDF Secretary General, Professor Asonganyi who focused on political corruption;
Clinton S. “Tad” Brown, Deputy Chief of the Political Section of the US Embassy in Cameroon, who explained the U.S. Government’s policies to fight corruption and foster better governance on a global scale, including in Cameroon; and Justice Mbah Acha Rose Fomundam, Vice President, Court of Appeal, South West Region, who presented the legal instruments used to fight corruption under Cameroon law.
These papers are now available on the CHRDA blog and make for an interesting perspective on corruption, particularly Prof. Kofele-Kale's argument in favor of a new crime in international law called Patromonicide:
I have somewhat immodestly taken the liberty of inventing the word ‘patrimonicide’ as the name for this new international economic crime. The word comes from combining the Latin words ‘patrimonium’ meaning “[t]he estate or property belonging by ancient right to an institution, corporation, or class; especially the ancient estate or endowment of a church or religious body” and, of course, ‘cide’ meaning killing. It is submitted that indigenous spoliation is the very essence of the destruction (or killing, if you please) of the sum total of a nation's endowment; the laying waste of the wealth and resources belonging by right to her citizens; the denial of their heritage.
Click here to read this and the other interesting papers on the CHRDA blog.
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