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The following statement was released by the United Nations:

Message from UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, on International Anti-Corruption Day

9 December 2015

Global attitudes towards corruption have changed dramatically. Where once bribery, corruption and illicit financial flows were often considered part of the cost of doing business, today corruption is widely — and rightly — understood as criminal and corrosive. The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, our plan to end poverty and ensure lives of dignity for all, recognizes the need to fight corruption in all its aspects and calls for significant reductions in illicit financial flows as well as for the recovery of stolen assets.

Corruption has disastrous impacts on development when funds that should be devoted to schools, health clinics and other vital public services are instead diverted into the hands of criminals or dishonest officials.

Corruption exacerbates violence and insecurity. It can lead to dissatisfaction with public institutions, disillusion with government in general, and spirals of anger and unrest. …
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Breakthrough For International Whistleblowers

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

LIVE INTERNATIONAL WHISTLEBLOWER SEMINAR 

26 MAY 2015

The Luna-Centre for Responsible Democracy is co-sponsoring an important international seminar on how whistleblowers from around the world can use U.S. laws to expose corruption.

“Breakthrough in Protecting International Whistleblowers: Non-United States Citizens Now Entitled to Whistleblower Protections and Rewards” will take place at the…

On March 20, 2015, NWC Executive Director Stephen M. Kohn participated in a Roundtable of Transparency panel discussion presented as part of the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

Each year this program brings about 4,500 visitors to the US from 140 countries to learn how to use advocacy as the process of building consensus on national, regional, or local priorities through transparent, accountable, and inclusive decision-making. The goal of this program is to build the capacity of civil society organizations and their constituents to act for change and influence policy. …
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Transparency in Government A Regional Project for the Near East

On November 19, 2010, the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) hosted a visit by Middle Eastern officials as part of the State Department’s Transparency in Government project for the Near East. The program offered a view of the role of citizens, media and private non-profit advocacy in fostering transparency and accountability in government. Visitors learned about…

Last April, I submitted a report to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.S. State Department about how U.S. law fails to give whistleblowers customary remedies for their retaliation claims. My report listed the international treaties that required the United States to protect whistleblowers. It listed specific cases in which whistleblowers’…

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Transparency International (TI) just released its “Global Corruption Report 2009: Corruption and the Private Sector (GCR).” In it, more than 75 experts examine a wide range of corruption issues around the world.

In this post, I would like to introduce several whistleblowing issues around the world based on the report.

The report emphasizes that “recognizing the role of whistleblowers” is one of key elements of good corporate governance, mentioning “employees are the single most important group of actors capable of detecting corporate fraud and as such they represent an extraordinarily important pillar in the system of checks and balances that comprise corporate governance.”…

Continue Reading Transparency International – Global Corruption Report 2009

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Stephen M. Kohn in MontenegroStephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC), is in Montenegro this week calling for enactment of whistleblower protections as a key component of transparency.

Kohn is traveling to Montenegro under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State. Today, the on-line journal Vijesti is running an article in Croatian about Kohn’s visit to Podgorica, Montenegro’s capital.

According to the Vijesti article, Kohn is saying that efforts to expose corruption in government and in businesses depend on protecting whistleblowers. A translation of the Vijesti article is available in the continuation of this blog entry.…

Continue Reading Stephen Kohn calls for whistleblower protections in Montenegro