This U4 Issue addresses several inter-related research questions on the topic of civil society participation in the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) Implementation Review Mechanism (IRM):

• How does UNCAC compare with other legally binding treaties in terms of opportunities for civil society organisations (CSOs) to contribute to the country review process?
• Which aspects of the UNCAC review process align with best practice for inclusive CSO participation, and which aspects are weak in this area?
• How transparent are the findings of the review processes and what additional information should be made publicly available to strengthen the ability of civil society to independently review the findings?
• What are the main challenges to CSO inclusion in the UNCAC review process?

To answer these questions, the researchers used a mixed-method approach combining desk review, an online survey of 37 CSOs that were involved in the UNCAC review process and 12 in-depth interviews with experts who have direct experience of working within comparable review mechanisms, with civil society experts, and with academics and opinion leaders with in-depth knowledge of the UNCAC Implementation Review Mechanism, OECD Working Group on Bribery, Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan, UN human rights treaty bodies, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), the Organization of American States Monitoring mechanism for the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, and the Open Government Partnership.

The research found that CSOs face barriers to meaningful participation and to follow-up on country recommendations. Barriers include lack of access to information about when reviews are happening, epitomised by the absence of a global review schedule. CSOs often do not know (or find out too late) that their country is undergoing review and therefore miss opportunities to request their involvement. When compared with other treaties in and beyond the anti-corruption space, the research showed that there is much room for UNCAC’s IRM to improve.

Lack of transparency around the outputs of the review process, most importantly the country report itself, is another barrier for CSOs, as it prevents them from having full knowledge of what actions need to be advocated. Greater visibility of the outputs would enhance UNCAC’s chances of promoting change. The report’s executive summary is published, but it does not disclose information on how consultative the country’s review process was. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) should therefore revise the template for the executive summary of the country reports, to ensure that it lists (with consent) the full names of organisations consulted as part of the review. In future, the Implementation Review Group agenda should include the discussion of UNCAC country report executive summaries, to increase visibility and share good practices. Given the large number of states parties, the creation of regional bodies should be considered. This would allow reports to be discussed in regional plenaries.

A further challenge is the lack of follow-up from one review cycle to the next. There are several examples of international treaties that achieve this more successfully – for example, the UPR has an infographic showing trends between the review cycles for received and accepted recommendations. The OECD Working Group on Bribery is working on a live dashboard to track implementation of recommendations. UNODC should consider visible and easily understood mechanisms to track change, including highlighting positive examples and promoting peer pressure among the states parties.

The next Conference of the States Parties (CoSP) should decide on robust follow-up mechanisms on the previous review cycles to embed into the IRM. Follow-up should include states parties reporting back on a regular basis about what changes they have made to fulfil previous recommendations.

CSOs can bring added value and offer unique insights to the monitoring process, as they are often able to conduct research that governments do not. They can also bring in local knowledge that peer reviewers lack, and can highlight sensitive areas that otherwise would not be picked up by peer reviewers. Enhancing CSO involvement is a way to strengthen UNCAC itself. UNODC should continue its best practice approaches of supporting CSOs’ capacity building to participate in the review process. UNODC should collaborate with the UNCAC Coalition, provide support for CSO participation on the sidelines of the Implementation Review Group and at CoSPs, and promote best practices with other treaties and conventions.