United Nations Convention Against Corruption is recorded in this encyclopedia from the source named below.
Overview
The United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) is the only legally binding international anti-corruption multilateral treaty. Negotiated by member states of the United Nations (UN) it was adopted by the UN General Assembly in October 2003 and entered into force in December 2005. The treaty recognises the importance of both preventive and punitive measures, addresses the cross-border nature of corruption with provisions on international cooperation and on the return of the proceeds of corruption. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna serves as the Secretariat for the UNCAC. UNCAC's goal is to reduce various types of corruption that can occur across country borders, such as trading in influence and abuse of power, as well as corruption in the private sector, such as embezzlement and money laundering. Another goal of the UNCAC is to strengthen international law enforcement and judicial cooperation between countries by providing effective legal mechanisms for international asset recovery. States Parties – countries that have ratified the convention – are expected to cooperate in criminal matters and consider assisting each other in investigations of and proceedings in civil and administrative matters relating to corruption. The Convention further calls for the participation of civil society and non-governmental organisations in accountability processes and underlines the importance of citizens' access to information.
Source and reuse
The descriptive text above is drawn from the English-language encyclopedia article United Nations Convention Against Corruption, reused under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence and attributed in the sources block on this page. Figures in the infobox come from Wikidata and carry that project's own provenance; they should be checked against the cited source before being relied on.
Editorial note
This record is a sourced summary, not original research. Where the underlying material is silent on a point, this article is silent too. Last reviewed 2026-09-23.