Topics Covered:
- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
- Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian diaspora.
- Basics of Money Laundering.
India’s 9-point agenda against fugitive economic offenders
What to study?
- Static Part: About G20, Meaning of fugitive economic offender.
- Dynamic and Current: The proposed action plan- need, significance, challenges and the need for international collaboration.
Context: India has presented a nine-point programme to take action against fugitive economic offenders at the ongoing G20 Summit in Argentina.
The agenda includes:
- Strong and active” cooperation among the G-20 nations. The document highlights the importance of cooperation in legal processes such as “effective freezing of the proceeds of crime; early return of the offenders and efficient repatriation of the proceeds of crime should be enhanced and streamlined”.
- Joint efforts to be made by the G20 nations to form a mechanism that denies entry and safe havens to all fugitive economic offenders.
- There is need for the “effective” implementation of the principles of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime (UNOTC).
- The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) should be called upon “to assign priority and to focus on establishing international co-operation that leads to a timely and comprehensive exchange of information between the competent authorities”.
- The FATF should be tasked to formulate a standard definition of fugitive economic offenders.
- The FATF should also develop a set of commonly agreed and standardised procedures related to identification, extradition and judicial proceedings for dealing with fugitive economic offenders to provide guidance and assistance to G-20 countries, subject to their domestic law”.
- There is need for setting up of a common platform “for sharing experiences and best practices including successful cases of extradition, gaps in existing systems of extradition and legal assistance.”
- The G20 forum should consider initiating work on locating properties of economic offenders who have a tax debt in the country of their residence for its recovery.
Background:
The programme for curbing the menace of fugitive economic offenders comes amid heightened efforts by India to apprehend a number of such offenders, including Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.
Sources: the hindu.
