Kent Law School International Law expert Dr Gbenga Oduntan is in Abu Dhabi this week to attend the biennial UN Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption.<\/p>\n
Today, Dr Oduntan is co-convening a special side event at the Conference with a focus on establishing an \u2018Africa Caucus Agenda on Asset Recovery\u2019.<\/p>\n
The Caucus is supported by a coalition of Africa-focused experts from organisations that have been working together on major investigations and projects in the anticorruption field for more than five years. These organisations include: the Centre for Critical international Law<\/a> at Kent Law School; the Centre for Democracy and Development<\/a>; the HEDA Resource Centre<\/a> (in collaboration with Nigeria\u2019s National Social Investment Program); Global Witness<\/a>; Re:Common<\/a>; and The Corner House<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Caucus hopes to motivate other victim states to address poverty with recovered funds. Today it will be addressing issues such as the repatriation of recovered assets, utilisation of recovered assets, conditionality attachment to recovered assets, administrative charges at the expense of countries of origin and sanctions for failure of fiduciary duties by institutions in countries of destination.<\/p>\n Dr Oduntan<\/a> is a Solicitor and barrister of the Supreme Court of Nigeria; a member of the (ACIArb) Chartered Institute of Arbitrators; and a Co-ordinating Attorney for the World Anticorruption Research Network (WARN). In 2017, he was awarded a grant of $50,000<\/a> for an anti-corruption training project<\/a> in Nigeria by the MacArthur Foundation and the Institute of International Education. The training focused on tracing funds transferred as a result of corrupt practices. Dr Oduntan has also previously run a successful one-day conference called ‘Tracking Faulty Towers<\/a>‘ at Kent Law School.<\/p>\n Dr Oduntan teaches undergraduates and postgraduates in the fields of critical law and international business transitions and global problems and international law at Kent Law School.<\/p>\n