Objective 1: Targeted use of returned assets

Method of engagement

Promoting appropriate legal procedures and arrangements for the management of assets.

Possible actions

• Identify potential institutions, agencies and stakeholders responsible for the coordination and the management of repatriated assets.
• Identify legal mechanisms/ ways to compensate the determined victims of the crime with the confiscated assets.
• Working concertedly with national asset management/asset recovery units on planning the treatment to, and allocation of confiscated assets.
• Propose wide consultation with stakeholders comprising local authorities and CSOs, to define the use of returned assets.
• Liaise with CSOs in requested countries during the asset recovery process to request their assistance to lobby for a dialogue between requested and requesting countries on the use of repatriated assets.

Best practices

• Identify good practices in other jurisdictions.
• Minimise bias and conflict of interest when determining how to manage repatriated assets.
• Refer to national development plan objectives and similarly widely accepted development goals.
• Consider the long-term sustainability of projects funded through returned assets.

Resources

• Fenner-Zinkernagel, Gretta, Charles Monteith, and Pedro Gomes Pereira. “Past Experience with Agreements for the Disposal of Confiscated Assets.” In Emerging Trends in Asset Recovery. Bern: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2013.
• Mader, Max. "Civil society facilitators of asset recovery. The two Swiss cases Mobutu and Abacha." In Thelesklaf, Daniel, and Pedro Gomes Pereira (eds), Non-State Actors in Asset Recovery. Bern: Peter Lang, 2011.
• Management of Returned Assets: Policy Considerations. Washington, DC: StAR Initiative / The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, 2009. 
• Effective management and disposal of seized and confiscated assets. Vienna: UNODC, 2017.
  

CSO examples