Corruption and diplomacy

In the last few weeks, the Foreign Ministry has been under the public spotlight in relation to corruption cases allegedly involving a number of senior diplomats. Corruption that involves diplomats is perceived as directly reflecting the whole performance of Indonesia’s international diplomacy, and hence the image of the nation.
Diplomats, particularly ambassadors, are the representatives of the whole nation and are at the forefront in campaigning for the national interests in international relations. Will it impact on the international negotiations and international agreements? Is it an administrative fault or a crime?
One of the conditions to ensure a treaty between states be valid and bound is that it is free of corruption. This is stipulated in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 50 on the corruption of a representative of a state. A treaty is invalid if the representative of a state is involved in corruption. Corruption clearly ruins the reputation of actors and reflects an absence of trust in international relations.


Among the cooperative spirit of international agreements, trust and reciprocity are the fundamental ones. The accumulation of trust results in good reputation and credibility. Negotiating with thieves is risky. The negotiating partner will need high insurance for making a final commitment with thieves.
In 1891, John Stuart Mill emphasized that trust can reduce transaction costs since it ensures honest behavior. In international relations, there is no transaction and interaction without costs, such as the costs of collecting information, bargaining, making decisions and then the costs for monitoring and enforcing the contracts or agreements. Trust can reduce these costs.
Trust and the reputation of actors in international relations are thus of high significance. Jean Philippe Platteau, a Belgian economist, explained the importance of trust in human relations in a long article in the Journal of Development Studies (April, 1994). The contributions of trust and reciprocity in human interaction and transactions can be summarized as follows. First, from a transaction cost perspective, trust can reduce transaction costs in all political (and economic) activities.
Transaction cost includes the costs to support the implementation of certain political actions or the enforcement of contracts and agreements. If there is no trust and reciprocity, there will be a need for high costs for monitoring the behavior and actions of each party in the political (and economic) dealings. Although there is written law for guaranteeing a contract, trust is still instrumental and substantial for the enforcement of the contract.
Second, from the aspect of efficiency and social cost, trust helps increase efficiency and reduces the social costs of the actions taken by a country. If each party in an agreement believes that other party enforces the contract, it will increase the spirit to implement the agreement.
Third, trust ensures certainty in transactions and interactions. Despite the presence of regulations, if a rational calculation by one party in the agreement finds that the costs of disobedience to the regulations are lower than the benefits he can make, the formal regulations can be ignored.
Formal rules often do not guarantee certainty for parties to implement agreements. Trust among the contracting parties will ensure certainty since each party calculates reciprocity, respect and reputation in their relations both for present and for future interests.
Diplomacy, at its fundamental level, is about having and building trust, reputation and continuous reciprocity with partners or opponents in international relations. The terms in negotiations depends on whether the negotiating partner is a credible, authoritative and trusted person or not.
If the diplomat has been known as a corrupt person, the partner will have limited trust in the diplomat since the partner will suspect that she or he might be cheated by the corrupt diplomat as he cheats his own country. Sending corrupt diplomats to a partner country also shows the level of importance of the country to our county, as it is humiliating for a partner country to receive a corrupt diplomat.
Since diplomats are secured by international conventions as respected persons in international acquaintance, diplomats are expected to behave and act with dignity. They should have self-respect and have to accumulate certain aspects of behavior that reflect their own reputation.
Their behavior and actions that reflect their own dignity and self-respect will in turn reflect and represent the dignity of a nation. Once they are involved in corruption, they will be perceived as having low self-respect, and acting against the dignity of the nation. The duty of the diplomats is nothing more than to promote and protect the dignity of a nation, which is at the core of national interests.
Corruption by officially respected people is expected to be dealt with openly and charged as a crime. It is against the spirit of supporting and promoting the dignity of the nation if the corrupt diplomats are protected by administrative sanctions.
It is a challenge for the Foreign Ministry not only to establish good governance within the ministry, but also to recruit and promote honest and respected diplomats, who are respected not because of their positions but because they are honest, reputable and of high integrity. Maintaining corrupt and dishonest diplomats will only ruin the dignity of the nation in international relations.


Don K.Marut, The writer is executive director of the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) and is active in international civil society networks.
Opini The Jakarta Post 04 Maret 2010