Announced at the opening of Allard Hall, the new home of the
University of British Columbia (UBC) Faculty of Law, the Allard Prize
for International Integrity, conceived of and funded by Peter A. Allard,
is intended to recognize an individual, movement or organization that
has demonstrated exceptional courage and leadership in combating
corruption, especially through promoting transparency, accountability
and the rule of law.
The Allard Prize is administered by the University of British
Columbia Faculty of Law at Allard Hall. The UBC Faculty of Law has a
deep and longstanding history of advancing human rights. Faculty members
have been pioneers in articulating and supporting women’s human rights,
the rights of First Nations and indigenous communities, and the rights
of victims of crime. Faculty scholarship stands at the forefront of new
thinking on crimes of corporate complicity, human trafficking, and
economic and social rights. Faculty members have held respected
positions as UN Rapporteurs and judges, and conducted judicial training
at the national and international levels. Currently housed within the
Faculty of Law are programs which invite direct student engagement in
advancing human rights, including The Innocence Project, the First Nations Legal Clinic, and the Law Students Legal Advice Program. Scholarships support student participation in the greater community – locally, nationally, and globally.
Nominations for the inaugural CA $100,000 award are now open.
Prize criteria
The Allard Prize for International Integrity is awarded to an
individual, movement or organization that has demonstrated exceptional
courage and leadership in combating corruption, especially through
promoting transparency, accountability and the rule of law.
Individual, movement or organization
We recognize that all range of participants in global society can make important contributions to addressing these critical issues, so we welcome nominations from all types of individuals, movements and organizations. Nominees could include prominent world leaders, grass roots activists, social movements, charitable groups dedicated to specific social issues or other corporate bodies, whether for-profit or not. The breadth of this focus reinforces our belief that we all have responsibilities to promote transparency and the rule of law. Consequently, the status of the nominee is irrelevant.
We recognize that all range of participants in global society can make important contributions to addressing these critical issues, so we welcome nominations from all types of individuals, movements and organizations. Nominees could include prominent world leaders, grass roots activists, social movements, charitable groups dedicated to specific social issues or other corporate bodies, whether for-profit or not. The breadth of this focus reinforces our belief that we all have responsibilities to promote transparency and the rule of law. Consequently, the status of the nominee is irrelevant.
Courage
We understand courage as requiring action in the face of significant
personal constraints. These constraints may be to the safety of the
nominee and their family, but they may also entail other types of
personal cost. They might include, for example, potential implications
for future career prospects, financial wellbeing, exclusion from social
groups or other consequences that are undesirable to the nominee. The
essence of courage for the purposes of this award is that the nominee
has acted to combat corruption and promote transparency, regardless of
potential costs personally.
Leadership
A nominee’s activities must inspire others. Leadership of new social
movements is one obvious example of this inspiration, but there are many
others. For instance, leadership could also include the development of
new technologies for monitoring kickbacks to government officials, even
though there might only be a loose connection between the developers of
the tools and the end users. Along the same lines, scholars also show
leadership where their actions stimulate change, irrespective of whether
or not they implement their ideas themselves. Inspiration is the
touchstone.
Anti-Corruption
We understand corruption to mean the abuse of power. Corruption can
occur within government, but it also takes place within private
institutions, companies, and non-governmental organizations. At the
political level, corruption often involves abuse of public power,
office, or resources by elected or appointed government officials for
personal or related party gain, sometimes in connection with favouritism
in the awarding of jobs or contracts. Outside government, it involves
extortion, bribery and other attempts to circumvent the law. A nominee’s
work must seek to resist or overcome corrupt practices for the benefit
of society and promotion of long-term stability, which sometimes may
even involve challenging the law itself if it serves corrupt purposes.
The nominee’s actions can relate to a single important act of corruption
or practices that lead to the systematic or incremental corruption of a
political regime.
Transparency
Transparency implies public disclosure. On one level, transparency
involves regular and accurate publication of important governmental
practices and information that allow for informed public debate. This
disclosure goes to the heart of democratic principles by allowing local
voters to make informed decisions at the ballot box. On another level,
the term also involves revealing hidden practices that are harmful to
the wider social interest, even if they occur privately. While nominees
must promote transparency, they should also be sensitive to the
potentially negative and damaging consequences of revealing certain
types of information.
Accountability
Accountability
We believe that those responsible for diverting public wealth or
undermining the rule of law should answer to the public for their
actions. As a minimum, this implies that those who are responsible for
acts of corruption should be identified. Beyond identification alone,
other forms of legal accountability might also be appropriate, ranging
from financial reparations to criminal charges in egregious
circumstances. While we have no preconceived idea about the form
accountability must take, the nominee should work to further justice by
calling those responsible for acts of corruption to account for their
wrongs.
Rule of Law
A society governed by the Rule of Law operates under a system of fair
and just legal standards, not arbitrary government. Thus, the Rule of
Law denotes an orderly and ethical legal system, where at a minimum
legislature, executive and judiciary are independent, where law
enforcement is impartial and where all individuals are equal before the
law. Likewise, the term requires that no entity is beyond the law,
including governments, corporations and other powerful members of
society. The successful nominee’s work will promote the establishment
and maintenance of these principles, within local communities,
individual countries or globally.
