The 14th IACC conference in Bangkok, Thailand

Natalia Nikolaeva Magnitskaya never expected to lose her son, a corporate lawyer from Russia, Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky. She always hoped that Sergei will be a great man and achieve his goal.

But Natalia stumbled upon fate: her son was arrested for revealing state bigwigs’ tax fraud worth U.S. $ 230 million, then died in custody due to severe illness without proper medication. Sergei, 37 years old, died 16 November 2009 after 11 months in jail, just a few days before the one year limit that he could be held without trial would expire.

‘He was a man of dignity, and prison didn’t change him,’ said Natalia with a gloomy face when receiving the Integrity Award for his son last Friday.
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We all are fighting corruption, but aren’t we curious why and how our friends started it? Here’s short stories from three of 1000-plus people pacing back and fro in the 14th IACC.

Luis Gomez-Echeverri, Austria
Why: Being active in overseeing and advising environment, climate change and developments programs makes him concerned about the climate change financing, which will grow dramatically in a few years, but prone to corruption. Most systems now lacks transparency and accountability, while the donors usually makes programs without considering the recipients’ priorities, he said.

How: Gomez-Echeverri, Associate Director of Global Energy Assessment, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, is helping the fight against corruption by making proposals so the climate change system allows governments to make decisions based on national priorities.
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