| Chapter 2: | Conceptual Issues in Definitions of Corruption and Good Governance |
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2.1 Single-criminality Test and the Issue of Extraterritorial Criminal Jurisdiction
Writing on money laundering offences generally, the Financial Sector Compliance Advisers Ltd gives the following argument:
A single or dual criminality test: A dual criminality test requires a client’s actions to be recognised as a crime both in the country where it is committed and the country where a possible laundering offence takes place. A single criminality test simply requires the country in which the laundering activity takes place to regard the activity that generated the relevant property as criminal irrespective of whether it is criminal in the country where it took place. In practice, almost all serious crimes including drug trafficking, terrorism, fraud, robbery, prostitution, illegal gambling, arms trafficking, bribery, corruption, and in some cases tax evasion, are capable of predicating money laundering offences.79
The single criminality test, in cases of money laundering, also applies in countries such as the United Kingdom,80 Bermuda,81 the Isle of Man,82 Jersey,83 and Guernsey.84 But, of course, the superficial cynic will be quick to argue, in the case of Zambia, against the issue of extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction. Perritt observes, however, that international law, and arguably American law, recognises the legitimacy of giving extraterritorial effect to the criminal laws of a national sovereign.85 He argues,
The extension of criminal jurisdiction is particularly likely in two circumstances: when the actor, and potential criminal defendant, is a citizen of the state whose law is to be applied, and when the ‘effects test’ shows that a non-national has engaged in extraterritorial conduct with the intention or the likelihood that it will have effects in the country whose law is to be applied.86