On the 28th April, the University of Sussex and the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Center (ROLACC) in Doha held a joint event to showcase the LLM in Corruption, Law and Governance for students interested in the course, and also to present to interested attendees the International Anti-Corruption Masterclass (IACMA) lectures, on the topic of ‘Achieving Transparency – Issues in the Modern World’.
A number of guests attended the free event to hear details about the course and listen to Sussex University academics and graduates who spoke about the importance of courses such as this in combating corruption.
The programme, delivered in Doha by the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Center in partnership with the University of Sussex, aims to educate graduates in recognising corruption in its many forms and what causes it, with the aim of fostering long-term change in the region.
The keynote lecture for the IACMA programme was delivered by Mr Leonard Frank McCarthy, ex-Vice President of Integrity at the World Bank, and a second lecture was delivered by Ms. Robtel Neajai Pailey, Leverhulme Early Career fellow at Oxford University and author of Gbagba and Jaadeh!, two anti-corruption children’s books that have been used widely across her home country of Liberia. Both speakers were winners of the 2018 Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani International Anti-Corruption Excellence Award, Mr. McCarthy in the Lifetime Achievement category, and Dr Pailey in the Academic Research and Education category.
The event, held in West Bay on Sunday 28th April 2019, came in the wake of the graduation of the first cohort of the LLM in Corruption, Law and Governance. The degree of study was launched under the auspices of the Prime Minister His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani in October of 2016.
The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of ROLACC His Excellency Dr Ali Bin Fetais Al Marri said of the event, “I am delighted that individuals have given their time and effort to learn about corruption, about its causes, and the effect it can have on the most vulnerable members of our global community.”
The University’s Director of the LLM, Professor Daniel Hough, Head of the Department of Politics at the University of Sussex, said: “We were really pleased with the response we got at the open evening.”
He added: “We met lots of engaged and enthusiastic potential students who we are hopeful we’ll see again in September 2019. Professor Hough also described what a student might expect when studying the LLM.
The part-time, two-year Law masters is taught by leading Sussex academics who specialise in global corruption. The current students enrolled on the course are from a variety of professional backgrounds including the legal sector, banking and finance, international relations, journalism and education. It includes men and women of several nationalities, including Qatari citizens, citizens from the wider Arab region, as well as citizens of other countries. All students have fulfilled the usual qualification standards for the University in order to secure a seat on the course.
The Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Center, which is based in Qatar, is considered one of the most prominent organisations in both the region and internationally in the promotion of the rule of law and combatting corruption. Alongside offering the LLM, the center serves as a hub for the anti-corruption community within the MENA region, offering training and workshops for international delegations in a number of important fields such as procurement and cybercrime.
The University of Sussex is known to be a world leader in the field of research and teaching in this area, especially at the Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption, a research centre in the School of Law, Politics and Sociology.
