Act on oil now to stop future Gaddafis

„We must remember that while Gaddafi is bad, he is not unique. He's simply one of the worst symptoms of a very old problem, the roots of which stretch well beyond Libya's borders and into the heart of our extractive industries, political institutions and banks. Essentially, because oil companies do not currently have to disclose what they pay to foreign governments for resource deals, and banks do not have to report on their financial dealings with sovereign funds, it's very hard for citizens to know how their leaders are using their countries' natural resource wealth. Global efforts to combat this problem are now gathering steam, with the United States leading the way.

A year ago President Barack Obama signed the Dodd Frank Act, part of which (1504) requires US-listed companies to report the payments they make to governments in resource extraction deals. The idea is that making companies publish the payments they make to governments for resource contracts will enable citizens to scrutinise where that money has gone and what it has been used for.

The implementation of this legislation is being negotiated now, and there is an emerging appetite for similar measures in Europe, with George Osborne and Nicolas Sarkozy recently going on record in support of legislation. This represents significant progress towards a new global standard of transparency, which would help weed out corruption at”