This chapter provides a general overview of the responsibilities of actors at the trial and appellate levels, and an analysis of the forms and risks of corruption that actors face in executing their responsibilities. It focuses on points where officials exercise discretion, and on the effectiveness of oversight mechanisms. It reviews available assessment tools for measuring corruption risks during a criminal trial and appeal: The UNODC’s Criminal Justice Assessment Toolkit and country-level assessments of judicial integrity and capacity, the UNCAC Article 11, Implementation Guide and Evaluative Framework, GIZ Judicial Integrity Scan and Bangalore Principles implementation measures, and Transparency International’s diagnostic checklist. In using the available set of tools to assess corruption risks in criminal trials and appeals, the greatest challenge for practitioners is finding the relevant parts of tools that assess the risks particular to these processes. A consolidated corruption risk assessment tool specifically designed for the criminal trial and appeal phase would be useful.

Join U4’s linked-in group for updates, and to interact with the authors. They will respond to your comments and questions in these weeks:

• Investigations (12-16 Jan.) Jay Albanese
• Prosecutions (19-23 Jan.) Heike Gramckow
• Trials (26-30 Jan.) Victoria Jennett
• Detention and corrections (2-6 Feb.) Gary Hill