RIP Jeremy Pope (1938 – 2012)

Sad news Wednesday of the sudden death of Jeremy Pope, a founder of Transparency International.

‘The passing of Jeremy Pope is a sombre moment for all of us at Transparency International,’ said Huguette Labelle, the chair of TI.

‘For many years Jeremy Pope played a key role in building the intellectual strength that backed up the consciousness-raising so vital to Transparency International,’ Labelle said. ‘He was instrumental in creating many of the pillars that Transparency International stands upon today,’

Pope served as the first managing director of TI from 1994 to 1998, and later as head of its London office. He created TI’s first resources used to spot corruption risks in governments. That work became the basis for the National Integrity Systems assessment, still one of TI’s basic anti-corruption tools.

He was a barrister in New Zealand and England and worked for nearly two decades as legal counsel for the Commonwealth Secretariat. He was part of the 1980 Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons that visited South Africa in 1986 and worked for Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. At the time of his Pope’s death, he was a member of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.

Pope also consulted with election commissions in Africa and Asia and advised the World Bank and United Nations on anti-corruption issues.

And with his wife, he wrote a series of travel guides to New Zealand.