Eva Joly
Eva Joly, born in Oslo, is a lawyer and a former Member of the European Parliament, where she was vice-chair of the Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Evasion and Fraud.
She moved to Paris at the age of 20 to work as an au pair, and today holds both a French and Norwegian citizenship. Having studied law, Joly specialized in financial affairs and took office as examining magistrate at the High Court in Paris. She investigated the financial scandal of the French state-owned petrol company Elf Aquitaine and became known for her persistent and courageous fight against corruption and fraud.
Following a long career as a judge in France, Joly in 2002 returned to Norway and was a special adviser at the Ministry of Justice and the Police. From 2005 to 2009 she worked as a special adviser to the Norwegian Minister of International Development, heading Norad’s campaign against corruption and money laundering. She was a member of the Government Commission on Capital Flight from Poor Countries.
In 2009 she was brought in by the Icelandic government as a special adviser to investigate the possibility that white-collar crime may have played a part in the 2008–2009 Icelandic financial crises. Since 2012, she participates in the MEC activities (Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee) in Afghanistan as an anti-corruption expert. In 2012, she was the Europe Ecologie – Les Verts candidate at the French presidential elections.
Eva Joly has published several books, including Notre affaire à tous in 2000 (published in English under the title Justice under Siege in 2006) and her autobiography Korrupsjonsjeger (Corruption hunter) in 2001. In her book Plan for en bedre verden (Plan for a better world), published in 2004, Ms Joly described her views on development assistance, globalisation and the fight against poverty. Her latest books, Des héros ordinaires (Ordinary heroes) and Dans les yeux de Lira (a thriller inspired by her own experience of fighting corruption) were published in 2009 and 2011 at Les Arènes editions. She is Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Bergen (Norway), and has received numerous other awards including, in 2012, the Sophie Prize for her “tireless and reckless” work against economic crime and corruption, and her vision of a sustainable and fair society.
Follow her on @EvaJoly