Career
He co-founded Transparency International in 1993 and later Tiri in 2003. Tiri is a Maori word which means lifting the taboos for the protection of society. At Transparency International, Pope co-created Corruption Perceptions Index (Consumer price index) which identified best and worst practices related to corruption and ranked countries accordingly.
He wrote the organization"s "manual" on preventing corruption entitled Confronting Corruption: The Elements of a National Integrity System, which was translated into more than 20 different languages.
A barrister in New Zealand and England, Pope worked for 17 years as legal counsel and director of the Commonwealth Secretariat"s Legal Division. During the 1970s he was active with the "Save Manapouri" environmental movement in New Zealand.
He was for many years editor of the New Zealand Law Journal and the Commonwealth Law Bulletin. Pope said he moved to London in the 1980s because of his displeasure with the administration of New Zealand Prime Minister Rob Muldoon.
In 1982 he became the founding trustee of Interights, an international legal human rights non-governmental organization. Pope returned to New Zealand in 2006.