Michael Kubiciel

Cecily Rose

Oliver Landwehr

The United Nations Convention against Corruption includes 71 articles, and takes a notably comprehensive approach to the problem of corruption, as it addresses prevention, criminalization, international cooperation, and asset recovery. Since it came into force more than a decade ago, the Convention has attracted nearly universal participation by states. As a global and comprehensive convention, which establishes new rules in several areas of anti-corruption law and helps shape domestic laws and policies around the world, this treaty calls for scholarly study. This volume helps to fill a gap in existing academic literature by providing an invaluable reference work on the Convention. It provides systematic coverage of the treaty, with each chapter discussing the relevant travaux préparatoires, the text of the final article, comparisons with other anti-corruption treaties, and available information about domestic implementing legislation and enforcement. This commentary is designed to serve as a reference work for academics, lawyers, and policy-makers working in the anti-corruption field, and in the fields of transnational criminal law and domestic criminal law. Contributors include anti-corruption experts, scholars, and legal practitioners from around the globe.

A Commentary

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption

This book traces the creation of international anti-corruption norms by states and other actors through four markedly different institutions: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and the Financial Action Task Force. Each of these institutions oversees an international instrument that requires states to combat corruption. Yet, only the United Nations oversees anti-corruption norms that take the sole form of a binding multilateral treaty. The OECD has, by contrast, fostered the development of the binding 1997 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, as well as non-binding recommendations and guidance associated with treaty itself. In addition, the revenue transparency and anti-money laundering norms developed through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the Financial Action Task Force, respectively, take the form of non-binding instruments that have no relationship with multilateral treaties. The creation of international anti-corruption norms through non-binding instruments and informal institutions has the potential to privilege the interests of powerful states in ways that raise questions about the normative legitimacy of these institutions and the instruments they produce. At the same time, the anti-corruption instruments created under the auspices of these institutions also show that non-binding instruments and informal institutions carry significant advantages. The non-binding instruments in the anti-corruption field have demonstrated a capacity to influence domestic legal systems that is comparable to, if not greater than, that of binding treaties. With corruption and money laundering at the forefront of political debate, International Anti-Corruption Norms provides timely expertise on how states and international institutions grapple with these global problems.

Their Creation and Influence on Domestic Legal Systems

International Anti-corruption Norms

The creation of international anti-corruption norms through non-binding instruments and informal institutions can privilege the interests of powerful states and raise questions about the legitimacy of these institutions and the instruments they produce. At the same time, the anti-corruption instruments created under the auspices of these institutions also show that non-binding instruments and informal institutions carry significant advantages. The non-binding instruments in the anti-corruption field have a clear capacity to influence domestic legal systems that is comparable to, if not greater than, that of binding treaties. This book examines the creation of international anti-corruption norms by states and other actors through four markedly different institutions: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and the Financial Action Task Force. Each of these institutions oversees an international instrument that requires states to combat corruption - yet only the United Nations oversees anti-corruption norms that take the sole form of a binding multilateral treaty. The OECD has, by contrast, fostered the development of the binding 1997 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, as well as non-binding recommendations and guidance associated with treaty itself. In addition, the revenue transparency and anti-money laundering norms developed through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the Financial Action Task Force, respectively, take the form of the non-binding instruments that have no relationship with multilateral treaties. With corruption at the forefront of political debate, International Anti-Corruption Norms provides timely guidance on the burgeoning debate surrounding international finance and natural resources extraction, as well as other forms of modern-day corruption, and the most effective methods of tackling these global political issues.

Cecily Rose

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