Announcement: Fixing the Fight Against Corruption, Panel Discussion September 17

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As part of its ‘Curbing Corruption’ series, the Legatum Institute, together with Democracy Lab, an on-line partnership between the Institute and Foreign Policy magazine, will host a panel September 17 at the Institute’s London office to discuss the major challenges facing the current global anti–corruption effort and what might be done—from a local perspective to wider international solutions.  Panelists are Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Professor of Democracy Studies, Hertie School of Governance; Nils Taxell, Senior Advisor, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre; and GAB Senior Contributor Richard Messick.  Christian Caryl, Managing Editor, Democracy Lab and Senior Fellow, Legatum Institute will moderate.

The panel will run from 18:00 to 19:15, London time, and will be live streamed.  The Legatum Institute is located at 11 Charles Street, London, W1J 5DW.  Details on attending in person or live streaming are here.

Guest Post: The Blagojevich Case and the Line Between Corruption and Horse-Trading

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Jennifer Rodgers and Jacob Watkins, respectively Executive Director and Program Coordinator for the Columbia University Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (CAPI), contribute the following guest post:

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was recently back in the news, but this time for something he didn’t do wrong, when the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals vacated 5 of the 18 counts on which Blagojevich was convicted in 2011. The appellate court’s decision hinged upon the distinction between illegal corruption and legal (if distasteful) political horse-trading, an issue recently touched upon in the decision by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to uphold former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s public corruption convictions (which Matthew discussed here). The outcome of the Blagojevich appeal shows that under current U.S. law, whether or not a public official’s deal-making is illegal depends upon what exactly the official is bargaining for. Political horse-trading–exchanging one official act for another official act–is not a crime under U.S. federal law, but exchanging an official act for a private benefit is. The decision in the Blagojevich provides a useful opportunity for thinking more generally about how the law ought to draw that difficult line. Continue reading →

Anticorruption Truth Commissions? Lessons to be Learned from Human Rights and Transitional Justice

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A few months back, Anusha made the case for why “freedom from corruption” should not be regarded as a human right. She pointed out a number of legitimate distinctions between corruption and other human rights violations, as well as practical problems with framing corruption in this way. But there are other ways in which corruption does resemble a human rights violation: namely, in the harm it causes. Like widespread human rights abuses, the harm stemming from corruption is often diffuse and difficult to quantify, often with many victims (not always identifiable) and numerous perpetrators. For practical and functional purposes, in the case of systemic corruption–as in the case of regimes with pervasive human rights abuses–it may not be possible to make reparations to all of the victims or to hold all of the offenders to account.

Thus, even if it is impossible – or undesirable – to fully integrate the anticorruption and human rights agendas, it is still worth considering what lessons we can draw from the human rights regime and incorporate into the anticorruption field. Consider, in particular, one mechanism designed to deal with instances of mass atrocities and systematic human rights violations: the truth commission. In the human rights and transitional justice context, truth commissions are temporary bodies responsible for investigating and publicizing past rights abuses committed by public and private actors. As a general matter, truth commissions prioritize gathering information and establishing an accurate record over punitive sanctions. Truth commissions also often involve a quasi-judicial element – which frequently entails granting amnesty to certain actors or referring cases to prosecutorial entities – and emphasize “bottom-up” victim participation. Certain elements of the truth commission model may be instructive in designing justice measures for corruption crimes.

Continue reading →

A Corruption Close-Up: Video Cameras and the Tijuana Police Force

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The Tijuana Police Force is rolling out a new program equipping all officers with body cameras with the express purpose of cutting down on corruption. Public perceptions of corruption within the police force run high, a sentiment shared both within and without the force. Tijuana Police Chief Alejandro Lares Valladares hopes that the body cameras, in addition to helping with the force’s tarnished reputation, will also highlight what he feels is a key but far less-discussed aspect of the city’s rampant corruption: the willingness of the public to instigate corrupt exchanges. (In what was a near-perfect opening act for Lares Valladares’ program, just a few days after Tijuana police officers began wearing the cameras, a driver pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt, who also did not have her driver’s license, offered to bribe the officer. Footage of the exchange helped Lares Valladares convince those within his department that the cameras are not being used only as means of policing the police, but as a means of protecting all parties.)

Body cameras do have the potential to cut down on corruption, but only if the program is administered correctly. Recent studies on how body cameras influence the use of force both by and against US police officers provide a few key lessons, Police Chief Lares Valladares and his colleagues in Tijuana should take into account. Continue reading →

Anticorruption Bibliography–August 2015 Update

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An updated version of my anticorruption bibliography is available from my faculty webpage. A direct link to the pdf of the full bibliography is here, and a list of the new sources added in this update is here. As always, I welcome suggestions for other sources that are not yet included, including any papers GAB readers have written.

Can the United State Avoid a Hypocritical Anticorruption Policy?

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Last week Matthew wrote how hypocritical Britain appeared when at virtually the same time Prime Minister David Cameron was telling leaders in Southeast Asia to take more vigorous action against corruption, his government was asking U.K. companies if Britain’s anti-bribery law was too harsh.  As Matthew explained, the contradiction was likely more apparent than real, probably the result of poor timing rather than any real difference between the government’s policy towards bribery by British and non-British firms.  Nonetheless, even the possibility of differing standards offered much ammunition to critics of the Cameron government’s aggressive international anticorruption campaign.

Like Prime Minister Cameron, U.S. President Barack Obama has been vocal in urging other governments to tackle corruption, lecturing the African Union during his recent visit on the evils of rampant bribery and telling its members to emulate the American example with its “strong laws” against bribery that “we actually enforce.” And like Britain, sooner or later the United States will face the charge that its international anticorruption rhetoric is hypocritical.  The difference will be that whereas the charges laid against the British government arose from a public relations faux pas, in the American case the charges will stem from a genuine contradiction, that between its human rights policy and its commitment to the U.N. Convention Against Corruption.

How will it happen? Continue reading →

Guest Post: Fishing for the Right ACA Heads, and Keeping Them Safe

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Sofie Arjon Schütte, Senior Advisor at the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, contributes the following guest post, adapted from her recent U4 research paper, “The fish’s head: appointment and removal procedures for anti-corruption agency leadership”:

There has been much discussion on this blog (see here, here, and here) about the requirements for an effective, independent anticorruption agency (ACA). A number of factors are important, including (as emphasized in the Jakarta Statement) the ACA’s mandate, permanence, budget security, autonomy over financial and human resources, and internal and external accountability mechanisms, to name a few. But among the many important factors, the procedures for appointment and removal are particularly critical. As the saying goes, “a fish rots from the head down”: when the leadership of an organization is unethical or ineffective, these failings infect the entire organization. Undue external interference with an ACA is likely to target the head, and a co-opted or corrupted ACA head can do serious damage to the effectiveness and reputation of the ACA.

My research on the appointment and removal procedures for heads of 46 ACAs around the world has highlighted some of the important factors that can promote or undermine effective, ethical, and independent ACA leadership. Given different contexts, no specific set of procedures for appointments and removals can be considered ideal for all environments. Nevertheless, some general guidelines are possible: Continue reading →

Get Out Of Jail Free: The Corruption of Police Benevolence Cards

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Get out of jail free cards are only supposed to exist in Monopoly. But they also exist in New York, in literal card form – at least for minor traffic infractions. These are the Police Benevolent Association (PBA) Cards. The New York Police Department claims that the cards carry no special privileges and should not influence an officer’s decision whether or not to issue a traffic ticket. The police unions, however, tell a different story. Al O’Leary, a spokesman for the PBA, said that the union expects officers to refrain from writing tickets for those with PBA cards as long as they are not a danger to others. (Of course, this in turn raises the question of why the police are writing traffic tickets for anyone who is not a danger to others.)

Perhaps the most frequent recipients of the cards are family members of police officers. O’Leary justified that by saying officers deserve a perk for their families because “[t]he risks our officers take every day make them different from other people.” Special privileges for family members would be corrupt enough. But union leaders admit that they also hand out cards as “tokens of appreciation” to politicians, judges, lawyers, and reporters. Indeed, the New York Police Benevolence Association’s includes an article headlined: “Call it a PR tool or a get-out-of-jail-free card: Each year, local PBAs hand out stacks to the well-connected.” In Nassau County, special cards are given to large donors to the police foundations. While the cards are particular notorious in New York, they exist in many police departments around the country.

This is corruption, plain and simple. And this corruption is shockingly blatant. Yet to the extent that the cards have generated significant controversy, it has been about the fact that the cards are now easy to buy on eBay, rather than the fact that they exist in the first place. One city councilman called for an investigation because selling the cards was “an insult to the people who do work for the NYPD.” Another, who admitted to holding a card himself, said: “Selling the courtesy to the highest bidder is wrong and probably should be illegal.”

These critics miss the point. The issue is not whether people other than the select favored of police officers gets out of tickets. Councilman Dan Garodnick got it right when he said: “Our traffic laws should not be enforced with winks and nods. I don’t know which is worse, the existence of a get-out-of-jail-free card or the fact that the cards are being hawked on the internet.” Continue reading →

Sanctions Systems of Multilateral Banks: Overview and Responses

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Although prosecutions under transnational anti-bribery laws like the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act may get more attention, the major multilateral development banks (MDBs) have adopted administrative sanctions systems that significantly contribute to the strengthening of integrity structures in the countries in which they operate. Indeed, the seven large MDBs share an anticorruption strategy that includes harmonized definitions of fraudulent, corrupt and other prohibited practices. The strategy also incorporates shared principles for conducting integrity due diligence in private sector transactions, and a framework for sharing information to address integrity concerns. These sanctioning systems help to deter and prevent corruption in funded projects, thereby helping to ensure that MDBs achieve their development mandates and fulfill their fiduciary duty to guarantee that their loans are used “only for the purposes for which the loan was granted”. In some cases, as in the World Bank’s Macmillan Publishers and SNC-Lavalin debarments, MDB sanctions have preceded criminal charges by national authorities. In this post, I will provide a brief overview of these systems. Continue reading →

The 16th International Anti-Corruption Conference — Sept. 2-4, Putrajaya, Malaysia

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Most readers of this blog are probably already aware of this, but just in case:

The 16th International Anti-Corruption Conference will be held this coming September 2-4 in Putrajaya, Malaysia (about 25 km south of Kuala Lumpur). It looks to be an exciting program with lots of great speakers and interesting panels. Registration is now open. It’s rather expensive (even for poor academics), though there’s a discount if you register by August 14. Hope to see some of you there next month!

[A brief addendum: The fact that one of the world’s biggest anticorruption conferences is going to be held in Malaysia, right at the moment when the Malaysian government is engulfed in a major scandal–with allegations of massive corruption by the Prime Minister himself–should make this conference particularly interesting!]