The Domestic and International Enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention

Authors

Rachel Brewster, Duke Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Abstract

International corruption law is a growing, if understudied, area of international economic law. This Article examines two aspects of governments' enforcement of the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention. The first aspect is the member state's efforts to enforce its own national legislation prohibiting foreign corruption within its territory and with regards to its nationals doing business abroad. The OECD Treaty's obligation concerning member states' enforcement of their own national legislation is somewhat ambiguous. While the obligation to pass particular national legislation is quite clear and specific, the treaty does not specify what resources that a state must dedicate to internally enforcing these laws. As a result, states may have robust anti-corruption laws on the books but fail to enforce them in a meaningful way. This is more than an abstract concern. As of 2013, less than half of the states party to the OECD Treaty had successfully prosecuted a private actor for foreign corruption. This Article also discusses a second aspect of enforcement: how these internal enforcement ambiguities hamper state-to-state efforts to enforce the agreement. States cannot easily identify whether other states are breaching the treaty's obligations when the internal enforcement obligations are opaque. This complicates international efforts to pressure other states to increase their compliance through retaliation or reciprocity. This Article concludes by discussing enforcement alternatives, namely the continued rigorous American enforcement of anti-corruption policies against private actors, even for activities having minimal territorial ties.

Citation

Rachel Brewster, The Domestic and International Enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, 15 Chicago Journal of International Law 84-109 (2014)