Law Commons^™

Arbitrating Corruption, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most controversial issues in international investment law is how arbitral panels should deal with investments tainted by corruption at their inception. The current practice of investment arbitrators is to refuse to hear investors’ claims when bribery allegations are substantiated. A recent wave of scholarship has attacked this “corruption defense,” arguing that the practice unfairly harms investors and encourages governments to maintain corrupt practices. This Essay responds to that scholarship, arguing that the current approach is the best policy choice on balance. The Essay analyzes three core policy questions at the heart of the debate: Would eliminating the …

Kausalitas Penegakan Hukum Tindak Pidana Korupsi Terhadap Stabilitas Keuangan Negara, Nur Ghenasyarifa Albany Tanjung

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

Corruption is an extraordinary crime because it touches various lines of life. One of the fundamental elements in corruption is the loss of the country's economy and finance. So far, various efforts have been made for criminal law enforcement, through various criminal sanctions, as well as the existence of an independent institution specifically tasked with conducting criminal law enforcement. However, corruption continues to be massive in Indonesia, which will also affect state losses. This article will discuss the causality of law enforcement on corruption against state financial stability. There is a causality between law enforcement of criminal acts which has …

Never Waste A Crisis: Anticorruption Reforms In South America, Rachel Brewster, Andres Ortiz

Faculty Scholarship

In the midst of dramatic corruption scandals, South American countries have passed some of the most noteworthy anticorruption legislation in the region’s history. This Article examines the wave of anticorruption reforms and how international law, and in particular anticorruption treaties, has had an important influence on the content of these reforms. Specifically, this Article argues that that the OECD Anti-Bribery Working Group has acted as a political entrepreneur, advocating for specific and meaningful reforms. The influence of international law was critical in ensuring that the reforms adopted during these corruption scandals were robust and that the opportunity presented by these …

Regulating Corruption In Intercountry Adoption, Jordan Bunn

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The current regulatory system for intercountry adoption has failed parents, children, and governments. Impoverished parents and children have been exploited by crooked adoption agencies, orphanage directors, and bureaucrats looking to profit from well-meaning prospective parents who will pay significant fees in order to adopt. While the 1993 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption lays a good foundation for catching and eliminating this corruption, it has not been fully implemented in many developing countries that lack the necessary resources and infrastructure. Some critics want to give up on or significantly modify the Hague …

Guide To Land Contracts: Forestry Projects, International Senior Lawyers Project, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Agricultural investment contracts and forestry projects can be complex, with complicated provisions that are difficult to understand. To assist non-lawyers in better understanding agricultural investment contracts, such as those available on the Open Land Contracts repository, CCSI has developed a Guide to Land Contracts: Forestry Projects.

This Guide, prepared by International Senior Lawyers Project staff and volunteers in collaboration with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, aims to assist the Open Land Contracts repository users in unpacking the technical provisions and language typically found in forestry contracts in order to better understand the contracts and the potential implications of …

Corruption In International Arbitration, Inan Uluc

SJD Dissertations

Corruption represents a great menace to national and international development. It jeopardizes democracy, human rights, and social justice. Consequently, corruption is vehemently abhorred and denunciated by members of the international arbitration arena. Unfortunately, while these players purport repugnance towards corruption and do not condone corrupt acts, there has arisen a misplaced distrust of arbitral process as a proper dispute resolution system. Further, when amalgamating the inherent opaqueness of the arbitral process, its structure founded upon party autonomy, and the clear lack of authority for arbitrators to compel evidence, such distrust persists and encourages belief that arbitration is a venue where …

Guide To Land Contracts: Agricultural Projects, International Senior Lawyers Project, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Agricultural investment contracts can be complex, with complicated provisions that are difficult to understand. This Guide provides explanations for a range of common provisions, and includes a Glossary of legal and technical terms. It assists non-lawyers in better understanding agricultural investment contracts, such as those available on the Open Land Contracts repository.

The Guide was prepared by International Senior Lawyers Project staff and volunteers in collaboration with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment.

Transnational Litigation As A Prisoner's Dilemma, Maya Steinitz, Paul Gowder

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article we use game theory to argue that perceptions of widespread corruption in the judicial processes in developing countries create ex ante incentives to act corruptly. It is rational (though not moral) to preemptively act corruptly when litigating in the courts of many developing nations. The upshot of this analysis is to highlight that, contrary to judicial narratives in individual cases — such as the (in)famous Chevron–Ecuador dispute used herein as an illustration — the problem of corruption in transnational litigation is structural and as such calls for structural solutions. The article offers one such solution: the establishment …

Free Kick: Fifa’S Unintended Role In Illuminating Jurisdictional Gaps Of International Criminal Courts, Travis L. Marmara

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

In the wake of the FIFA corruption scandal of 2015, certain realities have come to light. FIFA’s corruption knows no bounds, but fans of the sport will watch nonetheless. What is less apparent is that the two most prominent international criminal courts—the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) fail to have jurisdiction over the FIFA organization or its officials when they engage in white-collar crimes that sanction human rights abuses abroad. This Note examines how FIFA officials’ acceptance of Qatari bribes to host the 2022 World Cup exposed alarming jurisdictional inadequacies of the ICJ and …

Outcome Report Of Roundtable On Governing Natural Resources, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In November 2014, CCSI convened a one-day roundtable focused on lessons learned from good governance initiatives for extractive industry investments and large land-based agricultural investments. The roundtable brought together a range of stakeholders working on extractive industry investments and/or land-based forestry and agricultural investments, including representatives from civil society, government, academia, and the private sector. CCSI has published an outcome note from this roundtable.

Key structural differences between the extractive industries and the forestry and agriculture sectors mean that not all lessons learned from good governance initiatives related to extractives investments or land-based agricultural investments are transferrable. However, large-scale extractive …

Toward Greater Guidance: Reforming The Definitions Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Matthew W. Muma

Michigan Law Review

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 is the cornerstone of the United States’ efforts to combat the involvement of U.S. companies and individuals in corruption abroad. Enforced by both the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), the Act targets companies and individuals that pay bribes to “foreign officials,” a nebulous category of persons that includes everyone from foreign cabinet members to janitors at companies only partially owned by a foreign state. After only sporadic enforcement in the early years of the Act’s existence, the SEC and DOJ now bring many cases annually. This increased …

Openness In Extraction, Lisa E. Sachs, Shefa Siegel

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

More than a decade before becoming President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer, observed that, among the branches of property law, the distribution of mining rights most elegantly reflects the vicissitudes of social and political relations. According to Hoover, mining rights were a "never-ending contention," as old as economic and civil conflict, among four principle classes – overlord, state, landowner, and miner. "Somebody," he concluded, "has to keep peace and settle disputes."

Today, with the prices of major natural-resource commodities – including oil, coal, copper, gold, and iron ore – doubling, tripling, or rising even faster, the …

Enforcing International Corrupt Practices Law, Paul D. Carrington

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Essay strives to advance the current international movement to deter the transnational corrupt practices that have long burdened the global economy and weakened governments, especially in "developing" nations. Laws made in the last decade to address this longstanding global problem have not been effectively enforced. Described here are the moderately successful efforts in the United States since 1862 to reward private citizens serving as enforcers of laws prohibiting corrupt practices. It is suggested that this American experience might be adapted by international organizations to enhance enforcement of the new public international laws.

International Cooperation In Penal Matters: The "Lockheed Agreements", Bruno A. Ristau

Michigan Journal of International Law

In February 1976, officials of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation testified before a Senate committee that their company had paid $12.6 million in bribes, commissions and fees to Japanese businessmen and government officials to promote sales of Lockheed planes. News of these bribes rocked Japan's political establishment and governmental institutions. The Japanese Diet (parliament) passed a resolution urging that the United States government disclose to the Diet the names of the Japanese officials involved in these bribes. Prime Minister Takeo Mild sent a personal letter to President Ford requesting that the United States make available all information in its possession bearing …