Law Commons^™

American Voter Turnout: The Influence Of Education Levels On Voter Participation, Jack Thomas Bunzel-Hardie

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This study is intended to explore the relevant relationship between mistrust in government officials and voter turnout. Within a research article such as this, it is important to distinguish the dependent and independent factors from one another so as not to get them confused. This article identifies the growing sense of mistrust that many Americans feel towards their government officials as the independent factor while examining the relationship that voter turnout has with that growing fear, therefore making that the dependent variable. While this issue has been studied in the past there have been many new events taking place and …

Law School News: Fateful Decisions Led To The War In Ukraine 04-25-2022, Gregory W. Bowman

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Overcoming Corruption And War -- Lessons From Ukraine's Prozorro Procurement System, Christopher R. Yukins, Steven Kelman

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

After the 2014 uprising against widespread corruption under former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, a group of civic activists and data experts decided to overhaul government procurement. Their efforts produced an open-source e-procurement system, ProZorro (“transparency” in Ukrainian), and a community of citizens and government buyers, Dozorro (“watchdog” in Ukrainian), that analyzes contracting data, flags high-risk deals and irregularities, and reports them to government authorities. Created with the help of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the U.S. Agency for International Development, ProZorro has helped Ukraine save almost $6 billion in public funds since October 2017, according to the …

Canada's Integrity Regime: The Corporate Grim Reaper, Jessica Tillipman, Samantha Block

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In 2019, SNC-Lavalin made global headlines after it was revealed that the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, had interfered in the prosecution of the company for the bribery of Libyan officials. Although the scandal was primarily viewed as political, it also highlighted flaws in Canada’s Integrity Regime; specifically, the regime’s unworkable and draconian approach to debarment. This Article will address the pressing need in Canada to modify its debarment remedy and enact a system that more effectively protects the government’s interests. To illuminate the current issues facing Canada’s Integrity Regime, this Article will begin by examining Canada’s debarment system, outlining …

Mckinsey & Company’S Conduct And Conflicts At The Heart Of The Opioid Epidemic, Hearing Before The House Committee On Oversight And Reform, Jessica Tillipman

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

On April 27, 2022, Jessica Tillipman, Assistant Dean for Government Procurement Law Studies at The George Washington University Law School testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform regarding McKinsey & Company's potential Organizational Conflict of Interest between its contracts with the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and its commercial, opioid manufacturer clients. Her testimony addressed the longstanding need to update and clarify the current legal framework governing Organizational Conflicts of Interest (OCIs) in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the importance of government contractors maintaining strong internal ethics and compliance programs.

Organizational Conflicts Of Interest: Cautionary Tales, Jessica Tillipman

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

A recent, high-profile investigation involving McKinsey & Company (McKinsey) and its contracts with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reminded us that organizational conflicts of interest (OCIs) are an integrity issue that never should be written off as a check-the-box exercise during the procurement process. This incident highlighted the need to address critical gaps in this area of the law. This article appeared in the August 2022 issue of Contract Management magazine published by the National Contract Management Association. Used with permission.

Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav Shrihari Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate whether judicial decisions are affected by career concerns of judges by analyzing two questions: Do judges respond to incentives to pander by ruling in favor of the government in the hope of receiving jobs after retiring from the Supreme Court? Does the government reward judges who rule in its favor with prestigious jobs? We construct a data set of Supreme Court of India cases involving the government for 1999–2014. We find that incentives to pander have a causal effect on judicial decision-making, and they are jointly determined by the importance of the case and whether the judge retires …

The Future Of Materialist Constitutionalism, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This is a review essay of Camila Vergara, Systemic Corruption (Princeton 2020). In this lively and important book, Vergara argues that corruption should be given a structural definition, one that connects corruption with inequality and is plebeian rather than elitist. After surveying the work of thinkers from Machiavelli to Arendt, she proposes a set of solutions grounded in the civic republican tradition.

I press several points in my essay. First, Vergara's linkage of corruption with inequality is promising, but introduces tension between a general problem (domination of the many by the few) and a more specific problem (the domination of …

Corruption In The Public Sector In North Macedonia: What Can Be Done?, Teodora Gacoska

English Language Institute

The purpose of this project is to analyze the current situation of corruption in the public sector in North Macedonia and suggest possible solutions to prevent this kind of corruption.

Democracy, Deference, And Compromise: Understanding And Reforming Campaign Finance Jurisprudence, Scott P. Bloomberg

Faculty Publications

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court interpreted the government’s interest in preventing corruption as being limited to preventing quid pro quo—cash-for-votes—corruption. This narrow interpretation drastically circumscribed legislatures’ abilities to regulate the financing of elections, in turn prompting scholars to propose a number of reforms for broadening the government interest in campaign finance cases. These reforms include urging the Court to recognize a new government interest such as political equality, to adopt a broader understanding of corruption, and to be more deferential to legislatures in defining corruption. Building upon that body of scholarship, this Article begins with a descriptive account of …

‘‘Appearance Of Corruption’’: Linking Public Opinion And Campaign Finance Reform, Douglas M. Spencer, Alexander G. Theodoridis

Publications

At present, campaign finance regulations may only be justified if their primary purpose is to prevent quid pro quo corruption or the appearance of corruption. References to the ‘‘appearance of corruption’’ are ubiquitous in campaign finance decisions, yet courts have provided very little guidance about what the phrase means. In this article, we report findings from a broadly representative national survey in which we (1) directly ask respondents to identify behaviors that appear politically corrupt, and (2) indirectly measure perceptions of corruption using a novel paired-choice conjoint experiment asking respondents to choose which of two randomly generated candidates are more …

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 …

The Compliance Mentorship Program: Improving Ethics And Compliance In Small Government Contractors, Jessica Tillipman, Vijaya Surampudi

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Over the past decade, the anti-corruption, ethics, and compliance landscape has changed dramatically. This is a direct consequence of a global anti-corruption enforcement effort led by the United States through its enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The increase in enforcement has also been spurred by the adoption of several multilateral anti-corruption agreements, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). These agreements have spurred several countries to enact anti-corruption laws, such as the U.K. Bribery Act, Brazil’s Clean Company Act, and France’s Loi Sapin II. The …

International Lawyers As Disrupters Of Corruption: Business And Human Rights In Africa’S Most Populous Country—Nigeria, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Be it bribery, embezzlement, or the abuse of public trust, corruption poses a major challenge to global security and democratic governance, along with undermining the rule of law, especially within the Global South. Key to this phenomenon is understanding how lawyers are enabling but also disrupting this epidemic. Unfortunately, the literature on this subject is lacking. This study, therefore, offers a nuanced story of globalization and the complicated role that lawyers play in corruption, by relying on the case study of Nigeria—a crucial Global South market that has the largest population on the African continent. While Nigeria has been able …

Dispute Resolution In Pandemic Circumstances, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

The peaceful resolution of disputes is among the most important earmarks of a regime attached to the rule of law. Even in countries in which, for one reason or another, courts do not work especially well, civil peace is of paramount importance. The absence of effective institutions for the administration of justice between and among private parties would spell a high degree of social disorder.

Even in the absence of a crisis such as we are experiencing, justice systems face a number of challenges in this day and age. Does a jurisdiction have a sufficient number of persons qualified to …

The Effect Of Police Oversight On Crime And Allegations Of Misconduct: Evidence From Chicago, Bocar A. Ba, Roman G. Rivera

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

Does policing the police increase crime? We avoid simultaneity effects of increased public oversight during a major scandal by identifying events in Chicago that only impacted officers’ self-imposed monitoring. We estimate crime’s response to self- and public-monitoring using regression discontinuity and generalized synthetic control methods. Self-monitoring, triggered by police union memos, significantly reduced serious complaints without impacting crime or effort. However, after a scandal, both civilian complaints and crime rates rise, suggesting that higher crime rates following heightened oversight results from de-policing and civilian behavior simultaneously changing. Our research suggests that proactive internal accountability improves police-community relations without increasing crime.

The Guatemalan Presidential Election, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

With current President Jimmy Morales’ term concluding in 2020, the presidential election is currently underway in Guatemala to determine his successor. The Constitution of Guatemala prohibits incumbent presidents from running for a second term and several prominent political figures are competing to replace President Morales, with many accusations about their checkered political past.

Canadian Corruption And The Snc-Lavalin Affair, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

On February 7, 2019, The Globe and Mail published a report alleging that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, together with his aides and cabinet officers, had attempted to improperly influence former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould in the Canadian Justice Department’s prosecution of Montreal construction firm SNC-Lavalin. SNC-Lavalin is a major company, which employs thousands of workers and reported 10 billion Canadian Dollars in revenue in 2018. The charges against them centered around allegations that they had made numerous bribes to Libyan officials from 2001-2011 in order to secure contracts. Due to these charges, SNC-Lavalin faces a potential ban on bidding …

Report Of The Task Force For The Promotion Of Public Trust: City Of Atlanta, Leah Ward Sears, Derek Alphran, O.V. Brantley, Linda Disantis, William S. Duffy Jr., Robert M. Franklin Jr., Maryanne Gaunt, Lawton Jordan, Don Penovi, Michael T. Sterling, Joseph Wilkinson Jr., Paul Zucca

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

The Task Force for the Promotion of Public Trust was formed out of a desire by the Mayor and Atlanta City Council to strengthen the City’s ethical environment and analyze the City’s existing resources pertaining to oversight and investigations currently divided among a number of City agencies. The Task Force was also asked to assess the role of the City’s Independent Compliance Office, a new investigative office created by Ordinance earlier this year. The mandate of the Task Force was to juxtapose an analysis of the operational roles of the multiple offices in Atlanta responsible for investigations, ethics, oversight, audit, …

From The Basketball Court To Federal Court: Perils Of The Prosecutorial Approach To Wire Fraud In The Ncaa Basketball Cases, Paul Tuchmann

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Three similar criminal cases involving college basketball are currently progressing through the Southern District of New York. The first to go to trial, United States v. James Gatto, Merl Code, and Christian Dawkins, No. 17 Crim. 686, culminated in a guilty verdict on October 24, 2018, with all three defendants found guilty on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York alleged that the Gatto defendants participated in a scheme in which the defendants—former Adidas employees Gatto and Code, as well as aspiring sports agent …

Corruption In Basketball: Understanding United States V James Gatto Et. Al., Cara Christina Maines, Edward Popovici

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

In United States v. James Gatto et. al., federal prosecutors successfully argued that violations of rules adopted by private associations can form the basis for federal criminal prosecution. The convictions in the Gatto case established that rules promulgated by the National College Athletic Association, the NCAA, could serve as the basis for felony charges of, among others, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The Gatto trial was part of a much larger investigation by the FBI into NCAA sports corruption. This paper will look at the NCAA investigation with a focus on James Gatto and his associates, …

"Gatekeepers" Are Vital Participants In Anti-Money-Laundering Laws And Enforcement Regimes As Permission-Less Blockchain-Based Transactions Pose Challenges To Current Means To "Follow The Money", Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Two phenomena dominate reports about blockchain-based transactions—that they will disrupt and displace legacy banking, securities, and trade intermediaries, and that they present new or greater opportunities for hiding proceeds of crimes or corruption. This essay does not deal with the former topic. Rather, the organizers of the symposium at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law asks me to consider the latter question. It proved to be a tough assignment.

This essay looks at the separate questions of (1) the degree to which permission-less blockchain transactions will disrupt current anti-money laundering (AML) regimes and enforcement efforts, and (2) what …

An Investigation Into Best Practices And Lessons Learnt With Respect To China's Crackdown On Corruption, Dominic Kwok

Joseph Wharton Scholars

Corruption is a well-documented problem in China, as well as many other developed and undeveloped countries across the world. The problem is particularly pronounced in countries that have undergone rapid economic transformation, allowing large amounts of wealth to fall into the hands of a select few individuals. Although corruption has been researched extensively, what is less covered are potential solutions that the country, and others looking to carry out similar reform, could use to combat corruption most effectively. As China has transitioned from a planned economy to a market economy, and the economy has become more powerful than ever, corruption …

Stategraft, Bernadette Atuahene, Timothy Hodge

All Faculty Scholarship

Although sometimes difficult to detect, governmental power abuses can have detrimental impacts. Property tax assessments provide an effective lens to examine this phenomenon because, given the complexity of calculating property tax assessments, it is difficult for citizens to know when local government has exceeded its legitimate taxing authority and crossed into the realm of illegal extraction. Michigan is an ideal case study because it protects property owners by making assessment-related power abuses more visible through a unique state constitutional provision: property tax assessments cannot exceed 50 percent of a property’s market value. Abuses have persisted nevertheless. Between 2011 and 2015, …

Corruption By Card: How Police Association Cards Allow Law Enforcement To Cloak Self-Dealing As Discretion​, Andrew Kuntz

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Law enforcement abuse their discretion by providing favorable treatment to individuals that demonstrate a relationship to the law enforcement community. Private organizations affiliated with law enforcement have capitalized on this by creating association cards which are distributed by members to friends, family members, and others. Card holders present the card during encounters with law enforcement to signal that they have a relationship with law enforcement, with the expectation that they will receive favorable treatment. Though the cards have no formal authority behind them, strong norms in the law enforcement community punish officers that fail to honor them. Because the cards …

The Corruption And Human Rights Connection: Government Acquiescence In Torture, Edward Popovici

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Corruption has human rights consequences. That was the conclusion of a 2009 study by the International Council on Human Rights Policy and Transparency International and it is a conclusion that the 9th Circuit implicitly reached in Parada v. Sessions, a review of a dismissal of asylum case decided on August 29th, 2018. Despite the fact that such a conclusion enjoys widespread support, courts have been slow to recognize the relationship between corruption and human rights abuses. Parada v. Sessions represents an effort by the 9th Circuit to give legal cognizance to the corruption-human rights link. The holding of the …

United States V. Pawlowski: Prosecuting Corruption In A Post-Mcdonnell World, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Edwin “Ed” Pawlowski is the former mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Pawlowski first became mayor in 2006, and he held the office until his resignation on March 9, 2018, when he was found guilty of 47 charges in total:

• one count of conspiracy,
• eleven counts of federal program bribery,
• two counts of attempted extortion,
• six counts of mail fraud,
• nine counts of wire fraud,
• two counts of honest services mail fraud,
• six counts of honest services wire fraud,
• seven counts of making false statements to federal officials,
• and three counts of Travel Act bribery.

A Diagnostic Of Urban Corruption In Mexico, Ana Grajales, Paul Lagunes, Tomas Nazal

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

In spite of the promises of urban life, cities are no panacea. Their governments have been known to promote policies that disadvantage the poor and other vulnerable residents (Piccato 2001). In the developing world, urban population growth can result in overcrowding (Abu-Lughod 2004), and the worsening of environmental problems (Molina and Molina 2002). Criminality and violence are additional concerns (Caldeira 2000 ; Moncada 2009). In Mexico, between 2006 and 2017, more than one-hundred mayors were murdered in the context of an ongoing drug war (Valencia 2017).

The Netanyahu Investigations, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Benjamin Netanyahu is the current and longest serving Israeli Prime Minister. He has held office for 12 years, most recently from 2009 to present, and previously between the years of 1996 and 1999. As chairman of the right-wing Likud Party, Prime Minister Netanyahu has led a conservative and defense focused coalition in Israel’s parliament. His career in public service has also included time spent as the Minister of Finance from 2003-2005, the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2002-2003, and as Ambassador of Israel to the United Nations from 1984-1988.

Funding Integrity: Comparing Inspector General Funding Approaches, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that inspectors general require adequate funding to effectively perform their duties. Whether or not funding is adequate depends on the funding mechanism, but no particular method for budgetary allocations is used universally. CAPI reviewed different approaches throughout the country to better understand how budgets for inspectors general offices are set. This issue brief describes four different budget approaches used in various jurisdictions and examines their pros and cons. The Appendix lists the offices examined and provides information on their funding methods.