Law Commons^™

Clinging To Democracy: Assessing The Russian Legislative-Executive Relationship Under Boris Yeltsin's Constitution, Ian R. Brown

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation has received harsh criticism as a document that confers strong powers upon the executive at the expense of a much weaker legislature. Such a disparity is understandable, as the Constitution was conceived out of the violent confrontation between President Boris Yeltsin and the rebellious communist-nationalist Duma in October 1993. Following the adoption of the Constitution in December 1993, many observers predicted a return to dictatorship in Russia.

Yet in practice, despite much heavy-handedness on the part of the president during the Yeltsin administration, the 1993 Constitution and the institutions it created have survived …

Transnational Bribery Of Foreign Officials: A New Threat To The Future Of Democracy, Julie B. Nesbit

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Anti-corruption movements around the world have set the stage for a comprehensive attack on transnational bribery. The Organization of American States adopted the first convention to criminalize transnational bribery in 1996, and efforts by the OECD to address the issue culminated in the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, which was signed by the representative Ministers in November 1997, and is expected to enter into force by 1999. While these developments are promising, they offer only a partial solution to a complex problem. Transnational bribery will persist until a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy, based on …

Expression Of Democracy: Local Elections In Petorca, Chile, Peter S. Cleaves, Eugene V. Matta

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The municipal elections of Chile were held on April 2,1967. On April 3, in Santiago, spokesmen from the national committees of the five major parties --the Christian Democrats, the Radicals, the Communists, the Nationalists, and the Socialists--all proclaimed that the results showed that their political aggregation had been victorious on the previous day. The debate concerning who had won the election raged for several weeks in the press, in Congress and in spirited social conversation. The Christian Democrats argued that although their percentage of the national vote dropped from forty-two per cent to thirty-five per cent, they had increased their …