| Abstrakt: |
Bribery in international business transactions is rampant throughout the world, with estimates of $1 trillion of bribes paid per year. Many countries, including the United States, have implemented legislation that attempts to limit such bribery, but the relevant laws generally only criminalize the acts of supply-side bribers (those who offer to pay or actually pay the bribes). In contrast, the conduct of foreign officials who solicit and accept bribes is generally not criminalized under these statutes. This paper argues that the current system of legislation is both ineffective because of its failure to address the actions of those who actively solicit bribes and inequitable because of the disparity in treatment of culpable parties to the bribery transactions. As a remedy for the deficiencies in the current system, I suggest that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (OECD Convention) should be amended to include the offense of soliciting or being bribed. Furthermore, even if the OECD Convention is not amended, OECD Convention signatories should individually amend their international bribery statutes to criminalize demand-side bribery. Principles of international law and current enforcement of OECD-related statutes show that OECD Convention signatories have ample jurisdictional bases for the criminalization of bribe-taking by foreign officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
