Corruption
The fight against corruption has gained unprecedented momentum over the past ten to fifteen years. The international community has taken a strong and concerted effort against corruption through a number of treaties and conventions such as the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention (1997) or the UN Convention against Corruption (2005), and by promoting governance and anti-corruption programs in their cooperation with developing partner countries (e.g. various G8 statements). The translations of these instruments results in increased regulatory pressure on companies and higher risks for corrupt public officials, a trend that will persist as law enforcement practice worldwide continues to intensify and improve. In addition to legal risks, companies caught bribing also suffer from reputational damage which can seriously cripple their business, not to speak of the resulting financial risks that may be immense both in terms of fines and business lost. At the same time, senior public officials around the world are increasingly held accountable for corrupt practices during their time in office.
OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions
The OECD began addressing bribery in its anti-corruption work through the Ad hoc Group on Illicit Payments in 1989. Having been part of this work for the past 19 years, and as the Chairperson of the OECD Working Group on Bribery since its creation, Mark Pieth is privileged to have been a part of the evolution of the fight against bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions from its earliest stages.
From the formulation of important recommendations on how governments can combat foreign bribery in the 90s, to the negotiation and adoption of the world’s foremost legal tool for putting the brakes on bribes to foreign public officials in 1997, the OECD Working Group on Bribery is leading global progress in the area of fighting bribery in international business.
The keystone of this work is the 'Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions'. This convention, also called the 'OECD Anti-Bribery Convention', is an international agreement among 36 countries whereby bribing a pulic official of another country in the context of a business deal is a crime.
The Oil-for-Food Programme
The Oil-for-Food Programme, established by the United Nations in 1995, was a response to arguments that ordinary Iraqi citizens were inordinately affected by the international economic sanctions aimed at the demilitarisation of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, imposed in the wake of the first Gulf War. The programme was intended to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to rebuild its military. The sanctions were discontinued in 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the humanitarian functions turned over to the Coalition Provisional Authority.
As the programme ended, there were revelations of corruption involving the funds.
In April of 2004, the three-member Independent Inquiry Committee (Paul A. Volcker, Chair, and Justice Richard J. Goldstone and Prof. Mark Pieth, Members) was charged by the Secretary-General and the Security Council with the task of thoroughly reviewing the management of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme.