TAKING STOCK:
MAKING THE OECD INITIATIVE AGAINST CORRUPTION WORK

Mark Pieth
Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology, University of Basel
Chairman of the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
   
2. The significance of the OECD initiative against corruption
1. Reducing the supply of corrupt payments
2. Catalytic effect
3. Test case in developing structures of „global governance" ?
3. Developing a common standard
1. From „soft law" to a Convention
2. The „soft law" method
4. Monitoring of the legal implementation
1. Functional equivalence
2. Monitoring procedure
5. Will laws also be applied ?
   
6. Planning the future
1. Completing work on criminal law
2. A „second storey" on the OECD’s building ?
7. Final remarks

 

TAKING STOCK: MAKING THE OECD-INITIATIVE AGAINST CORRUPTION WORK

1. INTRODUCTION
   

"Why do you believe this initiative is going to succeed,
whereas many others in the past have failed to make
a difference to the world of corruption?"

This and similar questions are asked regularly by members of the private sector when discussing the OECD’s work on corruption. Officials in turn, even in a more formal setting, inquire what assurances the OECD can give their country that they will not be the only to implement the new anti-corruption programme to the letter. Indeed, these questions have to be taken very seriously. Only ten years ago the prospects of doing anything significant against corruption world-wide were very bleak indeed. Only few experienced observers would have believed that in 1997 Ministers of 34 countries, representing collectively over 70% of exports world-wide and over 90% of foreign direct investments, would sit around a table and pledge that their country intends do all in their power to prevent and repress the bribery of foreign public officials in international business. It is therefore a very relevant question why even sceptical diplomats are now confident that significant advances in reducing corruption, one of the world’s most serious and difficult problems, are at hand. The question actually goes to the heart of the OECD’s initiative: What is the motor that drives this so dynamic process? What are the mechanisms of „soft law" that make the OECD initiative and others look like anything but a „soft option"?

This chapter will enquire about the reasons for change (2.), and it will follow up on the methodology, the working of "soft law" as it has been developed in the OECD context (3.). Since the aim is to implement a common standard, mutual trust depends on the ability of countries to discuss their individual approaches in a peer group setting and to give each other a frank feedback. This paper will give some insight into the mechanisms of evaluation of implementing legislations (4.). Sceptics of course would not be satisfied by mere harmonisation of law. Establishing a "level playing field of commerce" implies comparable practice by official agencies and compliance by the private sector. OECD’s procedures to monitor practice will be outlined in a further paragraph (5.). Finally, this chapter will touch upon the future work programme of the OECD Working Group in combating bribery (6.) and attempt to set this initiative into a wider context. (7.)

2. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE OECD INITIATIVE AGAINST CORRUPTION

The significance of the OECD’s anti-corruption programme could be summarised in three points: First, it will immediately reduce the supply of corrupt payments, second, it has had a catalytic effect and promoted a dramatic policy change over the last ten years and finally, it could be a test case in developing of standards of "global governance":

1. Reducing the supply of corrupt payments

The OECD’s work on corruption has been the first initiative on a multilateral level to seriously attempt to reduce the "supply-side" of corrupt payments on a worldwide level. It ended an era of mutual fingerpointing between countries of the North and the South inhibiting all progress in the reduction of corruption. It basically demonstrates the willingness of industrialised states to – if you want – "collectively-unilaterally" put an end to the influx of large corruption payments, both into countries in the North and the South. It thereby has an immediate effect on maintaining "good governance" and in promoting fair trading conditions. Primarily, its approach addresses itself to companies in the North and it fosters the development of adequate compliance schemes against corruption by the private sector. For the non-compliant the systems, however, have a serious or very tough criminal and non-criminal sanctions in store, which should make corruption economically unattractive.

2. Catalytic effect

Second, the initiative of the OECD has, especially in the years between 1989 and 1994, the time leading up to its first Recommendation, generated the confidence that corruption does not have to be accepted as an inevitable fact of life. Many other organisations and fora picked up the issue or had a new look at some of their older instruments. The Council of Europe began to work on the topic regionally following up on a summit of Ministers of Justice in Malta in 1994, the OAS equally began to draft its Convention against corruption in 1994 on the basis of a initiative by Venezuela, the ICC resumed its work on its Rules of Conduct written in 1977 and mandated a special Working Group to reconsider the text. The leading NGO on the prevention of corruption, Transparency International, was itself founded in 1994. Finally, the UN picked up the topic and many of the principles contained in other documents shortly after, with its declarations of the General Assembly of 1996. There is not necessarily a direct causality link between the work of the OECD and these more recent initiatives, the bold statement by the OECD-members in 1994, however, their commitment to combat corruption effectively from their side, has undoubtedly had a catalytic effect on the work of international governmental organisations, the private sector and Civil Society in general.

3. Test case developing structures of "global governance" ?

Finally the OECD work has led to a première in international law: Using relatively newly developed methods of "soft law" borowed on the one hand from the promotion and monitoring of standards in Human Rights since the 70ies, and more recently from so called Task Forces in the area of transnational economic and organised crime (most notably the Financial Action Task Force on Money-Laundering and the Chemical Action Task Force on Precursor Chemicals used in the production of drugs) as well as methods applied in accession procedures to international organisations on the other hand, OECD has generated a technique to draft, implement and monitor legal standards across the world in a very short timeframe: Whereas the refinement of the 1994 standards took until March 1997, the transformation from "soft" to "hard" convention-law took barely seven months until December 1997. Again the pace of further steps accelerated: The OECD-Convention already entered into force in February 1999, after six of the major countries had ratified. Until November 1999 already 18 countries have ratified and implemented their legislation. Another group of about seven countries is to follow shortly.

Beyond its breathtaking and unheard of speed of implementation the OECD process is already now regarded as a model for a technique to secure adequate implementation of its standards – together with the work done in the area of money-laundering, which has influenced the OECD procedures in many respects.

Potentially, this initiative could be regarded as an example in a much more fundamental sense: It has been driven largely by the urge to open and liberalize world markets; in turn combating corruption, introducing the notion of "fair trade" or (in the North American imaginery) a "level playing field" is a contribution to the establishment of standards on a global level. The process could serve as a model in building dams against the wild-running stream of globalized economy where it generates nocious effects. It is a contribution to the topic of "global governance" in an area where national action alone is no longer able to adequately prevent risks. The future will show, if this approach could be used also in such areas as the prevention of child labor, the safeguard of climatic conditions in the world and other major challenges to humanity.

3. DEVELOPING A COMMON STANDARD

   The current standard of OECD and associated countries to prevent and combat transnational and commercial bribery is enshrined in against the two instruments mentioned, the (revised) Recommendation of May 1997 as well as in the Convention of December 1997. Whereas the Recommendation contains the entire programme as far as it has been agreed by participant countries, the Convention is a close-up on one specific issue, the criminalising of bribery of foreign public officials in a commercial framework. To the outside observer it may seem strange that parts of the programme are still in a „soft law" status, others set in a legally more binding instrument. This, however, merely mirrors the particular process OECD has gone through over the last few years:

   1. From „soft law" to a Convention

      It is not generally known that the work on corruption in the OECD reaches back into the 1980ies. The first policy statement – in rather general terms – is to be found in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. This text primarily defining standards for companies was of course written under very different conditions: The conflict over the role of MNE’s and their averse effects on the newly decolonized nations as it grew evident in the late 70ies. The actual initiative for action against corrupt payments addressing Governments dates from 1989, when the US made a new attempt to criminalize foreign corrupt practices on a worldwide basis and suggested work on an anti-corruption instrument in the OECD, after the UN had abandoned its efforts ten years previously, since their preparations of a convention had run into serious political problems. The US were the only country in the world criminalizing and enforcing its legislation against transnational bribery since 1977. They were perceived as putting their industry in a comparative trade disadvantage by their own private sector. It seemed that with the opening of the East and the general globalisation of economy progressing fast, chances of a collective approach were far greater in the 90s. Nevertheless, work in the OECD took until 1994 to produce a first policy instrument to be adopted and published by Ministers: The 1994 Recommendation has all the advantages and disadvantages of genuine „soft law": Bold statements could be made without immediate legal obligations to act. Moreover, the 1994 Recommendation contained a so-called „shopping list" of items to be further examined. The real value of the document was to initiate a dynamic process of close-up examinations of these items (especially criminal law, tax treatment, accounting provisions and rules on public procurement) over the next three years.

      This stage was crucial, since it allowed to build the awareness that concerted action was beneficial to all participants at the same time as giving the sub-items a concrete profile. It marks the first major step from unilateralism towards collective action. This phase of in-depth detailed work led to yet another „soft law"-instrument, however, written in a far more concrete and prescriptive language: The so-called "Revised Recommendation of 1997". Most notably the Recommendation included a follow-up procedure allowing to monitor progress in implementing the Recommendation by Member States.

      This was the moment when a group of countries would no longer continue the harmonisation process on a mere „soft law" basis, since they felt that in such a highly sensitive area terms needed to be defined as clearly as possible. The request originally met with some resistance, because the rest of the Group feared that the dynamic process could be stalled by a too early move into binding law.

      The compromise carrying the current phase relies on the one hand on the criminalisation-Convention defining illegal behaviour and establishing the toughest set of sanctions - thereby indirectly also influencing non-penal sanctions and preventive measures defined in the Recommendation. On the other hand Ministers hoped to maintain the momentum by insisting on a tight timetable, on a stringent monitoring mechanism and an outreach programme to invite further countries to participate and to link up with other organisations working on the topic of corruption. Simultaneously the substantive work continued on the basis of the „soft law" method. It is evident that the main risk of the approach adopted is not disagreement in substance but overburdening of the institution.

   2. The „soft law" method

      The OECD is particularly experienced as an organisation in the area of „soft law". Much of its work leads to politically, but not legally binding „Recommendations". Consequently, one of the most essential working principles of the OECD is decision by unanimity, if not foreseen otherwise. Other organisations – at least in their subsidiary bodies – allow for the majority – or a qualified majority principle. Now this seems a rather formal issue. However, it has tremendous consequences for the working atmosphere and the methodology adopted. Whereas it may be easier to advance by majority, serious difficulties might arise on a higher, political level of the body. In the OECD context most of the politically touchy issues are already addressed in the subsidiary bodies. Working on the basis of unanimity implies a specific style. Typical for the OECD is the „peer negotiation" approach: Amongst peers it is wise to be subtle, but it is also possible to be very frank, and of course the „peer pressure" to go along with the Group can be substantial – it is the correlate to the unanimity principle.

      Very direct questions may be asked, and with all its respect for diplomatic culture the OECD does not shy away from dissent. Unanimity, however, also means that arguments have a chance to be considered on their merits rather than on the mere political and economic clout of the speaker. Of course there is power play involved and sometimes things can get rough, especially when countries use the media to support their point in a crucial negotiation phase. Politically participants are used to the methods of forming alliances to prevent hegemony. In specific areas – especially within the monitoring mechanism – there are clear rules of fairness, a formalised procedure of adopting reports and strict confidentiality before final decisions by the Council. In fact, these rules are fundamental to the "peer review approach", since organised public censure by the highest body of the organisation is the main sanction for slow or insufficient compliance.

      Beyond procedures and the "style of the house" there are of course reasons inherent to the topic that allowed for this extremely rapid progress towards a Convention, once the general outlines had been concluded in the 1997 Recommendation: Even if some countries may have doubted that it would be possible to bring about a radical change of policy on transnational corruption in such a short time on a world-wide scale, amongst Parties a consensus developed over the years of preparation that competition will greatly benefit from concluding a strict no-corruption pact. Beyond the "fair trade" agenda the position of everybody doing business abroad will profit from a drastic reduction of the influx of large illicit payments into any country. Apart from no longer having to compete on irrational meta-markets of bribery, finding an objective uncorrupted judiciary helps to reduce uncertainties. Of course citizens of the countries affected and investors alike will benefit from the promotion of the rule of law, of economic and social conditions and ultimately democracy.

      Given the Parties’ overarching common interest, the main difficulty in constructing an anti-bribery instrument - that would be operational in a reasonable time frame - was the creation of a standard that would respect the fundamental legal structure and principles of Parties, but at the same time would allow to insist on compliance. The theory behind the approach chosen by OECD in its Convention is code-worded "functional equivalence".

4. MONITORING OF THE LEGAL IMPLEMENTATION

The following paragraph will illustrate this method as well as give a basic idea of thie procedures adopted in the country evaluations.

1. Functional equivalence

   Para 2 of the Official Commentaries to the OECD Convention states:

   „This Convention seeks to assure a functional equivalence among the measures taken by the Parties to sanction bribery of foreign public officials, without requiring uniformity or changes in fundamental principles of the Party’s legal system."

   The Convention borrows a principle developed in comparative law and further develops it. According to the functional approach of comparison attention is drawn to the overall working of systems rather than individual institutions. The assumption is that each legal system has its own logic and is not necessarily determined by the legal texts alone. Practices and informal rules are part of this approach as well as other aspects of the legal system taking over ancillary functions. Therefore the focus of comparison would lie on overall effects produced by a country’s legal system rather than the individual rules. To give a few examples taken from the monitoring of the OECD Convention. In some issues the Convention itself gives alternatives, in some it merely leaves the necessary leeway:

   1. Confiscation

      Article 3 para 3 of the Convention requires Parties to take appropriate measures to ensure that bribery and proceeds of bribes as defined in the Treaty or their value be subject to seizure and confiscation "...or that monetary sanctions of comparable effect are applicable.". Here the Convention itself demonstrates its flexibility. European Countries have introduced broad-sweeping confiscation laws following the Vienna Convention of 1988 on illicit trafficking in drugs and the Council of Europe Convention 141 on Money Laundering, Search Seizure and Confiscation. The US and Korea would attempt to achieve a similar result with a large fine. To a legal expert the two options are not at all equivalent, since confiscation depends upon provenance of the funds from crime, and fines are defined according to the culpability of the offender. Whereas in principle all illgotten gains are to be forfeited the fine is finally calibrated on the degree of culpability. In the OECD context both approaches are explicitly acceptable if their effect is comparable. This is certainly the case where a simple objective proportionality to the earnings is used as criterion. Where, however, the discretion of judges in lieu of confiscating is very wide, comparability will have to be further examined. The OECD Working Group frequently reserves its right to pronounce itself on the efficiency of such a sanction in practice during a second round of evaluations (cf. below 5.).

   2. Definition of the act

      In a similar way the Convention indicates acceptable alternatives when defining corruption as a "quid pro quo": When describing the "pro quo", the goal of the bribor, it refers to an approach found in many legislations (take the French, the British or the US Legislation): "...in order that the official act or refrain from acting in relation to the performance of official duties..." (article 1 para 1 in fine). Commentary No 3, however, offers as an alternative the requirement of a (real or at least envisaged) "breach of duty". This variation is acceptable "...provided that it was understood that every public official had a duty to exercise judgement or discretion impartially and this was an "autonomous" definition not requiring proof of the law of the particular official’s country." (an approach adopted by countries like Norway, Germany, Switzerland and Austria).

      The significance of this distinction might not be immediately evident: Acceptability of a breach of duty concept allows a country to evade all those tedious discussions on de minimis rules (facilitation payments, bona fide expenditures): By definition mere "grease payments" are excluded. This approach offers a simple concept to distinguish genuine corruption from gratuities and other forms of petty corruption.

   3. Corporate liability

      The Convention gives far less directions on the highly relevant issue of corporate liability: Article 2 of the Convention asks countries to introduce the "responsibility of legal persons". Article 3 para 2 of the Convention indicates, however, that also non-criminal sanctions against a corporation are acceptable, provided they include monetary sanctions and that they are overall "effective, proportionate and dissuasive".

      To experts it will be evident that the alternative (criminal versus administrative liability) is not the real issue, except where countries find it difficult to accord legal assistance to administrative proceedings abroad. The far more relevant topic is the approach to responsibility. Do we talk about strict or vicarious liability; do we hold a company liable for the misconduct of its employee or for an insufficient compliance structure? There are many more relevant questions in this area including the issue of adequate sanctions. Clearly the OECD Working Group was not in the position to unify criminal law with regard to such diverging systems represented by its Parties. However, if it drew a line here for the purpose of concluding the Convention in time, there it clearly left room for further work on the basis of a horizontal analysis after the country reviews.

      "Functional equivalence" is therefore the key principle in evaluating the countries’ approach. Giving the demanding nature of such a comparison there is a danger of concentrating on such issues that seem easy to operationalise. The Convention touches upon the statutes of limitation and penalties provided for by the individual countries. Some authors have already conducted their own comparisons and have compared the maximum prison sentences for transnational bribery. I would, however, advise against a simplistic reading of the concept of equivalence. Although severe penalities are outward signs of offence seriousness, for instance, in real practice maximum provisions are rarely used. What the Convention demands is that every country takes transnational bribery to be a serious offence primarily, as serious as domestic corruption. The basic approach of the Convention is to respect the countries’ own sanctioning cultures. In search of a principle that respects local sactioning traditions one would also compare the sanction for transnational bribery with that for other comparably serious offenses, e.g. theft, fraud and embezzlement internally before simply opposing the figures in an international comparison.

      The sanction should be consistent with central norms of criminal law in every Member State. So, a maximum of one year of imprisonment for transnational bribery would seem very low if the maximum for domestic corruption, theft or fraud would be at five years in this country. More difficult is the situation where a whole cultural area (take the Nordic States in Europe) has a much lower level of maxima, where e.g. robbery is punished with a two year maximum of imprisonment. The OECD should not upset the entire system of "ordinal proportionality" just because other countries make a different use of criminal law.

2. Monitoring procedure

   Still outside the actual monitoring of the implementation of the OECD instruments the Working Group on Bribery conducts a "tour de table" at least four times a year requesting all countries to report on the stage of legislation implementing these standards. This information will immediately be published on internet following the meetings.

   In developing its monitoring procedure the OECD Working Group on Bribery has drawn from the experiences of the OECD’s country evaluations, especially accession procedures and the evaluation by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering when drafting its own procedural rules. A first phase of actual monitoring, currently under way, is concentrating on the legal implementation of the Convention and the Recommendation. The evaluation is based again on the principle of peer reviews. The Secretariat drafts a descriptive text on the basis of countries’ answers to a questionnaire as well as the legal materials submitted by the countries. Two examining countries chosen from a delicately balanced rota, are assigned to give the group their opinion on the standard of implementation. There are procedures to secure a thorough exchange between examiners and the examined country before the actual hearing in the group. Currently the procedure allows for written representations by the country evaluated and a pre-meeting of examiners and country experts to answer questions, clarify misunderstandings and to allow to focus the discussion of the group on specific topics. The Group holds two hearings per country on two consecutive days. In the first hearing the group discusses the questions raised by examiners and the answers given by the country. In the evening of this first day examiners draft a short evaluative text to be attached to the report itself. They immediately test the text with the examined country on the same evening. A second hearing is held by the group the next day concentrating on this evaluative section, which is modified if necessary and adopted verbatim by the Group. In this phase the country is requested to abstain from voting. In order to secure fair treatment on the one hand unanimity of the rest of the Group is requested and on the other hand the examined country has the right to include a dissenting opinion in the report. This evaluation is appended to the descriptive part of the report, which is amended on the basis of the discussions held and itself adopted in a written procedure. After an intensive one-year round all laws finalised so far will have been examined and the Ministerial Council will receive all the reports for formal adoption and for publication in June 2000. The procedure is open to participation by Members of the Civil Society. The plan of evaluation is published on internet and all submissions are distributed and included in the procedure.

5. WILL LAWS ALSO BE APPLIED?
   

What are the guarantees that enacted legislation is actually applied? It would be all to easy to write strict laws and to ignore this „tedious" piece of legislation, since acts frequently take place abroad and evidence may be difficult to come by – especially where the administration of the home state of the bribee is not in favour of an investigation into dealings that might show the Government (or the leading Party) in a negative light (even if the enquiry is merely focusing on the conduct of the potential bribor). So the legislation runs the risk of remaining dead letter.

The OECD has therefore devised a second phase of monitoring starting in summer 2000, including on-site visits of examination teams, directed at the application of the implementing legislation. They would want to see structures in place that are capable of dealing with this type of case, sufficient resources should be available, personnel trained etc. And possibly there also will be first cases to prove that the system is working – even though of course there may be many reasons for the absence of trials. Another indicator of the seriousness of implementation could be the measure to which companies have introduced compliance structures in companies domiciled in Party States.

These are only some of the items to be looked into in the second phase of monitoring. The focus will include not only the Convention but also the other issues of the Recommendation of 1997, especially tax treatment of bribes and accounting rules.

Again, it is planned that results will be published by the Council in regular intervals.

6. PLANNING THE FUTURE
   

1. Completing work on criminal law

   The OECD work on corruption has been described as a process. The peer review is not the only means to keep the dynamic alive: During the negotiations of the Convention Parties agreed to give closer attention to a series of issues which have been touched upon in the text of the Convention but could be further clarified. They are commonly referred to as "the five issues". Since they relate to the coverage of criminal law they are attempts to finalise the "first storey" of the building of an anti-money laundering structure. As mentioned criminal law is not the only approach to corruption, it is, however, crucial because it defines the illegal act and is said to have a strong preventive effect: Especially adding on Party officials, Parties and Candidates to the scope of beneficiaries beyond public officials has been further discussed. While the OECD saw no immediate necessity to enlarge the scope of the Convention, especially since such beneficiaries would partly be covered by the existing text and since most countries cover a further segment already in their national legislation, the general topic of recipients needs to be looked at in the light of practice in the near future. At several occasions possible lacunae have been examined. In a similar way the OECD deals with the issue of bribery through foreign subsidiaries. Various cases of bribery through foreign subsidiaries are already covered by the Convention and domestic law in most countries. For the time being the Working Group recommended that corporations extend their due diligence and compliance concepts to their foreign subsidiaries yet. A further, very delicate issue, which has been targeted especially in other fora - most notably the UN - is the abuse of off-shore financial resorts for the preparation of corruption, for bribed payments and the topic of corruption-money laundering. Even though the last issue, corruption-money laundering, has been addressed in (article 7 of) the Convention, some uncertainty has remained whether the agreed standard requires the extension of the anti-money laundering concepts (of criminal and prudential law) to include active bribery of foreign officials as predicate offence. At least some countries have taken the position that the coverage is not mandatory. Therefore a further discussion of this topic is necessary. The issue of the money management related to bribery is, however, much wider: It starts with preparative acts to create so called "slush funds" – "caisses de guerre" used in all sorts of ways – be it to illegally finance one’s own Party or to be used for purposes of corrupting foreign officials. On a second level covert transactions themselves need to be focused on and finally corruption – money laundering is not restricted to the bribe itself but is also used to obscure the whereabouts of the profits.

2. A "second storey" on the OECD’s building?

   Already the Recommendation, as the "mother document" of the OECD action against corruption, mentions a series of non-penal sanctions. Some items have been addressed in greater detail in the Recommendation itself, notably tax treatment, book-keeping and auditing as well as sanctions in public procurement procedures. These topics are part of the evaluation process.

   Other issues have not yet been concretised to the same level of detail, like civil law sanctions or sanctions in export credits. Finally, the private sector has continuously asked for two further issues, solicitation of bribes and private to private bribery, to be placed on the agenda of the Working Group. Intensive deliberations have taken place including contacts in sub-groups. The talks showed that especially the issue of private to private corruption needed some very profound analysis before it reaches the level of policy debate in this forum.

   Both, the mandate to monitor and to extend the issues on the agenda for future activities illustrate the heavy work-load the experts are facing. The list of new issues also indicates what kind of strategic decisions have to be faced. Parties must decide upon the best and most effective procedures, they have to sort out which parts of the global problem of corruption should be covered by this organisation and how to cooperate with other fora.

7. FINAL REMARKS
   

The original question had been: Why should this initiative work, where others have failed in the past? The answer seems relatively simple. The Parties to the OECD instruments are – as the pace of implementation shows – firmly committed to reducing corruption, and the peer process driving monitoring, the review of the programme and further work has developed into a very strong motivating force indeed. If anxieties about the OECD process is currently voiced by Members of the private sector, it will be the primary task of companies to implement the preventive concepts internally. The role of an international organisation cannot at this stage go beyond establishing a common framework of rules amongst countries and insisting on their implementation. To give them meaning in everyday life is the task of Member States and companies alike.

Furthermore, it will be remembered that the OECD – focusing on the "supply side" of corruption – necessarily has to adopt a restricted approach: It so far deals exclusively with the active corruption of foreign public officials: The recipient of bribes will be taken to court by the "victim state". In order to secure mutually legal assistance amongst countries regional organisations (especially the Organisation of American States, the Council of Europe, the European Union) have developed instruments of legal harmonisation. They are typically broader in approach than the OECD’s text, especially in defining standards on active and passive domestic bribery. Some go beyond the bribery of officials and include private to private bribery, some even include trafficking in influence. In some events the broad reach has created impediments to a rapid and equal implementation.

Beyond the topic of harmonisation of legal concepts, be it in criminal, civil or administrative law, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) as well as bilateral donors are involved in preventing corruption in their own aid funded contracts as well as - in a wider framework – in promoting "good governance".

Finally, the UN is reconsidering action against corruption in the widest forum, especially in the context of its work against transnational economic crime. So far the recipe of success of the OECD has been to restrict itself to a clearly defined goal and to create an economic interdependency of countries that forced them mutually to act for the benefit of their own interests.