Experimenting With Corruption—an Analysis of the Oecd Anti-bribery Convention Through the Lens of Experimentalism

EXPERIMENTING WITH CORRUPTION—AN ANALYSIS
OF THE OECD ANTI-BRIBERY CONVENTION
THROUGH THE LENS OF EXPERIMENTALISM
HANNAH HARRIS*
ABSTRACT
The impact of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention (“the Convention”) has
been substantial, but foreign bribery and corrupt conduct remain signif‌icant
global challenges. This Article introduces the theoretical framework of experi-
mental governance and argues that experimentalism is well suited to address-
ing the challenges currently facing transnational anti-corruption efforts. The
Article is the f‌irst to analyze the Convention through the lens of experimental
governance, illustrating that the Convention, its peer review mechanism, and
subsequent recommendations, each have experimentalist qualities. However,
current efforts are constrained. The Article presents opportunities to further
integrate experimentalist governance into the OECD approach and thus
enhance the impact and effectiveness of anti-bribery efforts.
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
II. THE HALLMARKS OF EXPERIMENTALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
A. Five Key Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
B. Responding to Critique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
III. EXPERIMENTALISM IN THE ANTI-CORRUPTION CONTEXT . . . . . . . . 574
A. Addressing Complexity and the Challenge of Measurement . . 574
B. Utilizing Pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
C. Domestic Laws and Institutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
D. International Laws, Institutions, and Actors . . . . . . . . . . . 580
E. Reducing Regulatory and Enforcement Burden . . . . . . . . . . 581
F. A New Experimental Direction—Examples from the FCPA
and FATF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
IV. EXPERIMENTALIST FEATURES OF THE OECD ANTI-BRIBERY
CONVENTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585
A. Background to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention . . . . . . . 585
B. Stakeholder Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
* Dr. Hannah Harris is a lecturer at Macquarie Law School, Sydney. She has a BA (Hon) from
University of Canterbury, New Zealand and a PhD from the University of New South Wales,
Sydney. She researches the f‌ield of transnational law and corporate regulation and teaches
corporate law and corporate governance. Special thanks go to Anne Yang (UNSW) for her
assistance with earlier drafts of this Article. V
C 2020, Hannah Harris.
565
C. Open-Ended Goals and Contextualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
D. Transparency and Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
E. Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
V. OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENHANCING EXPERIMENTALISM IN THE
OECD ANTI-BRIBERY CONVENTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592
A. OECD Actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592
B. Actions Beyond the OECD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
VI. CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594
I. INTRODUCTION
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Off‌icials
in International Business Transactions entered into force on 15 February
1999 (the “Convention” or the “OECD Anti-Bribery Convention”).
1
But
more than twenty years later, there may not be much to celebrate: recent
attempts to quantify the success of the Convention focus on enforcement
and suggest that only four of the thirty-four member states actively
enforce the Convention. Almost half of the member countries have
failed to prosecute a single case of foreign bribery between 1999 and
today.
2
Enforcement challenges, combined with the continuation of cor-
rupt conduct globally, suggest a need to re-evaluate the transnational
anti-corruption framework, and the role of the OECD Anti-Bribery
Convention within this framework.
Efforts to combat corruption face three key challenges: (1) complex-
ity and measurement; (2) regulatory pluralism; and (3) resource and
capacity limitations. Bribery, and corruption more generally, are com-
plex and socially embedded activities that are subject to diverse inter-
pretations. They are clandestine and often avoid detection, making
these behaviors resistant to measurement and evaluation. The com-
plexity of corrupt activity and the challenges posed by its clandestine
nature have driven the evolution of an increasingly complex regulatory
environment. Multiple international, regional, and domestic laws exist
and target different aspects of corrupt activity. Different jurisdictions
take different approaches to specif‌ic crimes, including the crime of
foreign bribery targeted by the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.
1. OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Off‌icials in International
Business Transactions, Dec. 17, 1997, S. TREATY DOC. NO. 105-43 [hereinafter OECD].
2. FRITZ HEIMANN, A
´DA
´M FO
¨LDES & SOPHIA COLES, TRANSPARENCY INTL, EXPORTING
CORRUPTION – PROGRESS REPORT 2015: ASSESSING ENFORCEMENT OF THE OECD CONVENTION ON
COMBATTING FOREIGN BRIBERY 6 (2015).
GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
566 [Vol. 51

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