Teaching at the new International Anti-Corruption Academy

We recently blogged about the U.N.’s new International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA), which brings professionals and academics from around the world to Vienna, Austria. Professors and students alike teach and learn, question and answer, argue and laugh. I’ve just returned from a one-week stint, teaching courses on Comparative Anti-Corruption Law and Corruption and the Rule of Law.

And what a thrill it was.

Twenty-five students, with real-life anti-corruption experience. There were the compliance officers from large firms in Western Europe and North America. And there were the anti-corruption enforcement officials, hailing from across Asia and Africa: India, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Liberia, Uganda, Zambia.

Talk about diversity. It was a teacher’s dream.

If you can imagine four, consecutive nine-hour sessions, with material that was new and difficult for most everyone, and yet eight hours into the fourth session seeing your students still on the edge of their seats, eyes fixed on the instructor and each other.

I had never seen anything like it.

These are exciting times we live in. The world is changing; we’re changing it. Good ideas are bursting onto the scene. The IACA is one of them.

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Andy Spalding is a senior editor of the FCPA Blog. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.