New book for practitioners and academics: ‘The Transnationalization of Anti-Corruption Law’

Corruption is universal, but nowhere is it the same. Its diverse manifestations both produce, and are produced by, varied landscapes of law, culture, business, and politics. This is why we depend on anti-corruption commentary from a wide array of sectors and jurisdictions. A strong example of such commentary is the recently published anthology, The Transnationalization of Anti-Corruption Law (Routledge Press 2021).

Written by representatives from practice, the academy, intergovernmental organizations and civil society, the collection is edited by Regis Bismuth of Sciences Po Law School in Paris, Phil Nichols of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jan Dunin-Wasowicz from the Paris office of Hughes Hubbard.

Questions these authors take on include:

• What drives anti-bribery reform, and why are some countries more receptive than others?
• How do anti-corruption norms and standards emerge from arbitration tribunals? International investment agreements? Domestic courts? Commercial contracts?
• Do DPAs help the anti-bribery cause as much as we hope? Do blocking statutes hurt as much as we fear?
• Why are compliance standards so numerous? Why are credible whistleblower reports so rare?
• What is the link between corruption and human rights? And to draw a stark contrast, how about the link between corruption and guanxi?
• How should we measure corruption, and how do we prove it occurred?

The book’s 23 chapters are divided into four sections: Part I, “International, regional, and domestic sources of anti-corruption law: eclectisism or convergence?;” Part II, “Traditional methods reconsidered;” Part III, “The new frontiers of compliance;” and Part IV, “Anti-corruption considerations in international dispute resolution.”

The book’s introduction provides rich historical and theoretical context: the origins of the modern anti-corruption movement and its conventions and institutions; definitions of corruption and its harms; and what it means to call an area of law “transnational” (as opposed to “international”).

There’s content here for practitioners and academics alike. It’s worth a look.