In the last 15 years or so, there has been an impressive international project to reduce the ‘supply side’ of bribery. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Convention on Bribery of Foreign Public Officials attempted to make universal the principles of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and forced states to criminalise the payment of bribes to foreign public officials. Some states (notably Germany and the US) have begun to crack down on this type of corruption.
But it takes two parties to enter a corrupt bargain. Public sector officials sometimes encourage and facilitate corruption. This is true in the West, as well as in poorer countries. Even our Western legal systems have not had a great deal of success in investigating allegations of corruption at a high level in politics. Take two topical instances:
