Anti-Bribery Convention and OECD

Anti-Bribery Convention and OECD The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)Â  And the Anti-Bribery Convention The International Initiative The Anti-Bribery Convention was originally conceived in 1989, it has under gone many changes since its conception, to begin with the group was designed to enable the review in to national legislations and the bribery of officials, in 1994 the review was turned into recommendations for actions and this was eventually replaced by a treaty agreement in 1997. The Anti-Bribery conventions main aim is to decrease the amount of corruption in underdeveloped countries, in doing this they can create a fair and level playing field, therefore encouraging sanctions against any form of bribery in International business transactions. Things That Are Right The Anti-Bribery Convention has developed a set of legally binding standards to criminalize bribery. The Anti-Bribery Convention works with all countries to improve the standards of international business tran sactions. The Anti-bribery convention welcomes all countries to join the convention; no one is singled out or excluded as long as they follow the guidelines and legislation recommendations. Things That Are Wrong The Anti-Bribery convention has no governing authority; the OECD only over sees it. The countries involved in the Anti-Bribery convention have the sole responsibility to implement the legislations so that bribery can be criminalized. According to the Transparency International report (Hardoon, Heinrich, 2013), at least half the countries that are signed to the Anti-Bribery convention have had only a few and in some cases no prosecutions. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Founded in 1961, The OECD’s main headquarters are in Paris, France, To date there are currently 34 member countries, although the OECD do work closely with Russia, China, Brazil, India, Indonesia and South Africa, but they are yet to agree to join the organ ization. Whilst the OECD’s main aim is to help improve the social, economic, safety and welfare of people across the globe, they do also maintain relations and work closely with other international organizations like the IMF, World Bank, International Atomic Energy Agency, International Labor Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization in an effort to promote and improve other aspects of peoples well-being globally. The Good Things The OECD uses peer reviews to evaluate its work and implement new changes and ideas, giving a wider perspective on the organization. The OECD has established a unilateral forum to allow governments to share their issues and experiences and work together to resolve the problems. The OECD defies conventional wisdom and works towards a resolution that is beneficial to all. Things That Need To Be Changed OECD has no authority over the Anti-Bribery convention, it purely over sees it. The OECD is not self-executing; it requires the governing country to enforce the legislations and uphold the laws Companies using the OECD guidelines aren’t bound by them as they aren’t compulsory. How anti-bribery convention and the OECD affect global politics Example 1 The OECD has established a unilateral forum to allow governments to share their issues and experiences and work together to resolve the problems. This is a great step for achieving success in global policies because it is an airing point for ideas and resolutions, governments can get together and discuss issue past and present and provide information on how they were able to resolve or work around certain common issues. The forum is based on facts and real life experiences and enables governments to proactively take part in the forming of global policies that are beneficial to all. They have the ability to collect data from governments and analyze this for possible trends that could potentially help other countries from avoiding situati ons like, austerity and unemployment during economic downturns. The Anti-bribery convention has established a set of legally binding standards to criminalize bribery; this implementation will boost the transparency of global politics for the member states that are included in the convention. In creating transparency and ensuring everyone is implementing the recommended standards there will be more cohesive trade agreements that will propagate healthy globalization. The creating and implementation of these legally binding standards has failed to force member states to follow the implementations, this will have an overall effect on globally policies because other member states will see that this type of implementation can be ignored with no real repercussions. The implementations will only work successfully if the Anti-bribery convention attains the legal jurisdiction to implement these standards. Currently they don’t have this and there seems to be no way of getting the ju risdiction so the implementation of legally binding standards is just that, An implementation, There is no law so the member states don’t have to implement the standards. The anti-bribery convention has placed the responsibility for implementing the legislations solely on the governments, this will have a massive impact on global policies because will still be left up to that country to implement the legislations, a majority of corrupt officials are in the government sectors and will not implement such measures if they feel it could impact on their corrupt enterprises. Such implications could unravel the social and economic standings of that country, they could undermine trade agreements and have a devastating effect on all policies globally, there is always going to be an issue of trust and if the governments of the countries don’t implement the legislations that will undermine this trust element globally. The Anti-Bribery Convention has failed to close a massiv e loophole in the system and is in part facilitating the continuation of bribery amongst public officials. The convention will only truly be successful if they find a way to close this loophole and prevent the continuation of bribery globally. Where it went wrong!