UK compliance with international law: bribery and corruption

International Law, International Relations and Compliance

Commitments are a persistent feature of international affairs. Disagreement over the effect of international commitments and the causes of compliance with them is equally persistent. Yet in the last decade the long-standing divide between those who believed that international rules per se shaped state behavior and those who saw such rules as epiphenomena1 or insignificant has given way to a mor...

Bribery and the Nature of Corruption

The Twin Faces of Judicial Corruption: Extortion and Bribery

Does compliance matter? Assessing the relationship between sovereign risk and compliance with international monetary law

An important theory of international cooperation asserts that governments comply with international law because of the reputational costs incurred by reneging on public agreements. Countries that sign binding international agreements in the realm of monetary relations signal their commitment to an open economic system, which should reassure international market actors that the government is com...

Corruption and optimal law enforcement

We analyze corruption in law enforcement: the payment of bribes to enforcement agents, threats to frame innocent individuals in order to extort money from them, and the actual framing of innocent individuals. Bribery, extortion, and framing reduce deterrence and are thus worth discouraging. Optimal penalties for bribery and framing are maximal, but, surprisingly, extortion should not be sanctio...