LAST April, a United States grand jury indicted six persons, including K.V.P. Rama­chandra Rao, MP and a close adviser to the former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy in a $18.5 million titanium mining scam.

The allegations related to charges of conspiracy involving bribes to state and central government officials to allow the mining of titanium minerals; a violation of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977 (FCPA). Involved was a truly international cast. A Ukrainian industrialist, a Hungarian businessman; an Indian national and permanent resident of the US, and a Sri Lankan national.

This is of a piece, with the conviction in 1978 by an English court of two persons for bribing Iranian officials for the supply of Chieftain tanks worth $4m to the Shah’s regime. The judge told the convicted accused “Corruption strikes at society’s stability. Each of you, in doing what you did, helped secure an important contract which benefited financially society as a whole; but the ends never justify the means.”

Legislation has sought to tackle corruption.

The US FCPA was enacted in response to revelations of widespread bribery of foreign officials by US companies. Since then national as well as international legislation have sought to tackle the vice of corruption. Additionally, NGOs and activists have striven in the same cause.

The FPCA’s anti-bribery provisions prohibit US persons and business concerns, US and foreign public companies and certain foreign persons and business, acting while in the US, from making corrupt payments to foreign officials to obtain or retain business. Its accounting provisions require them to make and keep accurate books and records and to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls. They prohibit individuals and businesses from falsifying books and records.

In 1988, Congress requested the president to negotiate an international treaty with members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to prohibit bribery in international business transactions by many of the US’s major trading partners. Negotiations culminated in the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Officials in International Business Transactions.

On Oct 31, 2003, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention Against Corruption. It enjoins state parties to the convention to adopt a host of measures, civil, criminal and administrative, to combat the vice.

Unlike an assembly resolution, which is purely recommendatory, a convention is a binding international treaty. But all that this convention did was to exhort its signatories to adopt virtuous measures. The only “mechanism for implementation” was a “conference” of the parties to the convention “to promote and review” its implementation.

The exhortations covered preventive and punitive measures, in the public as well as the private sectors; codes of conduct for officials, honest accounting, etc. The harness was bigger than the horse.

More promising as models for emulation are the European Union’s convention of 1997 “on the fight against corruption including officials of the European communities or officials of member states of the European Union” and the Council Framework Decision of July 22, 2003 on combating “corruption in the private sector”. The exhortations are broadly similar. How­ever, given the economic integration of the EU the provisions for adjudicating disputes do introduce an element of compulsion. The Frame­work Deci­sion of 2003 further fortifies that element.

What is more encouraging is the increase in public awareness. Inter­national public opinion has become far more alert and assertive and organisations have been set up to keep vigil on major cases of corruption, nationally and internationally. The internet helps to highlight instances of low-level corruption as well. Investigative reporting can do more.

As well as Transparency International there exists a network of similar bodies. A working group set up in 2010 by the G20 has drawn up rules on seizure of corrupt assets and denial of visas to corrupt officials. The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force monitors member states’ effectiveness in implementing anti-money laundering laws.

Market pressure is growing too. The Inter­national Corporate Governance Network brings together institutional investors with $18 trillion under management. It scrutinises companies for compliance with anti-corruption principles.

Not In My Country, a web-based campaign in Uganda, encourages students to report ins­tances of corruption. The Economist re­ported: “Similar websites operate in Pakistan, Kenya, Liberia and Indonesia. They help even the humble to fight back. Given the scale of the problem, nobody is claiming victory. Laws are one thing, enforcement quite another.”

The harsh truth is that for all their efforts to tighten up their laws domestically and punish national wrongdoers so far as international cooperation is concerned, the states will make international law on the subject more effective only when they feel that their national interest will be served by it.

The writer is an author and lawyer.

Published in Dawn, June 28th , 2014