How can governments respond to serious corruption when those responsible are beyond the reach of the law?

Weak institutions, political protection or limited law enforcement capacity can make it difficult to investigate or prosecute powerful individuals suspected of corruption. In response, some governments have turned to corruption sanctions.

Corruption sanctions allow governments to impose restrictions on people suspected of serious corruption even without a criminal conviction.

How can governments respond to serious corruption when those responsible are beyond the reach of the law? Some governments have turned to corruption sanctions to address this issue.

This Working Paper examines how corruption sanctions – tools that allow governments to impose asset freezes and travel bans on individuals suspected of corruption without any finding of guilt in a court – have evolved over the past decade, and offers recommendations for their more effective and legitimate use.

Published in the Journal of Illicit Trade, Financial Crime, and Compliance, this article examines how Bulgaria’s 2007 accession to the European Union transformed illegal activities and corruption at the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint.

This U4 Issue analyses Indonesia's ambitious energy transition and highlights how political finance, weak regulations and a "revolving door" of personnel between public office and the private sector create vulnerabilities. The publication was produced by U4 and the Basel Institute on Governance through its Green Corruption programme.

Download publication here.

In a new peer-reviewed journal article, Jacopo Costa and Claudia Baez Camargo look into why and how corruption evolves over time, drawing on an empirical analysis from Italy. The article was published in Trends in Organized Crime.

Abstract

Corruption evolves over time. This paper investigates why and how this evolution happens. The analysis has employed a combination of qualitative network and document analysis to explore the configuration of corruption in two moments in Italy and the changes that have happened in between them.

In this joint paper with Adam Smith International, authors Claudia Baez Camargo and Renee Kantelberg show how anti-corruption efforts require more than mere technical fixes, such as capacity building for civil society alone, to drive lasting change.

Anti-corruption work is often embedded in complex, politically charged environments. This requires thinking and working politically. Engaging with complex social and economic systems also means recognising that change is not linear or even predictable. What to do then?