Over the last decade, the topics of corruption and recovery of its proceeds have steadily risen in the international policy agenda, with the entry into force of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2005, the Arab Spring in 2011, and most recently a string of scandals in the financial sector. As states decide how best to respond to corruption and recover assets, the course of action most often discussed is criminal investigation and prosecution rather than private lawsuits. But individuals, organizations, and governments harmed by corruption are also entitled to recover lost assets and/or receive compensation for the damage suffered. To accomplish these goals of recovery and compensation, private or 'civil' actions are often a necessary and useful complement to criminal proceedings. This study explores how states can act as private litigants to bring lawsuits to recover assets lost to corruption.
Over the last decade, the topics of corruption and recovery of its proceeds have steadily risen in the international policy agenda, with the entry into force of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2005, the Arab Spring in 2011, and most recently a string of scandals in the financial sector. As states decide how best to respond to corruption and recover assets, the course of action most often discussed is criminal investigation and prosecution rather than private lawsuits. But individuals, organizations, and governments harmed by corruption are also entitled to recover lost assets and/or receive compensation for the damage suffered. To accomplish these goals of recovery and compensation, private or 'civil' actions are often a necessary and useful complement to criminal proceedings. This study explores how states can act as private litigants to bring lawsuits to recover assets lost to corruption.
Jurisprudence For a Free Society is a remarkable contribution to legal theory. In its comprehensiveness & systematic elaboration, it stands among the major theories. It is also the most important jurisprudential statement to emerge in the post-war period. The pioneering work of Lasswell & McDougal on law & policy is already legendary. Most of the work produced by these scholars together & in collaboration with their students represent applications of their basic theory to a wide assortment of international & national legal & policy problems. Now, for the first time, the authoritative statement of their legal philosophy appears as a single volume. In Part I the authors develop their fundamental criteria for a theory about law, including the requirements of clarifying observational standpoint, focus of inquiry & the pertinent intellectual tasks incumbent on the scholar & decisionmaker for determining & achieving common interests. Trends in theories about law, including Natural Law, the Historical School, Positivism, the Sociological Study of Law, American Legal Realism & other contemporary theories, are explored for what they might contribute to the achievement to the authors' conception of an adequate jurisprudence. In Part II, the social process as a whole & the particular value-institutional processes that comprise it are described & analyzed. Because people establish, maintain & change institutions, the dynamics of personality & personality's relation to law is delineated. Part III explores the intellectual tasks of policy thinking, from clarification of values, through description of trend, the scientific examination of conditions, projection of future developments & the invention of alternatives. Part IV examines the structure of decision in a free society, a society in which the achievement of human dignity is confirmed in both word & deed. Six appendices bring together monographs by the authors over a period of forty years which deal, in more detail, with particular matters treated in the body of the book.
Tort law and criminal law are closely bound together but their relationship rarely receives sustained and rigorous scrutiny. This is the first significant project in England and Wales to address that shortcoming. Building on growing interest amongst both academics and practitioners in the relationship between tort and crime, it draws together leading experts to chart the field and explore key points of interest. It uses a range of perspectives from legal theory, doctrine, legal history and comparative law to address some of the most important and interesting links between tort and crime. Examples include how the illegality defence operates to avoid stultification of the law, the difference between criminal and civil causation, how the Motor Insurers' Bureau not only insures but acts to enforce laws and alter behaviour, and why civil law only very rarely restores specific property but the criminal law does it daily.
Chapter 8. Remedies, Part 1: As If It Had Never Happened -- Chapter 9. Remedies, Part 2: Before a Court -- Chapter 10. Conclusion: Horizontal and Vertical -- Index
Financial disclosure systems are a vital component of transparency. By now 161 countries around the world have introduced financial disclosure systems, becoming commonplace around the world. But, although the rules are on the books, many practitioners are still struggling with the intricacies of the rules and how to implement them in the socioeconomic, historical, and legal context of their own country. Little guidance is available to assist them. This book aims to fill that void and provide practitioners with practical scenarios to consider before deciding on a particular course of action. This book contains short chapters that elaborate each topic and provide clear guidance on the issues that policy makers and those involved in the implementation of financial disclosure obligations will need to take into account before making a decision. How do you decide who should file? And how often? On-line or in hard copy? And what exactly? Everything they own directly—or also those apartments they own indirectly? How should information in declarations be checked? Should it be shared with public? How accessible should it be? This is the sort of practical guidance that this book aims to provide.
This book adopts a holistic approach to identifying what could be done to surmount the corruption conundrum in the African continent. It acknowledges the objective reality of corruption in Africa, and identifies primary solutions to the issue. The volume takes a socio-legal approach in order to reveal the nature and extent of corruption, and suggests that solutions can be found simply by interrogating how society reacts to it. In conjunction with this, the book identifies and critiques constraints in the formation of a definitive definition of corruption. As shown here, although it is critical for African states to develop anti-corruption strategies, the solution to the problem requires an understanding of the significance of political will, and how the lack thereof has led to the endurance of corruption in Africa.
This book is centered around the major issues relating to criminal law in Thailand and aims to offer a detailed and systematic overview of the Thai criminal justice system. It is designed as a traditional textbook of criminal law which provides a succinct focused coverage of all the relevant aspects of laws, judgments, and legal reforms in a concise and readable form. Although all topics have been previously treated in the Thai language, this is the first and most comprehensive work in the English language about Thai criminal law. The book covers not only the legal system, starting from the Penal Code of 1908 and emphasizing the substantial changes that have been introduced in the past decades, but also the deep influence of doctrine and case law. It is built up in several layers, starting from the general rule, to gradually examine the more specific ones. The book begins with the elementary legal concepts to be learned by the reader, by defining the fundamental principles underlying the Thai criminal system and outlining its objectives. It then extensively describes the main offences under the Thai Penal Code and classifies those breaches of law which are crimes from those which are merely illegal without being criminal.
Recovery of proceeds deriving from corruption is now increasingly recognized as a principle of contemporary international law. However, people's sovereign and ownership rights over their wealth and natural resources have remained more theoretical than real, especially in the global fight against corruption. As a result, the populations of victim-states often cannot hold their governments accountable for misusing proceeds of corruption, and do not benefit from the recovery, repatriation, management, and use of returned proceeds. In the first comprehensive study on the issue, Kolawole Olaniyan challenges the conventional notion that sovereign and ownership rights over wealth and natural resources - and by extension, the proceeds of corruption - should be exclusively exercised by states. Olaniyan's Ownership of Proceeds of Corruption in International Law examines the relationship between the right to wealth and natural resources, proceeds of corruption, and economic activities. Focusing on victims of corruption, the book argues that victim-states' populations ought to be empowered to pursue grand corruption and asset recovery actions against their governments. It proposes theoretical and legal remedies for recovering proceeds of corruption, encouraging the development of domestic laws.