Three decades of international cooperation against corruption - looking ahead

Taking stock of the 25 years of international cooperation and domestic reforms since the conclusion of the first treaty on combating corruption, and drawing on the discussion in a dedicated Panel at the 2021 Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) Milan Global Conference, the contribution offers a critical assessment of the outcomes, and explores the ways forward, of the international rules and cooperation against corruption, looking particularly at their dynamic interface with municipal law. Its starting point is the observation that important problems – both substantive and methodological – of the international legal efforts against corruption, and their interaction with domestic legal systems, are understudied. The investigation of these issues in a positive, critical and normative legal analysis, combined with empirical research and behavioral science has a twofold value: i) Retrospectively, it permits sorting out what has worked in the first quarter century of international anti-corruption cooperation from what has not, and allows to critically discuss the underlying causes and trends. ii) Prospectively, the investigation provides new bases for the understanding and advancement of international initiatives on corruption and good governance, especially in their dialogue with domestic legal systems.