Printable Version

Fall 2009
5231 Anti-Corruption Law & Development - STRAWN- 34830
added 7-6-09

Professor(s): Susan Strawn (ADJUNCT)

Credits: 2

Course Areas: Energy, Natural Resources and Environmental Law 
International Law (Including Admiralty)

Time: 4:00p-6:00p  M Location: TUII 121 

Course Outline: It has been said that if you want to find a country rich in oil, look at the countries at the bottom of Transparency International’s corruption index. Economists have labeled this paradox -- countries that are resource-rich, and yet among the word’s poorest and most corrupt -- the “resource curse.” Largely due to work by economists, corruption has been increasingly (though not uniformly) recognized as one of the most critical problems in development and has been linked to slower economic growth. Corruption in the developing world, however, has also been recognized as a threat to developed countries. Such corruption affects the United States on issues including energy security (as more oil comes from the developing world, including West and Central Africa), counterterrorism (as corruption breeds failed states, which in turn breed or harbor terrorists), and impacts our more humanistic goals of reducing poverty and resource-fueled conflicts. Recognition of the links between corruption and poverty, and between Northern security and Southern development, has energized legal efforts to promote stable governments through international anti-corruption measures and development of rule of law, and through the more robust enforcement of existing anti-corruption laws in the developed world.

Using the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (2005) as a roadmap, this course will look at anti-corruption efforts, with a focus on the energy industry and developing states afflicted with the “resource curse.” We will begin by addressing the fundamentals: What is corruption? Is there a globally acceptable definition, or is any definition subject to cultural and domestic legal norms? Using U.S. laws and cases, we will examine the criminal law tools available to fight corruption, including domestic bribery and related statutes, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, anti-money laundering statutes, and related law enforcement investigative techniques, with the goal of discussing how and whether these enforcement experiences and measures can be successfully used as models in developing states. Using recent cases, including FCPA, UN Oil-for-food, and Iraqi examples, we will look how corruption occurs in the energy sector with a view towards understanding systemic vulnerabilities. Turning to preventative measures, we will look at legal and institutional models contained in the UN Convention, as well as novel prevention efforts such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, “oil laws,” and World Bank initiatives such as the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project.

Requirements: Class presentation of case study (30%); exam (70%).

Susan Strawn was the U.S. Department of Treasury Resident Advisor for Financial Crimes for West Africa, based in Dakar, Senegal from 2004-06. From 2003-04, she was Deputy Head of the Sensitive Information and Operations Unit of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo’s Department of Justice, and from 2002-03, she served as the Resident Legal Advisor for the U.S. Department of Justice in Pristina, Kosovo. From 1990-2004, she was a Trial Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Course Syllabus: Syllabus

Course Notes:   

Prerequisites:  

First Day Assignments: *Collier, Paul. The Bottom Billion (2007), Chapters 1 and 3.
*Ghazvinian, John. Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil (2007), all.

Final Exam Schedule: 12/14 2-4 pm  144 TU2  SAME  

This course will have:
Exam:
Paper:

Book Requirements:

• (8/10/2009 11:09:17 AM) Title: It’s Our Turn to Eat
  Author: Michela Wrong
  Edition:  Year: 2009 ISBN:  Publisher: NA
   
• (8/10/2009 11:06:46 AM) Title: Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil
  Author: John Ghazvinian
  Edition:  Year: 2007 ISBN:  Publisher: NA
   
• (8/10/2009 11:05:58 AM) Title: The Bottom Billion
  Author: Paul Collier
  Edition:  Year: 2007 ISBN:  Publisher: NA