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1. Networks of impunity: Corruption and European foreign policy

Author:
Chris Raggett
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council On Foreign Relations
Abstract:
European governments have failed to prevent corrupt actors from laundering hundreds of billions of dollars through the international financial system and their own economies. This breakdown in the rule of law empowers kleptocratic regimes across the globe, which capitalise on the political culture underpinning Europe’s approach to globalisation. Western governments create a negative feedback loop that hinders their foreign policy initiatives when they treat corruption in other countries as an inherent part of the local culture. European policymakers should aim to catch up with, and overtake, their US counterparts on anti-money laundering regulation and enforcement. European countries should create national institutions – and an international coalition of Western states – that are dedicated to countering kleptocrats.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Corruption, European Union, Rule of Law, Financial Crimes, and Impunity
Political Geography:
Europe

2. PART II: (Un)Accountability for Torture

Author:
Elizabeth Grimm Arsenault
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
“The category of public reputational accountability,” Keohane asserts, “is meant to apply to situations in which reputation, widely and publicly known, provides a mechanism for accountability even in the absence of other mechanisms.” The effectiveness of public reputational accountability, in particular, has floundered because of the fact that the U.S. public’s views have shifted since the inception of the torture program. Even while recognizing that enhanced interrogation techniques are now against the law, former CIA director Michael Hayden defended the Agency’s past use of the techniques in 2014, claiming that “we thought we were doing the nation’s will.” Today, though, it can be argued that the absence of public reputational accountability stems from the fact that the issue of torture has been reframed in the public imagination.
Topic:
Intelligence, Torture, Impunity, War on Terror, and Accountability
Political Geography:
Middle East and United States of America

3. Justice for the Rich, Judgement for the Poor: ‘Elite Immunity’, Rampant Impunity and the Administration of Criminal Justice in Nigeria

Author:
Mike Opeyemi Omilusi
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
The challenge of systematically studying the African power elite and the mode by which it governs has become urgent not only because of the conceptual and theoretical dead-ends to which much of current received wisdom leads, but also because a better understanding of the nature, composition and renewal of the elite is critical to our understanding of the governance of the public sphere (CODESRIA, 2003). A focus on political elites is a focus on the primacy of political interests. As both Mosca and Pareto underscore in their works, members of the elite act in order to preserve their position within their societies. Specifically, political elites’ action is aimed at the preservation of their political power. As Thomas Schwartz argues, members of the political elite are ‘ambitious people seeking office for individual recognition, career advancement, and the power to affect societies’ (Schwartz 2009, cited in Tardelli, 2013:88-89). [...] This study therefore, interrogates the content and context of executive immunity and its attendant culture of impunity that permeates the political environment. It contends that the immunity clause not only sanctifies, abinitio, criminal behavior by the said public officials but also gives them every incentive to be vile and depraved to their heart’s content – to turn immunity into impunity.
Topic:
Poverty, Criminal Justice, Impunity, and Elites
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria