Die strafrechtliche Haftung für Menschenrechtsverletzungen im Ausland

Menschenrechtsverletzungen, welche im Ausland durch Unternehmenbegangen werden, die von der Schweiz aus kontrolliert werden, sind eine ernst zu nehmende Möglichkeit. Sowohl die strafrechtliche eschäftsherrenhaftung als auch die Unternehmenshaftung stossen allerdings auf Schwierigkeiten, sobald die ausländische Einheit rechtlich selbstständig ist. Die UNO-Leitprinzipien versuchen dem mit «soft law» zu begegnen. Sie sollen nun mit der Konzernverantwortungsinitiative in der Schweiz in verbindliches Recht übergeführt werden. Während die Probleme der rechtlichen Unabhängigkeit bei «Unterordnungskonzernen» lösbar scheinen, stösst der Menschenrechtsschutz mit strafrechtlichen Mitteln vor allem an die Grenzen der Unternehmenshaftung überhaupt: Möchte die Schweiz auf glaubwürdige Weise Menschenrechte schützen, müsste sie Art. 102 StGB revidieren und eine Unternehmenshaftung nach dem Muster von Art. 102 Abs. 2 StGB für alle Verbrechen und Vergehen einführen

Overcoming the Shadow Economy

There is a growing global consensus that the secrecy-havens—jurisdictions which undermine global standards for corporate and financial transparency—pose a global problem: they facilitate both money laundering and tax avoidance and evasion, contributing to crime and unacceptably high levels of global wealth inequality. Over the years, the global problems posed by secrecy and lack of transparency have increased, and, not surprisingly, this growth has been accompanied by growth in attempts to curb it and the resulting abuses of the global corporate and financial system. This Report attempts to address aspects of secrecy and provide recommendations for overcoming the shadow economy and ultimately, closing it down. Section II explores the global phenomenon of secrecy-havens, the structures through which illicit funds escape detection, and the risks involved in that opacity. Section III describes the ongoing international efforts and emerging standards to reign in the shadow economy. In Section IV, we offer recommendations for all countries for closing the global channels of secrecy, and Section V concludes with a perspective on why such measures are necessary for the survival of globalization

Die Bedeutung neuer internationaler Vorstösse gegen die Korruption für die Schweiz

1. Korruption in der öffentlichen Diskussion Ein lange Zeit verdrängtes Problem ist zum Tagesthema geworden. Je genauer man hinsieht, um so verbreiteter erscheinen plötzlich korrupte Praktiken. Lange war die „kleine Korruption” des Alltags ein Standardthema von Reiseberichten aus der Dritten Welt. Sodann wurde von Industriellen, die mit Partnern in der Dritten Welt ins Geschäft kommen wollten, schulterzuckend darauf verwiesen, dass auch und gerade im Grossen ohne entsprechendes Handgeld kein ..

Transnational economic crime: The example of “gold laundering”

Allow me first to thank the organisers of this conference for affording me the honour of giving this opening speech. The issues which the conference is addressing indeed are closely interlinked. Corruption almost always leads to money laundering. And, increasingly, new criminal methods are being developed, in particular the use blockchain technology. From the perspective of the black-letter lawyer, though, we have become used to treating the topics of corruption and money laundering separately, because we focus on concrete offences – and rightfully so. However, if you apply a social sciences approach or, even more so, if you look at the field of challenges from a development assistance perspective, a much broader picture emerges

The NASA Regional Planetary Image Facility at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Berlin, Germany

The DLR/NASA Regional Planetary Image Facility (RPIF) was founded in 1985 in cooperation with NASA and is located at the DLR Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof. This library of planetary photographs and maps keeps on file all the image data transmitted by many NASA and ESA space probes and makes them accessible to the public in Europe and mainly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Negotiating settlements in a broader law enforcement context

This thought-provoking book examines the scope, benefits and challenges of negotiated settlements as an enforcement mechanism in bribery cases, and demonstrates the need for a more harmonized and principled approach to deterring corporate bribery. Written by a global team of experts with backgrounds in legal practice, policy work and academia, it offers a truly international perspective, considering negotiated settlements in view of a variety of different legal systems and traditions

L’exposé scientifique comme activité pratique et interactive

L’exposé est une activité communicationnelle qui joue un rôle important dans de nombreuses pratiques professionnelles. Nous proposons ici une approche interactionnelle de l’exposé scientifique en nous basant d’une part sur l’analyse conversationnelle d’inspiration ethnométhodologique et sur la sociologie des sciences. Les données étudiées sont issues du suivi ethnographique de quatre équipes de chercheurs dont les réunions de travail ont été enregistrées durant un an. L’analyse insiste sur la dimension praxéologique, située et interactionnelle de l’exposé conçu comme une activité pratique

Transnational Criminal Law or the Transnational Legal Ordering of Corruption?

To date, “transnational criminal law” has been the dominant paradigm for explaining and mapping rules on corruption in the international legal literature. Transnational criminal law is presented as a system of law descending from multilateral crime control treaties or a field or order that emerges through international political processes of regime formation. Transnational criminal lawyers identify and describe cross-border legal rules, and seek to evaluate them against liberal norms of democratic governance and individual civil and political human rights. This Article details the limits of transnational criminal conceptions of “anticorruption” through a study of proposed changes to Australian laws on corporate foreign bribery. Drawing on primary and secondary documentary sources, domestic and international, it shows that the emerging antipodean rules are only partially transnational, as that term is understood in transnational criminal law theory. Likewise, multilateral “suppression conventions” and related soft laws are but one impetus for the proposed changes to Australian federal anticorruption legislation. Rather, as the transnational legal ordering literature suggests, a recursive process appears to be at work between international organizations and local legislators, as well as transnational non-state actors, both charities and businesses. This process is marked by moments of borrowing from (former) patrons, the US and the UK. However, it is also punctuated by themes of modernization, economic efficiency, and reputation. In addition, Australian anti-corruption activities may result not just in changes to national criminal law, but also in the development of “new” – and controversial – techniques of governance

Input and output legitimacy of multi-stakeholder initiatives

In a globalizing world, governments are not always able or willing to regulate the social and environmental externalities of global business activities. Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI), defined as global institutions involving mainly corporations and civil society organizations, are one type of regulatory mechanism that tries to fill this gap by issuing soft law regulation. This conceptual paper examines the conditions of a legitimate transfer of regulatory power from traditional democratic nation-state processes to private regulatory schemes, such as MSIs. Democratic legitimacy is typically concerned with input legitimacy (rule credibility, or the extent to which the regulations are perceived as justified) and output legitimacy (rule effectiveness, or the extent to which the rules effectively solve the issues). In this study, we identify MSI input legitimacy criteria (inclusion, procedural fairness, consensual orientation, and transparency) and those of MSI output legitimacy (rule coverage, efficacy, and enforcement), and discuss their implications for MSI democratic legitimacy