The State Department Goes Insane

The Wall Street Journal’s Corruption Currents blog just blew my mind with this news item (paywall): The [US State] department recently amended its procurement regulations to allow foreign nationals to handle acquisitions of $25,000 or less, but only in countries with a score of at least five on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, an…

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Argentina’s New Dirty War

Eight ex-army officers were recently sentenced to life in prison for killing unarmed members of the Montoneros rebel group during Argentina’s Dirty War. A court in Chaco province concluded a nearly year long trial with convictions against Gustavo Athos, Horacio Losito, Luis Alberto Patetta, Aldo Martinez Segon, Jorge Daniel Carnero Sabol, Ricardo Guillermo Reyes, German…

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Judges Bribing Other Judges

A judge’s appointment in Albania can come with a price tag in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and this might not be the scariest part. In a judiciary where bargaining for favors among judges is part of the decision-making process, corruption no longer originates mainly from outside the system but also within its legal institutions.…

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New Data: Transparency and Accountability in Guatemala’s Justice System

(Thanks to guest blogger Renata Avila for this post) Transparency and anti-corruption safeguards in key institutions comprising the Guatemalan justice system – from the supreme court to prosecutor general to the country’s criminal forensic labs – are highly inefficient, ineffective, and lacking both material and human resources to fill their mandate, according to a new…

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