Prosecutors Voters And The Criminalization Of Corruption In Latin America

Lava Jato, a transnational bribery case that started in Brazil and spread throughout Latin America, upended elections and collapsed governments. Why did the investigation gain momentum in some countries but not others? The book traces reforms that enhanced prosecutors' capacity to combat white-collar crime and shows that Lava Jato became a full-blown anti-corruption crusade where reforms were coupled with the creation of aggressive taskforces. For some, prosecutors' unconventional methods were necessary and justified. Others saw dangerous affronts to due process and democracy. Given these controversies, how did voters react to a once-in-a-generation attempt to clean politics? Can prosecutors trigger hope, conveying a message of possible regeneration? Or does aggressive prosecution erode the tacit consensus around the merits of anti-corruption? Prosecutors, Voters and The Criminalization of Corruption in Latin America is a study of the impact of accountability through criminalization, one that dissects the drivers and dilemmas of resolute transparency efforts.

"Lava Jato, a transnational bribery case that started in Brazil and spread throughout Latin America, upended elections and collapsed governments. Why did the investigation gain momentum in some countries but not others? The book traces reforms that enhanced prosecutors' capacity to combat white-collar crime and shows that Lava Jato became a full-blown anti-corruption crusade where reforms were coupled with the creation of aggressive taskforces. For some, prosecutors' unconventional methods were necessary and justified. Others saw dangerous affronts to due process and democracy. Given these controversies, how did voters react to a once-in-a-generation attempt to clean politics? Can prosecutors trigger hope, conveying a message of possible regeneration? Or does aggressive prosecution erode the tacit consensus around the merits of anti-corruption? Prosecutors, Voters and The Criminalization of Corruption in Latin America is a study of the impact of accountability through criminalization, one that dissects the drivers and dilemmas of resolute transparency efforts"--

Studies the largest foreign bribery case in history to identify the drivers, impact and dilemmas of resolute anti-corruption efforts.

The geopolitics of American law enforcement and how it changed corporate criminal accountability in other countries Over the past decade, many of the world’s biggest companies have found themselves embroiled in legal disputes over corruption, fraud, environmental damage, tax evasion, or sanction violations. Corporations including Volkswagen, BP, and Credit Suisse have paid record-breaking fines. Many critics of globalization and corporate impunity cheer this turn toward accountability. Others, however, question American dominance in legal battles that seem to impose domestic legal norms beyond national boundaries. In this book, Cornelia Woll examines the politics of American corporate criminal law’s extraterritorial reach. As governments abroad seek to respond to US law enforcement actions against their companies, they turn to flexible legal instruments that allow prosecutors to settle a case rather than bring it to court. With her analysis of the international and domestic politics of law enforcement targeting big business, Woll traces the rise of what she calls “negotiated corporate justice” in global markets. Woll charts the path to this shift through case studies of geopolitical tensions and accusations of “economic lawfare,” pitting the United States against the European Union, China, and Japan. She then examines the reactions to the new legal landscape, describing institutional changes in the common law countries of the United Kingdom and Canada and the civil law countries of France, Brazil, and Germany. Through an insightful interdisciplinary analysis of how the prosecution of corporate crime has evolved in the twenty-first century, Woll demonstrates the profound transformation of the relationship between states and private actors in world markets, showing that law is part of economic statecraft in the connected global economy.

This report provides novel evidence on Brazilian people’s expectations and evaluation of government’s reliability, responsiveness, openness, integrity and fairness, based on the OECD Trust Survey.

Latin America was one of the earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of what has come to be known as the judicialization of politics - the use of law and legal institutions as tools of social contestation to curb the abuse of power in government, resolve policy disputes, and enforce and expand civil, political, and socio-economic rights. Almost forty years into this experiment, The Limits of Judicialization brings together a cross-disciplinary group of scholars to assess the role that law and courts play in Latin American politics. Featuring studies of hot-button topics including abortion, state violence, judicial corruption, and corruption prosecutions, this volume argues that the institutional and cultural changes that empowered courts, what the editors call the 'judicialization superstructure,' often fall short of the promise of greater accountability and rights protection. Illustrative and expansive, this volume offers a truly interdisciplinary analysis of the limits of judicialized politics.

An in-depth study of processes of judicial transformation that enabled the success of human rights trials in Latin America.

The volume takes a broad view of recent social, political, and economic developments in Latin America. It contains six essays, focused on salient and cross-cutting themes, that try to construct a thread or narrative about the highly diverse region, highlighting its main idiosyncrasies and analyzing where it might be headed in coming years. While the essays recognize considerable advances, they also point out setbacks and missed opportunities that have stood in the way of sustained progress. Strengthening state capacity emerges as a significant challenge.