U.S. Mission to the OECD Chargé d'Affaires Jeri Guthrie-Corn presents U.S. efforts at the OECD to keep up the global fight against global bribery.
Learn more: usoecd.usmission.gov/mission/combating-corruption.html
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
"The fight against corruption is a global priority. As President Obama has said, it 'is one of the great struggles of our time.'
Corruption is a disease that harms society, the economy, and our security in many different ways. It undermines faith in democracy, threatens the stability of markets, and distorts competition. It deepens poverty and can deprive people of opportunities to provide a better life for their families.
At the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States advocates tackling corruption through a multi-faceted approach: top-down and bottom-up, via government leaders or civil society.
The United States leads by example, by showcasing our robust prevention and enforcement efforts, and by supporting the Anti-Bribery Convention, the signature OECD instrument.
Forty countries have now joined the Convention, making a commitment to preventing their companies and citizens from bribing public officials abroad. The OECD Working Group on Bribery has also earned a reputation for tough reviews as it monitors the Convention and pushes member countries to aggressively enforce their anti-bribery laws.
Fighting bribery makes business sense. For the global economy, corruption is dangerous. Bribery in international business, for example, may center on shell companies and wire transfers, but no matter where -- or how -- it happens, the corrosive result is the same: stymied development, lost confidence, and distorted competition. The result is unfairness, not justice; the consequence is economic decay, not development.
We have come a long way from the days when the payment of bribes was tax-deductible in some countries, and corruption was excused as an unchangeable cultural practice. And just as the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, the United States will step up our fight against corruption, to ensure that it does not steal our future prosperity."
