International Moral Legalism and the Competence over Prosecution of Corruption Crimes

The paper highlights the acute nature of the problem of grand business corruption and the major legal developments in anticorruption legislation nationally, regionally and internationally. While accepting the utility of the black letter analysis of anticorruption laws the author argues that it is equally worthwhile that legal writers establish the moral abhorrence of international corruption across human cultures and forms of civilisation. It is suggested that there is ample basis for doing so by distilling the philosophical, religious and cultural jurisprudence of corruption from the corpus of indigenous African religion, Islamic thought, Christian theology and cultural values common to human societies. It is noted that the complicity of western societies in providing home for stolen and illegal wealth systematically transferred from the developing world is at odds with this shared moral vocabulary of human civilisations. It is argued that the utility of establishing the moral imperative of the global anticorruption movement is to put a stop to this phenomenon and to ensure the expansion of the jurisprudence and international criminal jurisdiction against gross abusers on the same basis as is presently done against pirates, terrorists, hijackers and other persons engaging in acts regarded as delicta jure gentium