BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

There is no doubt that when someone who is in a position of power and confidence, and who understands perfectly that he can act on behalf of himself or on behalf of the interest of a third party in exchange for receiving benefits, and so does, is surely betraying the trust institutionally and legally 10 – in the private or public sector –, characterizing both misuse of power/abuse of authority or even criminal, civil, administrative or other. The victims of this betrayal, after all and in the first place, are all those who have given the individual traitor the right to act in his name and for his confidence. Secondly, Democracy itself is affected by acts of corruption, notably in the representative model, since the represented ones also begin to have restrictions of confidence in their representatives. Third, the economic market in general also suffers from corruption, since, as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states, since 1997, when it adopts the Convention to Combat Corruption of Public Officials in International Economic Transactions, already warned against the fact that such practices led to international economic relations, involving serious moral and political problems, undermines good governance and economic development, and distorts international competitive conditions. 11 Therefore, we can affirm that corruption can create situations of inconsistency in the relations between Public Administrations and the Market, and also causes damage to the private economy in the face of the fact that innovation processes fostered by corporate competition are directly affected by certain corrupt acts – piracy, industrial espionage; illicit payments become tempting attempts to replace low prices and innovations in products. 12 But we must not forget that this market is also often an active protagonist of the corruptive scenarios that are constituted and that such responsibility can not be use corruption for the sake of personal enrichment or private groups. See, in this sense, the texts of: (i) MAIZ, R.: Jama, cove and camel: corruption as a mechanism for self-reinforcement of political clientelism. In Mexican Journal of Sociology , V. 65 (1), pp. 3-39; (ii) ALBERTAZZI, J. M. C.: Political clientelism: a review of the concept and its uses. In Yearbook of Central American Studies , University of Costa Rica, V. 40: 311-338, 2014. In Brazil, see the excellent text of BAHIA, L. H. N.: The power of clientelism: roots and foundations of political exchange . Rio de Janeiro: Renovar, 2003. 10 See EISENSTADT’s, A. S.: Political Corruption in American History. In EISENSTADT, A. S., HOOGENBOOM, A. and TREFOUSSE, H. L.: Before Watergate: Problems of Corruption in American Society . The New England Quarterly, Vol. 53, no. 1 (Mar., 1980), p. 114, when he says that: Political corruption means that a public official has perverted the office to his care, that he has broken a public trust for private gain . 11 Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International BusinessTransactions , Nov. 21, 1997, 37 ILM 1, art. I Access at http://www.oecd.org/corruption/oecdantibriberyconvention.htm, 2/27/2017. 12 Henning recalls that the term corruption has had various meanings and meanings ever since, describing from blatant acts of bribery to the use of political power to advance some agendas of interests more private than public.In this sense, the author gives a very interesting example: Individual officials can abuse their authority in an almost limitless number of ways. For example, the expansion of the internet and electronic mail means that a government employee can easily conduct personal business during work hours, often with little threat of being detected or disciplined . In HENNING, P. J.: Public corruption: a comparative analysis of international corruption conventions and united states law. In http://arizonajournal.org/wp-content/ uploads/2015/11/HenningArticle.pdf, accessed 20/02/2017, p.796. See also the text by MESSINA, G.: Stato economico d’eccezione e theory of governance: ovvero la ne della politica. In Journal of Political Studies . Belo Horizonte, n. 107, pp. 99-148, jul./dez. 2013.

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