BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

political problems. Addressing these problems effectively requires dealing with the underlying economic, political, and institutional causes. 26 The truth is that since the second half of the twentieth century, at least in the West, there have been several studies analyzing these elements all aimed at giving greater uniformity of treatment to the matter, from research involving methodologies for gauging data on corruption in the face of multiple empirical variables such as time lag, geographical, political, economic, ideological and institutional demarcation of the spaces and protagonists involved in the research; 27 to public opinion polls on the impact of corruption on democratic regimes and institutions, especially regarding the breach of confidence brought about by such behavior. As Gerald Caiden tells us : When citizens of a democracy feel that they have taken advantage of them, that they are not being treated in a decent and equitable manner and that injustices are not being corrected or compensated, then their confidence in institutions and in the leaders accused of perpetrating such discrimination, since they know that if corrective measures are not taken, the situation will prevail and worsen. The feeling that you do what you do will not change anything (impotence or helplessness in looking for corrective measures) is what crumbles your confidence in yourself and in democracy . 28 While the executive and legislative powers – notably in the West – are still timid in regulating and dealing with the matter, the Judiciary has broadened the levels of effectiveness of the standards that have been achieved up to now to combat corruption, some of them in special situations. In the USA, for example, there are records that judicial interpretation expanded the Mail Fraud statute and the Hobbs Act to reach official misconduct even though the Congress did not adopt the provisions expressly to address corruption . 29 At times, however, judicial interpretations of the statutes used in cases of corruption leave the scope of the law unclear because the provisions are considered in isolation, without reference to any comprehensive (including international) statutory structure to combat public corruption. 26 SCHLOSS, M.: Luncheon Address. In Cornell International Law Journal : Vol. 33: Iss. 3, Article 2, 2000, p. 471. Accessed through http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cilj/vol33/iss3/2, 2/27/2017. 27 In this sense see the works of: (i) GOLDSMITH, A.: Slapping the Grasping Hand: Correlates of Political Corruption Emerging Markets. In American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 58 (4), pp. 865-88, 1999; (ii) SANDHOLTZ, W. and KOETZLE, W.: Accounting for Corruption: Economics Structure, Democracy, and Trade. In International Studies Quarterly, 44 (1), pp. 31-50, 2000; and (iii) TREISMAN, D. The Causes of Corruption: A Cross-National Study. In Journal of Public Economics , 76 (3), pp. 399-457, 2000. See also studies conducted by the Latin American Public Opinion Project – LAPOP , at http://www. vanderbilt.edu/lapop/, accessed 2/27/2017. 28 CAIDEN, G. E.: Democracy and Corruption. In CLAD Magazine Reform and Democracy . No. 8 (May 1997). Caracas, p. At this point also see the works of: (i) COLAZINGARI, S. and ROSE- ACKERMAN, S.: Corruption in a Paternalistic Democracy: Lessons from Italy for Latin America. In Political Science Quarterly , 113 (3), pp. 447-470, 1998; (ii) SELIGSON, M.: The Impact of Corruption on Regime Legitimacy: A Comparative Study of Four Latin American Countries. In Journal of Politics , 64 (2), pp. 408-433, 2002. 29 In Global Forum on Fighting Corruption: Safeguarding Integrity Among Justice and Security Officials, Feb. 23-25, 1999, at http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/econ/integrity/documents/gore.html, access 06/03/2017.

245