Corruption and Latin America's "Serious Threat": an Analysis of Argentine and Brazilian Recent Reforms through the current Global Standards of the OECD

Abstract

In order to understand the market’s operation and its demands, it is necessary to analyze the events occurred throughout the 20th Century, especially in its second half. The economic crimes acquire an undeniable importance after the crisis of 1929, but are effectively developed after the conflicts of the 70’s and boosted after the scandals of the 90’s. Nowadays, they are required by some markets, especially in order to control greedy agents. In some way, economic criminal law should not be considered a centralizer or a conservative economic policy, but a demand of neoliberalist policies aiming for the recovery of confidence on business and, therefore, keeping up one of the key factors of its operation. In Europe, the European Council and the European Bank may have their role in fighting corruption. However, Mercosul has no power to incentive regional measures and projects compared to them when it comes to the Latin America. Any other regional organization in Latin America has no impact either. The criminal policy is not exactly democratic in Latin America. Only Chile, México and recently Colombia are part of OECD, but this international organization has a central role on defining internal legislation and public efforts in economic criminal law. By this way, criminal law benefits and privileges for instance transnational companies with non-empirically validated mechanisms of compliance and ethical behavior surveillance.