Imperialism, Extraterritoriality and Jurisdictional Competence of States in Anti-Corruption Regulation: Critical Analysis of the Leading Instruments.

Transnational Business relations have assumed phenomenal importance in the globalised world of the 21st Century. Corruption in international business relations however has become a global problem with a distorting effect on the international markets. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977 (Hereinafter, FCPA) and the UK Bribery Act 2010 (Hereinafter, UKBA) are part of a few anti-corruption laws adopted to fight bribery and corruption beyond the national level. However, the application of national anti-corruption laws across territorial borders raised the issue of legality and propriety of extraterritorial measures and their effects on sovereignty and jurisdictional competences of states. Therefore, this dissertation critically examines the effects of the practice of the doctrine of extraterritoriality on the states within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region. This dissertation argues that the present regulation of corruption in international business transactions through the use of the doctrine of extraterritoriality presents an unfair and unequal regulatory framework. The dissertation examines five related research questions. First, how compatible are the extraterritorial jurisdiction inherent in the FCPA and UK Bribery Act laws with the doctrine of extraterritorial application of domestic laws in international legal practice? Second, is there an effective international legal framework which is put in place to curb the bribery of foreign officials in international business and will extraterritorial jurisdiction equitably applied help to foster the development of this framework? Third, what beneficial or other effects would the presence of multiple extraterritorial domestic anticorruption laws have on the international community generally? Fourth, to what extent do developing countries possess equal extraterritorial regulatory strength in the international regulation of corruption? Lastly, with what strategies and in what ways can the unfairness in the extraterritorial regulatory framework of corruption in international business transaction be mitigated?