I don't see it as such at all. In the case of government inspectors or investigators or guards any other 'little guy' that is being paid to look the other way, they would be completely defeating the purpose of their job and failing to complete their fundamental objectives of their employment. That would almost surely violate their contract for employment and all standards of ethics within their occupation, if not. The issue of legislators may not be as clear, but I don't think it is too much more complicated, the same basic truth applies. It is going to be unethical by any reasonable congress' standards to allow a large donation to change your vote on an issue. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but that when it is found out everyone sees it as wrong.Auralia wrote:In a sense, your second concern resolves the first, but only by making the proposal completely useless.
The proposal states that bribery is "the act of offering a gift to any public official, officer, agent or employee with the expectation of a specific action or result which the public official will take or cause in the operation of their duties, when that action or result is unethical or illegal." Therefore, if the expected action or result is not unethical or illegal, then a gift to a political official is not a bribe.
As you point out, the definition of ethics varies, and legality is determined by member states. Hence, member nations can essentially redefine bribery as they see fit, and the proposal is completely ineffective; this alone should justify withdrawing and redrafting the proposal.
I'd be interested to see how one would go about imprisoning an Arms Manufacturing Company... This doesn't mandate that "the only punishment be" so you can still throw whomever you want in jail. The more important aspect would be the fine of course, because that is the direction we need to go to make bribery less profitable.Auralia wrote:Mandates all member states make the act of bribery an illegal action for a business, citizen, or non-state organization or entity to participate in, with heavy fines for organizations found to be in violation,
Why is this proposal dictating how we punish bribery in our individual nations? What if we find jail time more effective than fines?
Yes, though it is not in the submitted version, only the one here.Auralia wrote:Clarifying there shall be no difference legally between a person or organization offering a bribe, and contracting a person or entity which engages in bribery, unless the contracting nation clearly indicated bribery was not acceptable,
I suspect this is a typo.
That would be true only if you were giving the pen with the intent that the person will then do you an unethical or illegal favour, which would be an odd offer, but still an (albeit bad) attempt at bribing someone.The Two Jerseys wrote:Defining, for the purposes of this resolution, gifts as money, assets, favours, services, future employment, or anything which the receiver considers to have value,
I'm not opposed to the proposal in principle, but this definition seems a bit strict since technically everything has value. With this definition you can't even give a public official something as cheap as a pen with your company name on it.
I would see it as very hard to make that definition fit. Maybe if I had actually used the word word persuading I'd see it. But that's far from the most straight-forward reading of the current text, "with the expectation of a specific action or result which the public official will take or cause in the operation of their duties." In the situation you provided, they really didn't have a reason to expect their donation would change anything. Had the politician said something more clearly along the lines of 'if I get large donations from the LGBTQA community then I would consider signing..' It might be more reason to expect an outcome, but that is clearly less innocent of a situation. My point in the initial post still stands, unless they make very clear what the intent of their donation is, even if it is very underhanded, it would be unlikely you could make it fit the definition. Again, if the politician specifically says I'll only sign X-bill if you give me Y-money then the specific action expected by the bribe is clear, or if the check for $100,000 had 'only accept if you intend to sign X-Bill in the memo line, then sure I'd say it meets my definition. But I'm okay with that, that's definitely corrupt. Without the offer being clearly explained, I don't think you can say that it is known that there was an expectation of a specific action as opposed to just encouraging friendly behaviour toward the group (in this case LGBTQA) in general. To say it another way, since I'm not sure I'm expressing it clearly, until there is evidence that the contribution wasn't simply with the hope that the new President is generally friendly toward their interests, I don't see how you could say it is with the expectation of a specific result.Christian Democrats wrote:Was the donation made to the Hope campaign a bribe? I think so according to the language of your proposal because it was made "with the intent of convincing or persuading the future president into supporting and signing a law." Was the payment made to the campaign wrong? Not really. Groups give money to political campaigns all the time in hopes that it will convince politicians to adopt certain policy positions. Why should such a donation be illegal? I do not know.
To strike at why it says ethical first, you used morality and ethics interchangeably in your statement, which is not totally accurate. Morality is more universal throughout ones life (not in the universal sense that everyone has the same morals, but in how you apply the morals you do have to yourself), if you think it is morally wrong to lie then it is wrong to lie in the context of work, family, social (friends), and any other setting you find yourself in. Ethics are more based on what you should do in your role within a group or as some position, in this case we are talking specifically about the code of ethics a governmental agent of some kind should follow. The difference is slight but comes to play clearly: morals may differ on what a psychologist/lawyer should do if their patient is displaying signs that they are dangerous, or if their client confesses to the crime they are charged, some would say the morally right thing to do is betray the trust in the name of justice or safety while others to keep the trust. But ethically, in their role as a lawyer/psychologist and under those codes of ethics, what they should do ethically is clear. Though granted, as I said, sometimes we see it as morally wrong to follow what we should do ethically, and we see it as morally right to do what we should not do ethically.Christian Democrats wrote:My second concern regards the definition of a bribe. In the definition, a bribe is labeled as something done that "is unethical or illegal." As a matter of normative ethics, I believe that objective morality exists. As a matter of descriptive ethics, it is obvious to anyone who thinks that morality is subjective. Beliefs about what is and is not ethical differ from person to person. Thus, what meaning does the "unethical" part of your definition have if any at all? Also, is it not nonsensical to make something illegal by defining it in terms of something else that is assumed already to be illegal? What if that other thing is not already illegal in the member state where your proposal would be applied? In that case, it seems evident that your proposal would mean nothing; it would have no effect whatsoever in that member state.
Now, let's apply this to a guard or forest ranger at a nature preserve in some country. The ranger comes upon someone without permission to be in the preserve and who has a gun. Ethically it is clear he should force the person to leave (or arrest the person if he has that legal power) and investigate if the person was poaching, that is one of the primary reasons he would be staffed at the preserve and so it would be a major failure in his duties not to preform those acts. Morally, there could be a large number of things that influence what is the 'right' thing to do. The ranger may know the poacher well, it could even be is brother. But none of that changes what he is expected to do within the specific context of his job.
To extend this example to why 'illegal' was included: Let's say it would be illegal for the ranger to fail to do his job here, because for whatever reason there is a law saying as a forest ranger you must do XYZ and may not allow XYZ to go without being investigated and reported. (That may be less likely in the case of a forest ranger but in more security or financial based jobs it is more likely.) In this example it is already illegal for the ranger to let the poacher stay in the park and act like he saw nothing. It is possibly not already illegal for the poacher to offer him money to do so, thus why it is in the definition, because after the passing of this it would be illegal to make such an offer. And, if this resolution to pass into law if the ranger did allow the poacher to stay because he was paid off, he'd be guilty of two crimes, accepting a bribe and the first crime, which isn't problematic to me because he has done something worse than if he just committed the first crime out of laziness.
Clinton Tew
WA Ambassador from Weed