Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Fair competition as a protected legal asset in the crime of international corruption has proved insufficient to incriminate the seriousness of these conducts, which impede the prosperity of emerging countries. On the other hand, the defective regulation of Spanish jurisdiction to prosecute this crime, together with the broad extraterritorial scope of some anti-corruption laws, is generating a very negative assessment of the effectiveness of the criminal type (article 286 ter of the criminal code) to curb this scourge. Therefore, the focus of action must be changed, promoting a true global governance that does not depend on the interests of a few countries and corporations, focused on improving the quality of governments and giving a leading role to civil society through inter-relational governance. At the legal-criminal level, the pluriofensivity of the offence and especially its infringement of the right to permanent sovereignty over the exploitation of natural resources must be emphasised. Finally, it is proposed that the active personality principle be made more flexible in order to help the effective prosecution of this crime.

The aim of this paper is to analyse two specific models of discourse on authority: a model that I will call «Hobbesian» (represented by Thomas Hobbes) and a model that I will call «Razian» (represented by Joseph Raz). On the one hand, I will try to show that, despite some apparent similarities, these two models are examples of opposing views about the type of authority, and the role and consequences assigned to it within the framework of the legal and social phenomenon. On the other hand, I will try to show how both opposing models have an important coincidence: the strong lack of interest in their eventual practical application to analyse the authority (especially, at the justification level) of real cases of States and legal systems.

After reviewing some of the most outstanding theoretical approaches to the culture of legality and the mechanisms to promote and / or strengthen it, this article provides a definition of it associated with compliance with standards (formal and informal) and expectations and proposes the construction trust as a determining factor for the work towards increasing compliance levels. The analysis of rigorous interventions in different fields, based on behavioral sciences, allows us to conclude that the use of social norms and small nudges is effective in improving our collective expectations, building trust and promoting greater compliance with norms and agreements.

On the basis of the Ford-Müller-case judgments in Argentina, by which two Ford Motor Argentina’s corporate officers were convicted for complicity in crimes committed during the dictatorship by the armed and security forces against unionised workers, this article analyses some of the difficulties faced by national criminal courts when attributing criminal liability to multinational companies’ corporate officers for complicity in human rights violations. Specifically addressed is the problema facecd when applicating attribution criteria from International Criminal Law and Human Rights International Law to adscribe criminal liability based on national criminal legal figures.