{"id":2560,"date":"2014-08-07T21:16:40","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T01:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/orgs\/lids\/?p=2560"},"modified":"2014-09-09T10:15:19","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T14:15:19","slug":"the-freedom-of-information-development-and-lids-globals-2014-2015-research-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/2014\/08\/07\/the-freedom-of-information-development-and-lids-globals-2014-2015-research-project\/","title":{"rendered":"The Freedom of Information, Development, and LIDS Global\u2019s 2014-2015 Research Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transparency is a foundational element of development\u2014without it, the citizens of emerging economies cannot participate in keeping their governments and markets fair and accountable. Of course, governments and market participants are also entitled to a measure of privacy. The trick is in finding the balance, both in substantive law and in fact. In 2014-2015, LIDS Global is going to organize an international research effort to explore this balance.<\/p>\n

LIDS Global, as was noted<\/a> in this blog just a few weeks ago, is this organization\u2019s effort to build partnerships with like-minded student groups all around the world. Our 2013-2014 pilot project was highly successful; LIDS Global coordinated teams from around the world as they explored the link between corruption and development. The finished work will be published later this month.<\/p>\n

Building on this success, our 2014-2015 research will focus on the Freedom of Information and its role in development; specifically, how can citizens all around the world use Freedom of Information laws to deter corruption in government officials? In fact, our idea to explore this topic is partly a result of the 2013-2014 research: students from the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka<\/a> identified the Freedom of Information as a top development priority in the Asian region.<\/p>\n

Here at Harvard, others were also focused on this key element. Professor Matthew Stephenson\u2019s Global Anticorruption Blog<\/a> published several<\/a> posts<\/a> that called for using the Freedom of Information to deter corruption on the \u201cdemand\u201d side (meaning the government officials that demand bribes in the first place, as opposed to the \u201csupply\u201d of the businesses that pay for them).<\/p>\n

One post, written by Argentine legal scholar Ignacio Boulin-Victoria (LLM \u201914), provocatively proposed<\/a> using Freedom of Information laws in developed countries to extract information about corrupt \u201cdemand-side\u201d officials that could be used to shame or prosecute them in their home countries. The rationale here is simple: prosecuting agencies in the United States, for instance, come to possess information in the course of a corruption prosecution that could also be used to clean up government and markets in developing countries. Why not get that information to people who can use it, such as civil society and prosecutors in those developing countries?<\/p>\n

Imagine, for instance, that the Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted<\/a> a major multinational telecom company for bribes paid in several Eastern European nations. The telecom company has already settled with the DOJ and paid its fine; presumably it and its peers are now deterred from making future bribes in those countries. But what happened to the corrupt officials that demanded the bribes in the first place? Oftentimes, nothing happens to them\u2014they simply continue demanding bribes until another MNC pays them.<\/p>\n

Why aren\u2019t the corrupt officials punished for their actions? Mr. Boulin-Victoria believes that one big reason is that, even though the DOJ may pass information off to the prosecuting agency in the \u201cdemand-side\u201d country, there is simply not enough pressure on that agency to bring a case against government officials in its own country. Mr. Boulin-Victoria argues that, if only civil society in that country were empowered with the same information that the DOJ has, then the citizens of that country could be empowered to hold their own government officials accountable\u2014and their prosecutors.<\/p>\n

If a lack of information to civil society in the \u201cdemand-side\u201d country is the problem, then civil society in developed nations can help by extracting the key information and then simply passing it off to their foreign counterparts. Seems simple, right?<\/p>\n

As Mr. Boulin-Victoria and others on the Global Anticorruption Blog acknowledge, however, this plan is not without potential flaws. Most obviously, if prosecutors in a \u201cdemand-side\u201d country do not respond to public pressure, or if public pressure does not materialize, then nothing new will come of this plan. For instance, using the example of the DOJ\u2019s prosecution of an telecom-MNC in Eastern Europe, it is not immediately obvious that passing information about corrupt officials to civil society in those countries will actually yield high-level prosecutions\u2014citizens in those countries may already be aware that their government officials are corrupt, journalists and private attorneys may be easily intimidated by defamation laws, and prosecutors may be completely captured in any case. Another problem: what if the DOJ doesn\u2019t give up the information, citing an exception to the Freedom of Information Act?<\/p>\n

LIDS Global, now coming into its second year, is perfectly suited to explore this proposal. Our network of student groups in several nations around the world enables us to understand legal and social conditions \u201con the ground.\u201d Here in the U.S., our LIDS Global team will research Freedom of Information Act implications of this plan, and potentially develop a \u201ctool-kit\u201d for U.S. attorneys to use if they actually wanted to test this plan out.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be an exciting year for LIDS Global and its partners!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transparency is a foundational element of development\u2014without it, the citizens of emerging economies cannot participate in keeping their governments and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[136,336,337],"class_list":["post-2560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lids-live","tag-corruption","tag-freedom-of-information","tag-lids-global"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}