OECD anti-corruption convention and improvement of the russian criminal legislation
The accession of the Russian Federation in the beginning of the 21st century to the international anti-corruption conventions resulted in the need for updating the Russian criminal legislation with regard to the commitments under these international treaties. The article considers the issues associated with the implementation of anti-corruption standards of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the sphere of criminal law due to the accession of the Russian Federation to OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions of 1997. Based on comparison of these standards with the provisions of the Russian criminal legislation the conclusions are made on the necessity, in order to meet the Convention obligations, of introduction of amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with regard to criminalization of the promise and the bribe offer as separate crimes. Besides, this refers to criminalization of mediation in bribery regardless of the gravity of offence and amount of bribe; criminalization ofpromise, offer or granting illegal non-property advantages to a foreign official; setting time limitations sufficient for investigation and prosecution of bribery of foreign officials; criminalization of taking of a bribe by a third party. Based on the analysis of criminal legal grounds for the provision of international legal assistance in cases of bribery of foreign public officials it is proposed, in order to ensure the implementation of the international obligations by the Russian Federation, to re-establish the previously available lower limit of sanctions in the form of imprisonment in the articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation providing responsibility for such bribery. The author concludes that the obligations to comply with OECD anti-corruption standards require from the state - candidate for OECD membership, which is the Russian Federation, making comprehensive changes in the national criminal laws.