Corruption in Asia: A Fuller Account

Over 4-6 August Keio Law School A/Prof Nobumichi Teramura (co-editor of my 2024 Springer book on “Corruption and Illegality in Asian Investment Arbitration”) will present at the National University of Singapore the first draft of our solicited chapter on “Corruption in Asia” for a new book co-edited by NUS Prof Mindy Chen-Wishart. Here is the longer version and related Powerpoint slides. As the introduction of our shortened version explains:

“Corruption remains a large problem in almost all parts of Asia, evidenced for example by the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of Transparency International (TI). Decades of national law reform, increasingly supported by various international organisations, run up against mixed legacies from diverse customary and religious values (such as guanxi), colonial history, often authoritarian politics, and economic realities (including strong business-state links still in many countries). Some dramatic successes are mostly due to consistent and unbiased political will, and well-resourced anti-corruption agencies and other independent institutions. This chapter gives a sense of the regional diversity, focusing mainly on countries with varying scale for population, socio-cultural contexts, political regimes, economies and legal traditions: Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, China, Indonesia and India (ranked from least to most corrupt by CPI).”


Author: Luke Nottage

Prof Luke Nottage (BCA, LLB, PhD VUW, LLM LLD Kyoto) is founding co-director of the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL), Associate Director (Japan) of the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney (CAPLUS), and Professor of Comparative and Transnational Business Law at Sydney Law School. He specialises in international dispute resolution, foreign investment law, contract and consumer (product safety) law.