LA APLICACIÓN ESPAÑOLA DE LAS NORMAS DE DERECHO INTERNACIONAL CONTRA LA CORRUPCIÓN.

Recent cases of corruption prove the need to keep paying attention to an ancient but changing phenomenon. An evolution can be observed in this complex problem. First of all, the revolution in new technologies has not only had beneficial effects. Crime has also benefited from these technologies, since not only the law enforcement agencies in charge of corruption use them, but also the offenders. This makes it more difficult to detect acts of corruption, turning such crime into a complex reality. Another characteristic of the 21th century in this area is the awareness of the negative effects of corruption at the economic, political and social levels. A consensus has been reached about the seriousness of the problem. The legal regulation of corruption has also evolved. In the near past, acts of corruption were categorized as crimes only at the domestic level. As an answer to the development of transnational corruption networks, it was only a decade ago that international law instruments began to be used to fight corruption. Most of them were conventions, at a regional or universal level, where states agreed to change some aspects of their national legislation in order to fight corruption in the most effective way. This is why it is so important to establish a follow-up mechanism to control how states are fulfilling their international duties. This paper summarizes the most important conventions against corruption, specially relating to the follow-up mechanisms established by them, focusing on Spain's case and its evaluation by GRECO --the group of states against corruption of the Council of Europe. The main objective of this analysis is to establish to what extent Spain is involved in this fight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]