<p>Introduction to Countering Corruption by Paul Hoffman</p>

Corruption is one of the great scourges of our age. It is estimated that trillions of dollars are paid in bribes every year and that developing regions lose ten times more to corruption than they receive in foreign aid, with illicit outflows of the funds that they desperately need totalling more than 1 trillion US dollars per year. The reason for this is not a lack of laws prohibiting corruption in its various forms but the impunity enjoyed by those guilty of contravening them, resulting from their control of the institutions which are supposed to see to it that the law is enforced.