Today, peer reviews among states are the main instrument to monitor whether states have implemented or comply with multilateral anti-corruption instruments. One feature of these mechanisms is that they are soft-law instruments and, hence, have to produce effects by creating transparency, naming and shaming, peer pressure and persuasion processes. An open question, though, is to what extent different peer reviews are able to fulfil such functions; in particular to make member states contribute to, take note of, and comply with review recommendations. This paper details the main institutional differences between the peer-review mechanisms of the OECD’s Working Group on Bribery, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption and the Implementation Review Group of the United Nations Convention against Corruption. It presents the first empirical findings about the putative causality between these institutional differences and the degree to which peer-review instruments are taken seriously by participant states.
