Gönenç Gürkaynak, Esq.
Attorney at Law
HUMAN RIGHTS, COMPETITION
AND CORRUPTION
OECD GLOBAL FORUM ON COMPETITION
Promoting Competition, Protecting Human
Rights
December 1, 2016
• A right that cannot be claimed does not exist.
• The first mandatory step in broadening the
scope of rights to maximize social welfare is
to maintain and improve freedom of
expression with a conscious choice of legal
policy.
1. The freedom of expression as the basis of
all other rights
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• As the market for ideas becomes freer, the
universe of ideas, which also incorporates
innovative ideas, will expand and
strengthen as well.
• Ideas will breed ideas and proliferate
competition of ideas. More resilient, tested
and perfected ideas will prevail, promoting
innovative thought.
2. Freedom of speech as an engine of
innovation
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• As undertakings become more efficient, they are
incentivized to compete with other players in the
market to pursue their profit seeking agenda.
• Innovation fuels competition while more competition
causes innovation to remain as a priority point.
• Innovation helps to drive economic growth and
address socio-economic challenges such as poverty
and health. (OECD, 2012)
3. Innovation feeds into competition with its
disruptive interferences and competition in turn
motivates further innovation.
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3. Innovation feeds into competition with its
disruptive interferences and competition in turn
motivates further innovation.
An early Google team outside the company's
first Palo Alto office
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3. Innovation feeds into competition with its
disruptive interferences and competition in turn
motivates further innovation.
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• More than 5% of global GDP (US$ 2.6 trillion) /
over US$ 1 trillion paid in bribes each year. (OECD,
2014)
• Unstable governments / history of conflicts / low
GDP per capita income / low human development
indices. (OECD, 2014)
• Extractive institutions help corruption, feed poverty
and income imbalances, and distort the playing field
for competition demotivating industry participants.
4. Chasing off the Wolves: Corruption as the
Entropy in the Ecosystem
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• Corruption favors connections, inclusion of
artificial parameters in the marketplace and
outcomes that are not owed to the natural working
of free markets.
• The motivation to gain a competitive edge over
competitors through competition on the merits
cannot be maintained in a corrupt environment.
• Freedom of speech fosters competition by way of
both: (i) increasing transparency and fighting
corruption; (ii) directly fostering innovative thought
processes.
5. Anticorruption, antitrust and freedom
of speech as companions
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• Middle income trap is a function of productivity gap,
readily available technology and potential for structural
change. Innovation may kindle economic growth through
increases productivities and efficiencies, thereby curing the
middle income trap.
• A country can escape from middle income trap by "having
a transformation through diversification into a greater
number of products as well as movement into higher value-
added products over time". (OECD, 2012)
• Extractive institutions lead to immunodeficiencies for
middle income trap.
6. Escaping the middle income trap through
innovation
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7. The Relationship Between Corruption and
the Middle Income Trap
Source: Corruption Perceptions Index and Global Innovation Index (2015) Global Competitiveness Index (2014-2015)
Corruption/Ranking Innovation/Ranking Competitiveness/Ranking
Switzerland 86 (7) 68.3 (1) 5.70 (1)
United Kingdom 81 (10) 62.4 (2) 5.41 (9)
Spain 58 (36) 49.1 (27) 4.55 (35)
Turkey 42 (66) 37.8 (58) 4.46 (45)
Brazil 38 (76) 34.9 (70) 4.34 (57)
Madagascar 28 (123) 24.4 (125) 3.41 (130)
Yemen 18 (154) 20.8 (137) 2.96 (142)
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People who made competition happen...
Environment to sustain innovation cannot be corrupt; it must
be watered with freedom of speech.
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