Abstract

Much ink has been expended over the debate as to the effectiveness or otherwise f international law. Scholars have expressed the view that international law is in fact not law. They contend that international law lacks the crucial character of municipal law with clearly defined apparatus for enforcement. To such scholars, they have failed to identify the police men of international law, the courts for trial, for international crimes and the prisons for the enforcement of sanctions for international crimes. However strong their positions may be, so much evolution in the field of international law have completely eclipsed the views of such skeptics have since become redundant as international law has since asserted itself as a veritable instrument of both national and municipal coercion and development. International law can no longer be derided for the absence of enforceability for several reasons. The unprecedented advancement in the field of international law especially in the conception of individual criminal liability has been clearly adumbrated in the trials and convictions of the Serbian leader Milo Ceviche for crimes against humanity during the crises in Kosovo. This position about the strength of international law was reinforced in April 2012 with the trial, conviction and sentencing of former Liberian President, Mr. Charles Taylor for war crimes by the special tribunal for Sierra-Leone. It is, therefore, from this background of the vindication of international law as law that this work explores the possibilities of advancing and reinforcing the regime of the anti-corruption crusade in Nigeria through the instrumentality of international law. The study therefore, recommends that Nigeria must possess the requisite political will to go beyond its institutional framework for curbing corruption but rather go to the reals of International in order to reposition the struggle of the Nigerian citizenry for an end to the endemic problem of corruption. The research has adopted the analytical methodology of study for the purpose of this work.