Corruption, including corruption of public officials, dates from early in human history and countries have long had laws to punish their own corrupt officials and those who pay them bribes. But national laws prohibiting a country's own citizens and corporations from bribing public officials of other nations are a new phenomenon, less than a generation old. Over the course of perhaps the last 15 years, anti-corruption law has established itself as an important, transnational legal speciality, one that has produced multiple international conventions and scores of national laws, as well as an emerging jurisprudence that has become a prominent reality in international business and a well-publicised theme in the media.