How does is work, if it ever did? I seem to see it everywhere now without repercussion. Was it always the honor system, or am I missing something? There appear to be no checks and balances on it.
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Concepts aren’t enforceable. They’re too vague.
Different organizations have different rules, laws, policies, etc. about conflicts of interest. Sometimes they’re very strong, like “No conflict of interest are allowed. Even the *appearance* of a conflict of interest isn’t allowed.” For example, one of the reason managers at work aren’t supposed to date people they supervise is conflicts of interest. (Not the only one, but this is ELI5.) If Alex works for Bob and they’re dating and Alex gets a good performance review and a raise, everyone will wonder if it was really fair or if it was just because they’re dating. Maybe Bob really did a good job, but it’ll be hard to be sure because of the conflict of interest.
Sometime conflict of interest policies aren’t very strong, like “all conflicts of interest must be disclosed and documented.” As someone else has said, this type is more common when it comes to judges and other government positions. It’s impossible to avoid a conflict of interest for some positions, so the thinking is, being open and honest about them has to be good enough. If the public knows about a legislator’s conflict of interest and thinks it’s an abuse of power, they can vote against them in the next election. Appointed positions can generally be impeached. In the case of the Supreme Court, there’s no formal policy about conflicts of interest. I guess they might have just created something, I’m not sure, but if so it’s probably more like the second type.
It’s a bit more complicated because of the “Supreme” part. The only method of punishing a Supreme Court justice in the Constitution is impeachment. If a conflict of interest policy for them doesn’t go through the impeachment process, and isn’t an amendment to the Constitution, they could just rule it unconstitutional.
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