The Limitations of a Human Rights Approach to Corruption

Abstract

International human rights law may serve as a language through which lawyers and others describe the harms resulting from corruption, but this approach has significant limitations as a legal framework. Despite a growing emphasis among scholars and practitioners on a human rights approach to the problem of corruption, this body of law does not provide a strong basis for addressing such conduct. International human rights treaties make no mention of corruption, and human rights treaty bodies have not brought conceptual clarity to the question of how corruption violates or undermines human rights. Given that human rights law binds States alone, it is also ill-suited to a phenomenon that typically occurs at the intersection of the public and private sectors. Even as a language for describing how corruption harms social and economic rights, human rights law has its limitations, some of which come into relief when compared with the field of development economics.

The Principle of Systemic Integration in Human Rights Law

“…185 Equally concerning is the integration of socioeconomic rights into the discourse of civil and political human rights, insofar as we might question whether it is reasonable to expect that the imbalance of power in labour relations and in the complex area of social rights can and should be mediated through the ECHR or the IACHR. In the same vein, the language of human rights is (to some extent) ill-suited to describe how corruption causes harm to socio-economic rights, 186 or to acknowledge the effects of systemic discrimination and stigmatization. 187 In addition, despite the significant contribution of human rights courts and bodies to recognizing domestic violence as a human rights issue, there are limitations on how far human rights law can go to protect individuals from violations occurring in the private sphere.…”

Arbitrary Power, Arbitrary Interference and the Abuse of Power: Corruption, Natural Rights and Human Rights

“…Legal analyses will take a different perspective, querying: "Does corruption constitute state failure to fulfil its human rights obligations under constitutional, domestic or international law?" ((ICoHRP) & (TI), 2009; (OHCHR), 2013;Boersma, 2012;Rose, 2016). If corruption does violate state responsibilities, then this opens further legal questions, such as whether remedies can be sought through the jurisdiction of relevant domestic, constitutional, regional or international courts (Hatchard, 2010).…”

“…Why then was state corruptionat least in its most widespread and flagrant instantiationsnot seen as a threat worth explicit mention in any of the Covenants or Declarations (a fact stressed by (Rose, 2016))?…”

El derecho fundamental a una sociedad libre de corrupción: una contribución desde Latinoamérica

“…Así, los escritos del enfoque se interesan por las víctimas 33 , las personas ordinarias que enfrentan cotidianamente la corrupción, en ocasiones como una experiencia inseparable de la violación a sus derechos 34 . Mientras las víctimas permanecen invisibles para el enfoque penal dominante sobre la corrupción, interesado principalmente en la responsabilidad de los autores individuales 35 , el enfoque de derechos humanos propone visibilizar a esas víctimas de actos corruptos, como una manera de empoderarlas 36 y mejorar su estatus 37 . En este reposicionamiento de las víctimas, también se resalta que la corrupción afecta con mayor intensidad a los pobres y a los miembros de grupos vulnerables como mujeres, niños e indígenas 38 .…”