Integrating Human Rights in the Anti-Corruption Agenda - The ICHRP

I. Renewing Anti-Corruption Principles via
Human Rights
This chapter looks at three principles that are central to both anti-corruption
and human rights policies: (1) participation, (2) transparency and access to
information and (3) accountability. Although these principles are common
to both, anti-corruption and human rights disciplines conceptualise and
operationalise them differently. In this chapter, the differences of approach
are identified, and it is suggested that anti-corruption programmes would gain
traction if they were to incorporate elements of human rights practice.
In addition to the three common principles discussed, non-discrimination also
runs through this analysis. Fundamental to human rights (see Box 2), it does
not play a prominent role in the anti-corruption agenda, although corruption is
in fact closely associated with discrimination. Firstly, this is because corruption
distorts the allocation of public resources, which causes the administration of
public services to become discriminatory and arbitrary. Individuals or groups
of people are left without access to a service, for example, because they
cannot or refuse to pay a bribe or do not belong to a given client network.
Second, corruption is often associated with discrimination based on race,
colour, sex, language, religion, political opinion, national or social origin or
sexual orientation. In Europe, for example, it appears that Roma people are
disproportionately asked to pay bribes when they seek access to health and
education services. Corruption has a disproportionate impact on people who
are victims of discrimination. Under a human rights framework, the principle
of non-discrimination requires states to take affirmative action to ensure that
disempowered groups and those suffering from structural discrimination such
as indigenous peoples, migrant workers, persons with disabilities, persons with
HIV/AIDS, refugees, prisoners, the poor, women and children have fair access
to services and resources.
Finally, those who commit corrupt acts will attempt to protect themselves from
detection and seek to maintain their positions of power. In doing so, they tend
to destroy the integrity of institutions that are fundamental to the rule of law,
including electoral and judicial processes and the objectivity of administrative
decisions. So corrupt officials who extract money from migrant workers lacking
a residence permit in the knowledge that they cannot complain, judges who
take bribes, corrupt surveyors and planning officers not only disadvantage the
individuals who suffer as a direct result of their decisions but also undermine
the authority and credibility of the institutions they represent. At all these levels,
For example, see the analysis of the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children,
child prostitution and child pornography, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/2006/67/Add.2, para. 47.
Integrating Human Rights in the Anti-Corruption Agenda: Challenges, Possibilities and Opportunities