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

esponsibility to protect the rights of those affected and remedy the harms that
have been done. From this viewpoint, governments have obligations both as
public-service providers and market regulators, while private companies have
responsibilities as public-service providers and a duty to avoid activities that,
for example, put health or the environment at risk. The precise definition of
who is entitled to claim rights and who bears obligations is a core element of a
human rights–based anti-corruption policy.
The responsibility of private companies is an issue that must be approached
with some care. Under international human rights law, states are primarily
responsible for human rights because international human rights treaties address
states and are adopted and ratified by states. Albeit slowly, this traditional focus
is gradually changing. A great deal of work has been done in recent years to
develop a clearer understanding, in law and in practice, of the degree to which
companies should be subject (and should subject themselves), directly and
indirectly, to international human rights law. 42
In this context, human rights laws can be used to demand that companies
render account of their activities indirectly through the state, which is obliged to
regulate them. In a defined range of circumstances (which need to be described
in more detail than we can provide here), companies can also sometimes be
held directly accountable. Though the analysis of corruption within the private
sector falls outside the scope of this report, it can be said that the evolution of
human rights standards, in combination with the international anti-corruption
legal framework, is likely to create new opportunities for holding companies
directly to account when they act corruptly or abuse human rights, particularly
where a direct connection can be established between acts of corruption
and human rights violations. This is a new field of research and activism for
both human rights advocates and anti-corruption professionals. It invites
experimentation and creativity from both. 43
42 See, for example, the ICHRP report Beyond Voluntarism: Human Rights and the
Developing International Legal Obligations of Companies, 2002, and the work of
John Ruggie, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on human rights
and transnational corporations and other business enterprises.
43 A number of NGOs around the world have used the OECD Guidelines for
Multinational Enterprises to hold multinationals accountable for acts of corruption or
human rights abuses. For more information, see www.oecdwatch.org.
Integrating Human Rights in the Anti-Corruption Agenda: Challenges, Possibilities and Opportunities 35