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

II.
Human Rights and Specific Issues of the
Anti-Corruption Agenda
This chapter shows how the integration of a human rights perspective could
strengthen anti-corruption work in specific areas. It concentrates on four
areas in particular: measurement and indicators, public procurement, political
financing and provision of essential services.
Measurement and Indicators
Data are essential to the design of programmes that combat corruption:
to understand its causes and processes, to disaggregate its forms and its
incidence in different institutions. Since corruption is inherently secretive,
effective action depends to an unusual extent on accuracy of understanding.
Rapid growth in computing power has triggered a data revolution in the social
sciences, which numerous institutions have harnessed to analyse and track
trends in poverty, violence, inequality, human rights, happiness and a myriad
of different variables. 47 In the field of governance, anti-corruption organisations
have actively contributed to this process and in the last fifteen years have
developed an impressive battery of diagnostic and analytical tools. The
measurement of corruption is often based on surveys aimed at capturing the
experiences and/or perceptions of citizens, households, public officials and
businesses. Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index is the
paradigmatic example, yet there are many other corruption indices, such as
the World Bank governance indicators and others.
More recently, the adoption of sophisticated qualitative and quantitative
techniques has allowed organisations to generate more specific data and
design more targeted strategies. A study of 17 countries in Latin America,
published by Transparency International and UNDP in 2006, described over
100 tools in terms of their scope, methodology, purpose and impact. 48 The
same report, however, showed that only 20% of these tools disaggregated their
data by gender and poverty. It is in this respect that a human rights approach
could usefully contribute to the quality of anti-corruption programmes.
Research undertaken with a human rights focus would examine corruption’s
connections to discrimination, poverty and gender bias. As shown in the first
ICHRP report on corruption, a careful analysis of acts of corruption would
enable anti-corruption professionals to identify violations of specific rights – and
in many instances to take more effective action against those responsible, using
the logic and legal tools that are available under the human rights system. 49
47 Carr Center, 2005; Landman and Carvalho, 2009. See also: Landman and Schudel,
ICHRP Working Paper, 2007.
48 Transparency International and UNDP, 2006.
49 See Corruption and Human Rights: Making the Connection, ICHRP, 2009.
Integrating Human Rights in the Anti-Corruption Agenda: Challenges, Possibilities and Opportunities 41