Anti-Corruption with a human rights lens: Latin American experiences of innovation amid contestation
Currently, most anti-corruption efforts neglect the redress of corruption’s victims. While there is a growing awareness that corruption enables human rights violations, there is a discord between anti-corruption discourse and practice. Several challenges limit the integration of human rights-based approaches in anti-corruption efforts. This chapter responds to the question: What innovative approaches can address these challenges, and how can they be put into practice? The author draws on case studies from the Latin American region, where corruption and human rights violations have been addressed simultaneously.
Anti-corruption and human rights discourses have been converging. Two resolutions by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 acknowledge that corruption deteriorates the quality and availability of public services, and weakens institutions and the rule of law, undermining trust and threatening international peace and security.
Yet, in a discordant world, global consensus on this matter ideologically has not materialised in practice, and this tension defines the space of contestation. Some challenges are: how to properly identify victims of corruption, how to measure and quantify corruption’s impact on human rights, and how to conduct strategic litigation in states that are unwilling or unable to redress victims of corruption in penal processes.
This chapter provides examples from Colombia, Honduras, Mexico and Venezuela, where both state and non-state actors have addressed the aforementioned challenges. In Colombia, the government has developed an indicator to measure the impact of corruption on human rights. In Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela, civil society organisations (CSOs) have sought to assert their victim status in corruption cases that have affected them – either directly or indirectly. Their various strategies have been shaped by their countries’ regulatory environments and windows of opportunity. All of these initiatives illustrate how locally grounded efforts have emerged to align the human rights and anti-corruption agendas in response to the increasing dissent against anti-corruption approaches that overlook the impact of corruption on people.
Appears in:
Anti-Corruption in a Discordant World: Contestation, Abuse, and Innovation
Jackson, David, Inge Amundsen, David Aled Williams (Eds.)
Also in this volume:
- Anti-Corruption in a Discordant World: Reflections and Conclusions
Jackson, David, David Aled Williams, Inge Amundsen - Anti-Corruption in a Discordant World: Contestation, Abuse, and Innovation (Introduction)
Jackson, David, David Aled Williams, Inge Amundsen