Module 3. Influence of corruption on human rights and how to combat it
What is the relationship between corruption and human rights?
Corruption is a phenomenon with wide-ranging consequences, notably the facilitation and institutionalization of human rights violations. Corruption’s pervasive and malign nature enormously impacts the daily lives of billions of people. The World Economic Forum estimates that the cost of corruption is $2.6 trillion, and companies and individuals pay more than $1 trillion a year in bribes, according to the World Bank. Corruption also facilitates money laundering and illicit financial flows on a global scale.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, recently stated that corruption: “deprives people of their rights and drives away foreign investment and despoils the environment; breeds desillusion with government and governance—often at the root of political dysfunction and social disunity; and, drives and thrives on the breakdown of political and social institutions”.[1]
It is today generally known that corruption “facilitates, perpetuates and institutionalizes” violations of human rights, and that more instances of violence and torture are found where there are higher levels of corruption. According to the Human Rights Council, it is “difficult to find a human right that could not be violated by corruption,” since it disproportionately aggravates and compounds existing societal and global disadvantages and inequalities.[2]
Corruption and human rights have however long been addressed in both academia and policy circles as two separate domains of knowledge and practice, which can explain an implementation gap between human rights and anti-corruption efforts. Yet, corruption and rights violations can flourish in similar contexts, and corruption can lead to human rights violations, and vice versa.
[1] Secretary-General’s remarks to the Security Council on Corruption in Conflict,” September 10, 2018, https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2018-09-10/secretary-generals-remarks-security-council-corruption-conflict.
