Corruption: a Human Rights Impact Assessment
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POLICY BRIEF CORRUPTION: A HUMAN RIGHTS IMPACT ASSESSMENT Angela Barkhouse, Hugo Hoyland and Marc Limon May 2018 PREFACE This report was authored by Angela Barkhouse and Marc Limon, with assistance from Hugo Hoyland of Kroll, as part one of a wider project being undertaken jointly by Marc Limon of the Universal Rights Group and Angela Barkhouse on 'Combatting and preventing corruption: the key to unlocking the full enjoyment of human rights and the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals.' The project has been funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, URG and Kroll, with additional support from the Government of Argentina. Any communication, publication, disclosure, dissemination, or reproduction of this report or any portion of its contents to third parties without the advance written consent of the authors is not permitted. Neither the authors, nor the project funders, assume any direct, indirect, or consequential liability to any third party or any other person who is not the intended addressee of this report, for the information contained herein, its interpretation or application, or for omissions, or for reliance by any such third party or other person thereon. To the extent information provided in this report is based on a review of publicly-available records, such information, as presented, relies upon the accuracy and completeness of those records, which have not been corroborated by the authors. Unless specifically stated, the mention of any entity or individual in this document or any attachments thereto, does not imply the violation of any law, statute or international agreement, and should not be construed as such. Authors Other contributors Angela Barkhouse Olivia Bebe, formerly with the Universal Rights Group Hugo Hoyland, Kroll Mariana Montoya, Universal Rights Group Marc Limon, Universal Rights Group With the support of: © Universal Rights Group and Kroll, 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction p. 2 Part I: Corruption and human rights p. 4 1.1 The theory of social harm p. 5 1.2 Violations of human rights p. 5 1.3 SERAP vs. Nigeria p. 6 Part II: Measuring the human impact of corruption p. 8 Part III: The social impacts of corruption p. 9 Part IV: The human rights impacts of corruption p. 19 4.1 Right to life p. 19 4.2 Right to health p. 21 4.3 Right to education p. 22 4.4 Rights of women p. 23 4.5 Freedom of expression, freedom of information p. 26 4.6 Political and justice rights p. 27 4.7 Right to development p. 29 Appendices p. 32 _ 1 INTRODUCTION The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development1 and exploitation of entire systems for the benefits incorporates 17 Sustainable Development Goals of private interests.'4 This is also known as 'political (SDGs), focused on social, economic, political, corruption.' It is directly related to an individual's cultural, and environmental development through official duties, and is done under the 'colour of good governance, the rule of law, access to justice, office:' i.e. it is conducted under the appearance of personal security, and the fight against inequality. authority, but involves actions that manifestly exceed such authority. It involves those, who through their The realisation of human rights, including, inter alia, abuse of positions of power or influence use State the right to health, the right to an adequate standard institutions or policies to purloin, embezzle or enrich of living, the right to education, non-discrimination, themselves or their allies, or sustain political power, gender equality, and the right to development, is at the expense of the State's wealth and its citizens' an explicit objective of the SDGs, derived from the welfare. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the core UN human rights treaties. The realisation and Yet despite the seriousness of the crime of corruption, implementation of the SDGs are in turn dependent and despite the gravity of its consequences for upon good governance, transparency, participation, universal human rights, and while States (including and accountability - the cornerstones of anti- in the United Nations Human Rights Council) are corruption policy. quick to condemn it; there is a significant disconnect between such protestations and actual action to The State holds the primary responsibility to promote confront corruption and to hold perpetrators to and protect the human rights of citizens and other account. There have been notably few successful individuals within its jurisdiction, yet when corruption prosecutions around the world, under either criminal is prevalent, those in public positions often fail to or civil law, and - equally importantly - there are very take decisions with the interests of society in mind, few cases where victims have been able to secure causing violations of the State's obligations under remedy and redress. the core UN human rights treaties, especially the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights There are a number of possible reasons for this. (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, One is that corruption is, in a sense, an 'invisible Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Where crime,' compared to, for example, terrorism. corruption is systemic, it directly affects the poorest Another is the high cost of, and difficulties sections of the population, as a result of the diversion involved in, fighting corruption (domestically and and siphoning off of public expenditure budgets. In internationally) compared to, say, drug smuggling other words, corruption works in direct tension to, or human trafficking. Yet corruption is the common and contradiction with, the call made throughout the denominator in all these - and other - transnational 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that'no- crimes, and its impacts are more 'visible' and one [should be] left behind.'2 immediate than is commonly perceived. At the very least, corruption compromises a The victims of corruption are not as remote from government's ability to deliver an array of public the wrongdoing as is often assumed. For example, services, including health, education and welfare – where the diversion of public funds for the purchase all essential for the realisation of economic, social of child immunisation kits for preventable diseases and cultural rights. In the worst cases, corruption ends up in private pockets, children may die as a compromises the rights to dignity, security of person, result; where money earmarked to build schools or and even the right to life. pay teachers' salaries is instead paid into the private bank accounts of public officials, children will not The generally accepted definition of corruption be able to enjoy their right to education; and where (derived from the work of international organisations, kleptocrats tightly control the media, the police and international treaties and domestic legislation) the judiciary, individuals will be deprived of their is: the abuse of public office for private gain.3 rights to freedom of speech, liberty and family. Specifically, grand corruption 'involves the distortion _ 2 Moreover, a cursory review of every single situation this was not available, and therefore 2013 data was of serious human rights violations on the UN Human used instead. Moreover, some (mostly smaller) Rights Council's agenda today, demonstrates that States were excluded from the analysis - by default each and every one of those situations is the result, - because they are not covered by Transparency in large part, of corruption and related efforts International's corruption perception index (CPI). of governing elites to safeguard their privileged positions - so that they can continue to be the When reviewing the results of the Barkhouse-Kroll- principal beneficiaries of accumulated power and URG analysis, it is also important to recall that wealth. while we have used a single overarching index for corruption (Transparency International's CPI), in It is with this type of corruption (political corruption reality not all corrupt acts have an equal impact on - rather than petty corruption) and its severe and human rights. Petty bribes cause social inequality, immediate impact on human rights - that this policy exacerbate poverty and undermine public health.7 brief is specifically concerned. High-level nepotism and patronage, on the other hand, cause market inefficiencies and distort The main objective of the brief is to demonstrate, whole economies.8 Furthermore, it is important empirically and objectively, the immediate and to recognise that Transparency International's serious impacts of corruption on internationally CPI index in based purely on public perceptions of protected human rights. The hope of the authors is corruption. It is not a detailed measure of actual that this will help build a case for a serious push by levels of corruption and nor does it provide 'in-depth the international community to combat and eliminate information about where corruption occurs or what corruption, as an essential prerequisite to the full types of corruption are predominant in a country.'9 enjoyment of all human rights and the realisation of Notwithstanding, as of the time of writing, the CPI the SDGs 'leaving no one behind.' is recognised as the best available proxy for actual measurements of corruption10 - as noted by the In order to demonstrate and measure that impact, Global Institute for Peace and Economics, there is a the brief presents the conclusions of a one-year strong correlation between the CPI and World Bank data analysis project, using Kroll's proprietary data Control of Corruption Index (r=0.998).11 analysis software, that compares and correlates levels of corruption in 1755 different UN member States (as measured by Transparency International's corruption perception index - CPI) with levels of the enjoyment of basic human rights - especially economic, social and cultural rights, and the right to development - in those same countries (as measured by applying and analysing multiple human rights impact indicators, as defined by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights - OHCHR).