A Human Right to be Free of Official Corruption
A growing number of advocates are focusing on the centrality of official corruption as a barrier to the realization of human rights. In 2009, Transparency International published a comprehensive look at the ways in which corruption threatened human rights implementation. The recent UN Congress on Crime and Criminal Justice concluded last week with a session highlighting the issue. In January 2015, Center for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance co-founder Matthew Murray and University of Richmond law professor Andrew Spalding called for recognition of a human right to be free of official corruption. As they argue, “[g]overnments and international bodies have widely adopted principles, laws and tools for countering corruption both domestically and transnationally. Still, the anti-corruption architecture is not working as planned whether to assure effective enforcement, induce voluntary changes in official behavior, or protect the victims.” Murray and Spalding assert that “[i]n order to place anti-corruption norms upon a stronger conceptual foundation, prioritize anti-corruption enforcement as a matter of policy, and focus that enforcement on improving the lives of corruption’s victims,” freedom from official corruption should be acknowledged as a “fundamental and inalienable human right.”
While this discussion often arises in the context of nation states where the rule of law has less firm footing, it is clear that a human right to be free of official corruption would have considerable relevance in the United States, where it could serve to add urgency to efforts to address local and federal corrupt practices.