Main points

• Courts have most often viewed the connection between corruption and human rights such that corruption provides the context for rights violations and leads to violations of a wide range of established rights, or conversely, rights violations facilitate corruption (eg violations against whistleblowers). But some courts are starting to use a stand-alone right to be free of corruption.
• Academics and anti-corruption activists disagree as to whether framing anti-corruption measures as a separate right is a good idea. Proponents argue that it is in line with other expansions of rights, provides evidentiary and constitutional advantages, and focuses attention on victims of corruption. Sceptics point to the lack of support in human rights law, complex nature of corruption and judicial limitations in crafting remedies, and dangers of overburdening an under-resourced human rights system.
• National courts are using a ‘right to be free of corruption’ for different purposes, including finding a jurisprudential hook to consider corruption-related issues or introduce international law on either human rights or anti-corruption; assimilating anti-corruption to other collective rights – like the constitutional right to a ‘healthy environment’; or highlighting state obligations like transparency and accountability to create or imply a corresponding right.
• The cases do not arise directly out of anti-corruption law (criminal, civil or administrative) but more broadly out of standing, victim participation, collective rights or public trust. Focusing only on criminal sanctions in anti-corruption law may miss opportunities for advancing an anti-corruption agenda, which a right to be free of corruption may capture. Thus, the cases focus on the relationship between international law, including the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), human rights law and domestic constitutional law.