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Abstract

This article examines the pitfalls and potentials of the recent deliberate legal-political strategy of individualising the systemic problem of corruption. Correlations between the quantity and quality of corruption on the one side and the level of enjoyment of human rights on the other side have been shown. In response to these observations, the policy agendas of anti-corruption and human rights have been converging on the international and regional levels. Nevertheless, it is not easy to conceptualise corruption as a human rights violation that triggers international state responsibility. Moreover, risks and opportunities of the convergence of the policy agendas need to be assessed. This leads to the conclusion that the human rights approach does convey an added value that outweighs its drawbacks. The question remains whether human rights are the proper normative framework to denounce and combat corruption. It is submitted that, by opening up new options for monitoring and litigation, the human rights perspective can usefully complement the criminal law approach. Therefore, the currently one-sided integration of corruption concerns into the human rights machinery should be supplemented by a full attention to human rights in all monitoring schemes in the various anti-corruption regimes. Then, the relevant policies will likely create a positive feedback loop in which anti-corruption is instrumental to improving the human rights situation while a range of human rights will work as enablers for fighting corruption.