Humanizing (Anti)Corruption: The Socio-Legal Values of a Human Rights-Based Approach to Corruption

Authors

  • Bruna de Castro e Silva University of Gothenburg, Sweden

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18523/kmlpj189985.2019-5.59-81

Keywords:

human rights-based approach, corruption, economic and social rights, justiciability, socio-legal values, social harm, inequality, legal empowerment

Abstract

This article intends to contribute to the current academic and policy debate on the values of determining whether a particular human rights violation was caused by a corrupt behavior; and to defend a human rights-based approach to corruption, based on its added socio-legal values. With this purpose, it analyzes and compares the legal reasoning and socio-legal dynamics of three human rights court cases involving and not involving corruption. By applying a directed content analysis combined with a socio-legal interpretative technique, the study explores and compares the rationality and the values addressed in both corrupt and non-corrupt cases. The results reveal that there are interconnected and mutually reinforcing socio-legal values in applying a human rights lens to combating corruption: (i) it is an improvement towards the justiciability of economic and social rights; (ii) it is a change of paradigm from the insufficient criminal approach to a focus on the social harm; and (iii) it is a more satisfactory approach to the overlapping harmful effects of corruption and inequality. The combination of these values can be used as a legal empowerment strategy, with a particular social accountability dimension, in order to strengthen the disadvantaged, and fight the encroachment caused by corruption on the enjoyment of human rights, especially economic and social rights.

Author Biography

Bruna de Castro e Silva, University of Gothenburg

Bruna de Castro e Silva holds a JD from the University of Sao Paulo, is an M.A. candidate in Human Rights Policy and Practice, at the University of Gothenburg, and a Lawyer. Expertise, interests and research subjects include, but are not limited to, human rights, anti-corruption, good governance, and development. She has interned at The Program on Governance and Local Development, Political Sciences Department, at the University of Gothenburg; and at the Organization of American States (OAS), Washington, D.C., US. At the OAS, she worked for the Mechanism for the Follow-Up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC), assisting member countries in the drafting of policy reforms related to anti-corruption and transparency.

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Published

2019-12-27

How to Cite

de Castro e Silva, B. (2019). Humanizing (Anti)Corruption: The Socio-Legal Values of a Human Rights-Based Approach to Corruption. Kyiv-Mohyla Law and Politics Journal, (5), 59–81. https://doi.org/10.18523/kmlpj189985.2019-5.59-81

Issue

No. 5 (2019): Kyiv-Mohyla Law & Politics Journal: Legal and Political Challenges of Anticorruption Activities

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2019 Bruna de Castro e Silva

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