The human rights-based approach to combating corruption: An improper rights overreach?

States perceived to be highly corrupt are at the same time those with a poor human rights record. There seems to be a negative feedback loop between both harms, as recent corruption scandals confirm. But are human rights the proper normative framework to denounce and combat corruption?

The talk examines the legal quality of the assumed ‘link’ between corruption and human rights violations. Whether and under what conditions can corrupt acts or omissions technically be qualified as an actual violation of international human rights? And should corruption be conceptualised as a human rights violation? The presentation is based on previous work published by the speaker which can be accessed here and here.

An audio recording of this event is available to listen to on Soundcloud

Professor Anne Peters is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law Heidelberg (Germany), and a professor at the universities of Heidelberg, Freie Universität Berlin, Basel (Switzerland), and a William W. Cook Global Law professor at the University of Michigan. She was a member (substitute) of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) in respect of Germany (2011-2015) and a legal expert for the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (2009). She was the President of the European Society of International Law (2010-2012) and is currently the Vice-President of the board of the Basel Institute of Governance (BIG) and Chairwoman of the German Society of International Law (DGIR).

Books (authored and co-edited) include: Self-Defence against Non-State Actors – Max Planck Trialogues on the Law of Peace and War Vol. 1 (Mary-Ellen O’Connell/Christian Tams/Dire Tladi, CUP 2019) (Series editor, together with Christian Marxsen); The Legal Framework of the OSCE (2019); Global Constitutionalism from European and East Asian Perspectives (2018); Beyond Human Rights (CUP 2016); The Freedom of Peaceful Assembly in Europe (2016); Völkerrecht (4th ed. 2016); Immunities in the Age of Global Constitutionalism (2015); Transparency in International Law (CUP 2013); Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law (OUP 2012, ASIL certificate of merit); Conflict of Interest in Global, Public and Corporate Governance (CUP 2012); Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention (2nd ed. 2012); Elemente einer Theorie der Verfassung Europas (2001); The Constitutionalization of International Law (OUP 2011); Non-state Actors as Standard Setters (CUP 2009); Women, Quotas and Constitutions (Kluwer 1999); Das Gebietsreferendum im Völkerrecht (1995)