The publication, Advancing Human Rights and Anti-Corruption: Innovative Practices from Latin America, notes that anti-corruption efforts have traditionally focused on the misappropriation of resources and threats to state stability. At the same time, insufficient attention is often paid to how corruption creates structural inequality and discrimination, and exacerbates human rights violations affecting specific groups.

At the same time, according to U4, anti-corruption efforts are most effective when they address not only individual corruption offences, but also the conditions that enable human rights violations. In practice, however, such integration faces a number of challenges: corruption’s impact on rights is difficult to measure; the causal link between a corrupt act and a human rights violation is difficult to establish legally; victims are not always clearly identifiable; and strategic litigation is often constrained in states that are unwilling or unable to provide effective redress.

The publication examines four examples from Latin American countries that demonstrate different ways of bridging anti-corruption and human rights agendas. In Colombia, the Transparency Secretariat developed the RADAR indicator, which draws on various data and makes it possible to measure corruption’s impact on economic, social, and cultural rights; it was first piloted in relation to the right to education. In Honduras, the publication analyses the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam case, in which the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations in Honduras (COPINH) secured recognition as a victim in a corruption case on behalf of the Lenca Peoples. The Mexican example concerns TOJIL’s attempt to substantiate collective harm caused by collusion between former Veracruz governor Javier Duarte and representatives of the prosecutor’s office in negotiating a lower sentence in a case involving the embezzlement of public funds. The Venezuelan case focuses on how civil society is seeking to link systemic corruption in the health sector to violations of the right to health of breast cancer patients through the Inter-American human rights system.

Based on its analysis, U4 recommends that states recognise freedom from corruption as a human right and ensure that victims can participate in corruption cases. Development partners are encouraged to support legal reforms, research on measuring the harm caused by corruption, capacity-building programmes for civil society organisations engaged in strategic litigation, and platforms for knowledge sharing. For civil society organisations, key conditions for effective work include partnerships with national and international experts, the use of public human rights campaigns, a strong understanding of the judicial system, and protection strategies for victims and staff, especially against reprisals.