Sunday, November 10, 2019
Government Corruption is a Human Rights Issue
Yes, here in the US, we've got constitutional prohibitions on emoluments and federal laws on bribery. But in recent statements, Walter Shaub, former director of the US Office of Government Ethics and this year's recipient of the Paul Douglas Award for Ethics in Government, has started drawing on the language of human rights to make his points about the wrong directions he sees the federal government taking.
As Shaub stated earlier this week at the Douglas award ceremony in Illinois, corruption is a "human rights issue." In short, "government officials who help themselves are stealing from the most vulnerable members of our society” -- a fact that we can all see for ourselves as the taxpayer-funded costs for the current President's self-dealing trips and perks pile up.
The wisdom of a human rights approach bears up under academic scrutiny. A recent issue of the European Journal of Human Rights includes a critical essay by Anne Peters. While she decries vague charges that corruption violates human rights, she ultimately concludes that "[t]he framing of corruption not only as a human rights issue but even as a potential human rights violation can contribute to closing the implementation gap of the international anti-corruption instruments and can usefully complement the predominant criminal law-based approach."
For our prior commentary on human rights and corruption in the US in the context of the President's tax returns, see our blog here.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/human_rights/2019/11/government-corruption-is-a-human-rights-issue.html