The Impact of Corruption on the Realisation of Economic and Social Rights

Description

This was a presentation of a chapter of my forthcoming book titled 'International Cooperation, Global Poverty and the Law'. The abstract is as follows:

This book chapter examines the impact of corruption on the realisation of Economic and Social Rights (ESR) and States’ international obligation in arresting the scourge. The United Nations has noted that corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies, leads to violations of human rights and erodes the quality of life. Annually, the global economy losses US$3.6 trillion to corruption and illicit financial flows, thereby diverting resources away from ESR realisation. Scholars have described corruption as ‘a social pathology’ which has the same effect on the development of a nation just as cancer has on the life of a biological organism. This chapter thus assesses the impact of corruption on realising ESR of people, especially those in developing countries. Although corruption exists in all countries, some countries suffer more from the effect of corruption than others. This chapter argues that international cooperation can be activated as a useful tool in the fight against corruption in countries with weak institutions. While nations can use bilateral and multilateral treaties to help one another to address the ESR challenges fuelled by corruption, the chapter argues that the mere ‘paperisation’ of anti-corruption initiatives would not lead to the desired result. The chapter draws on relevant international, regional and national instruments such as the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC) to buttress its argument that, aside treaties and policies, there is a need for nations to muster the needed political will to fight corruption internationally, thereby enhancing the prospects of realising ESR globally. Hence, this chapter advocates a combination of legal frameworks, political will and cultural or social re-orientation as a more effective way around the issue of corruption. The chapter proceeds in seven sections. Section one introduces the chapter while chapter two conceptualises the word ‘corruption’. In section three, the chapter discusses the relationship between corruption and (non-)realisation of ESR. Section four engages with existing international, regional and some national legal frameworks on the fight against corruption while section five analyses challenges associated with the anti-corruption drive. Section six offers some recommendations through the lens of international cooperation approach, and section seven concludes the chapter.

Period	13 Jun 2025
Held at	Economic and Social Rights Academic Network United Kingdom and Ireland
Degree of Recognition	Regional