Human rights mechanisms for anti-corruption, transparency and accountability: enabling the right to health

Abstract

Background: The presence of corruption in State institutions and broader society presents a significant obstacle to the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. The Universal Periodic Review, a Member State-led peer review system administered by the Human Rights Council, is a core tool of human rights, including the right to health accountability. This paper builds on existing research to examine processes that support State engagement on the issue of corruption. We identify opportunities for States to use the Universal Periodic Review to support anti-corruption, transparency and accountability to control corruption in the health-care sector.Objectives: This paper focuses on health sector how human rights mechanisms, and particularly the Universal Periodic Review, can be a tool for greater accountability for the right to health for corruption in the health sector.Methods: The research team applied qualitative content analysis methods to analyze all 135 Universal Periodic Review documents produced during 2018 in order to analyze how human rights mechanisms address the impact of corruption on the realization of the right to health.Results: Although health rights violations are often addressed within human rights mechanisms such as the UPR, corruption remains under-addressed, suggesting that there are gaps in understanding how corruption can seriously undermine the right to health.Conclusion: Human rights mechanisms should drive greater attention to the importance of addressing corruption in health. In order to make the UPR more effective, this paper suggests that there is a need to generate more awareness of corruption-based violations of the right to health in order to promote greater health accountabilityPractical tools such as strategic litigation and social audits can also contribute to creating greater transparency and accountability in dealing with corruption.

Keywords: Corruption; accountability; health sector; human rights; human rights mechanisms.

Figure 1.

Distribution of corruption and health-related topics in the recommendations from the 29th session of the third cycle of UPR (January 2018).

Figure 2.

Types of health-related recommendations in the 29th session of the third cycle of the UPR (January 2018) [recommendations could be classified in more than one type].

Figure 3.

Distribution of specific health-related issues in the recommendations in the 29th session of the third cycle of the UPR. LGBTI: Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Intersex persons; STIs: Sexually Transmitted Infections; TB: Tuberculosis.