Washington, 3 March 2025. In this regional hearing, “State human rights obligations in corruption contexts,” concrete cases of corruption in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil were highlighted.
“Despite extensive national legislative frameworks and international and regional commitments to fight corruption, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2024 shows a lack of progress and significant setbacks in several countries. The lack of effective anti-corruption measures by states undermines democracy, fosters human rights violations and constitutes a breach of the state’s obligation to prevent human rights violations,” said Luciana Torchiaro of Transparency International.
“Giving visibility to the link between acts of corruption and human rights violations allows us to put a human face to it and to define who these victims are. This requires breaking down the silos between the world of human rights and the world of the anti-corruption fight as well as documenting, denouncing, describing the facts, the causal links and the repercussions,” said Jimena Reyes, FIDH’s director for the Americas.
Judicial corruption: A threat to democracy
Impunity for corruption affects access to justice in many ways. As noted by Lissette González of PROVEA, in Venezuela, “various forms of judicial corruption have been recorded. In this sense, in 2024, the media reported multiple reports of extortion by officials towards victims of the post-election repression, demanding payments for release or improved imprisonment conditions. This violates the right to liberty and personal integrity.”
Guatemala, too, has witnessed deterioration of its democratic institutions, including access to justice, due to corruption. Héctor Reyes of CALDH shed light on the mechanisms of persecution that perpetuate impunity: “Since the closure of the CICIG in 2019, the Attorney General’s Office has pursued a campaign to block investigations into corruption cases, all while persecuting journalists, human rights defenders, and judges and prosecutors committed to justice. Many of these courageous individuals are behind bars or have been forced into exile. The recent appointment of the magistrates of the Chambers and Court of Appeals for the period 2024-2029, according to a social audit, reveals influence peddling and fraudulent deals to favour like-minded magistrates. This dramatically undermines judicial independence and due process, exacerbating the crisis of justice in Guatemala.”
A web of kickbacks: Corporate corruption of the state
The hearing also underscored that companies often fail to fulfil their legal obligations or improperly obtain public contracts or concessions through bribes to officials, exemplified by the case of the construction company Odebrecht, which has had a profound impact in several countries. The Odebrecht scandal was the largest corruption and money laundering case ever prosecuted in Brazil, and had repercussions in at least a dozen countries.
Guilherme France of Transparência Internacional Brasil described how the company violated human rights in Brazil and affected other countries in the region: “Odebrecht violated the political rights of millions of Brazilians by illegally financing political parties and electoral campaigns. Its infrastructure projects in the Amazon were not only more costly than expected, but also caused immense social and environmental damage to local communities. Cases and investigations throughout Latin America have stalled because Brazilian authorities refuse to cooperate and ignore their obligations to international legal cooperation. While Brazil first exported corruption, it now exports impunity.”
The Dominican Republic is one of the countries to which corruption – and impunity – was exported via this Brazilian conglomerate. Bribes from Odebrecht – to the tune of 39 million dollars – to the Dominican government led to the unlawful approval of the Punta Catalina Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTPC), which has generated serious environmental and human rights impacts, including illnesses related to the inhalation of toxic particles and the deaths of more than 6,000 people. Euren Cuevas Medina, from INSAPROMA, explained that, by means of a report prepared jointly with FIDH, “it was possible to demonstrate how the pollution generated by the CTPC violates fundamental rights such as the right to health, a healthy environment and a dignified life for the population of Peravia. This is in flagrant violation of the constitutional and legal mandate of decarbonisation, in violation of human and environmental rights. Even today, the crime of corruption in Punta Catalina has not been brought to justice, which amounts to corporate impunity.”
In Colombia, the Ruta del Sol II case illustrates the impact of Odebrecht and exemplifies the challenges of achieving reparations. A consortium linked to corruption by Odebrecht and its partners was in charge of a major road construction project. Despite the violation of several collective rights of communities, the Council of State overturned the payment of damages – approximately $193 million obtained in the first instance – leaving multiple communities without reparation. Andrés Hernández of Transparencia por Colombia highlighted the importance of the obligation of states to repair the damage caused by corruption: “Corruption ... severely affects historically marginalised and vulnerable groups. When corruption occurs, victims have the right to be recognised, to participate in judicial proceedings, and to receive full reparation for the harm caused in order to guarantee and restore their rights. ... It is not enough to punish those responsible, it is also necessary for States to adopt measures to restore the rights of the victims and ensure that such acts are not repeated.”
Samari Gómez of Acción Ciudadana explained how corruption in the context of the Covid-19 health crisis impacted the right to health in Guatemala. The government signed a contract with the company Human Vaccine in 2021; opaque negotiations, damaging contracts and mismanagement of resources earmarked for health had fatal consequences. “During the pandemic, corruption in the procurement of vaccines not only diverted vital resources, but also put at risk the lives of thousands of people who could have received the doses needed to save their lives if the government had acted transparently and efficiently. The lack of sanctions against the perpetrators and the irresponsible handling of public resources demonstrates a serious violation of fundamental human rights, such as the rights to health, to life and to justice.”
In a similar perspective, Magalis Leison, of CNDH-RD in the Dominican Republic, denounced that “The sale of the land in Los Tres Brazos at a ludicrously low price is a case of extremely serious corruption that violates the right to housing. Although more than one hundred residents of Los Tres Brazos have participated in the judicial proceedings for corruption, this case remains pending, perpetuating impunity despite victims’ nearly decade-long struggle.” This case involves an illegal sale by the public entity in charge of the administration of Dominican state property to a private company; residents of the Los Tres Brazos neighbourhood were forced to buy their own homes at exorbitant prices or be evicted from the land.
Furthermore, the hearing drew attention to how corruption has affected the right to live in a healthy environment. For example, Rosa María Mateus of CAJAR, in Colombia, described how corruption is part of wider strategies of corporate capture, listing numerous tactics of interference by extractive industries, including lobbying of congress, co-opting the media, paying experts with conflicts of interest, revolving doors, and economic fear mongering. She explained that legal “loopholes are taken advantage of to obtain exploration and exploitation licenses and dumping permits that can jeopardise other human and environmental rights of communities,” and warned about practices of “co-opting community leaders in vulnerable areas.”
The civil society organisations strongly urged the IACHR to continue to increase the visibility of the negative impact of corruption. In particular, they suggested that the Commission “incorporate in its institutional planning a specific unit on corruption and human rights, as well as designate one of its officials as a focal point and specialist on the issue,” as stressed by Ramiro Orias of the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF), thus contributing to the crucial recognition of victims of corruption as victims of human rights violations.
The organisations participating in the hearing: the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Transparency International, Transparência Internacional Brasil, CAJAR - Colectivo de Abogadas y Abogados José Alvear Restrepo (Colombia), Transparencia por Colombia, CALDH - Centro para la Acción Legal en Derechos Humanos (Guatemala), Acción Ciudadana (Guatemala), INSAPROMA - Instituto de Abogados para la Protección del Medio Ambiente (Dominican Republic), CNDH-RD - Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (Dominican Republic), PROVEA - Programa Venezolano de Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos (Venezuela) and the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF).