While some national human rights institutions (NHRIs) have an anti-corruption mandate (eg in India and Ghana), this paper by Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona (pdf) argues that all NHRIs can play powerful role in reducing the impact of corruption on human rights. Entry points include work on transparency and access to information; budget monitoring; local governance, and research. As experience from Kenya, Tanzania, Mexico, Honduras, and Panama illustrates – NHRIs can usefully support complaints mechanisms that capture corruption problems and produce reports examining the link between corruption and human rights violations in a particular sector. NHRIs should also advocate for protection of anti-corruption advocates and monitor anti-corruption policies to make sure they comply with human rights principles.

(The PDF above is made available by permission from the author. It was originally published in Liber amicorum : in honour of a modern renaissance man His Excellency Gudmundur Eiríksson, by Juan Carlos Sainz Borgo. 2017)