There’s been a great deal of recent interest, in both the anticorruption community and the human rights community, about the connections between these topics. Back in May 2018, the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School held a conference on this topic (entitled “Corruption and Human Rights: The Linkages, the Challenges, and Paths for Progress”). I posted a link to the written summary report of the conference last summer. I’m now pleased to report that a full video of the all-day conference is available here.

It’s long (over 4 1/2 hours), so here’s a quick guide to what speakers and presentations you can find where:

• The video opens with some introductory remarks from Carr Center Acting Faculty Director Mathias Risse.
• Starting at the 8:41, Judge Mark Wolf presents some remarks, including his case for the creation of an International Anti-Corruption Court (a proposal discussed and critiqued on this blog previously here, here, and here).
• At 40:30, you can find the first panel discussion, which considered the corruption-human rights connection from different disciplinary perspectives. This panel discussion is moderated by Harvard Professor Kathryn Sikkink, and features contributions from:
  • Professor Bo Rothstein (University of Gothenburg, Political Science), starting at 43:38.
  • Zoe Reiter (Senior Project Leader, Transparency International), starting at 54:14.
  • Professor Ray Fisman (Boston University, Economics), starting at 1:05:00.
  • Pascale Dubois (Head of the Integrity Vice Presidency at the World Bank), starting at 1:16:35.
  • Luis Moreno Ocampo (former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court), starting at 1:27:01.
  • There is then a Q&A session beginning at 1:37:18, and running until 2:28:10.
• At 2:28:25, you can find the second panel, which focused on how corruption may exacerbate human rights violations. After some opening remarks from Sushma Raman, the Executive Director of the Carr Center, this panel featured two main speakers:
  • Siddarth Kara (a Carr Center Senior Fellow, and activist who focuses on issues related to slavery and human trafficking), starting at 2:31:14.
  • Corinna Gilfillan (head of the U.S. office of Global Witness), starting at 2:41:28.
  • The Q&A for this session begins at 2:51:26, and runs until 3:00:04.
• At 3:00:05, you can find the third panel, on the broad topic of what can be done to address corruption and associated violations of human rights. The panel opens with some remarks by moderator Alberto Mora (a Carr Center Senior Fellow and former General Counsel of the U.S. Navy), and then proceeds to contributions from the following panelists:
  • Sunita Salingram (former Lead Director at PwC’s International Anticorruption and Program Integrity Practice), starting at 3:05:21.
  • Professor Alex Whiting (my Harvard Law School colleague, and former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court), starting at 3:14:33. (Worth noting here that Professor Whiting developed some of the themes in these remarks into a recent post on this blog, critiquing the proposal to create an international anti-corruption court.)
  • Professor Steven Livingston (School of Media & Public Affairs, George Washington University), starting at 3:22:50.
  • Last (and possibly least?), yours truly. My remarks start at 3:31:59.
  • The Q&A begins at 3:41:25 and runs until 4:24:27.
• Finally, the closing session, which begins at sdfsd, and featured final thoughts from three of the conference participants:
  • Sushma Raman, starting at 4:24:28.
  • Professor Kathryn Sikkink, starting at 4:29:07.
  • Judge Mark Wolf, starting at 4:31:44.

I haven’t bothered in this post to try to summarize everyone’s presentation, let alone the discussion in the Q&A. Fortunately, a capsule summary can be found in the summary prepared by the Carr Center, which I noted in the first paragraph of this post. (And if you don’t want to bother scrolling all the way back up, here it is again.) There’s lots here to chew over, so I hope those interested in the corruption-human rights connection will have the time to at least dip into some of the video.