Economic Wrongs and Social Rights: Analyzing the Impact of Systemic Corruption on Realization of Economic and Social Rights in Kenya and the Potential Redress Offered by the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social Rights and Cultural Rights

This paper analyzes how the existence of corruption and an ineffective anti-corruption
ramework can be conceptualized as a violation of ESRs generally, and of specific ESRs particularly. The paper will then proceed to interrogate whether, if the failure of the government to combat corruption amounts to a breach of state obligations under the ICESCR, and whether there is any avenue for redress to victims at the international level. On 10 December 2008, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (hereinafter, the OP-ICESCR12 This was a watershed moment in protecting the ESRs, as the Protocol injected much-needed optimism in the debate about the equal status of ESRs and the right of claimants to access justice. The OP-ICESCR came into force in May 2013 after the required number of state ratifications was obtained. I will argue in this paper that the OP-ICESCR could be harnessed as a useful instrument to hold governments such as the Government of Kenya to account, where they fail to properly address systemic corruption in their jurisdictions, because this has ramifications for realization of ESRs.