
Nick Shaxson ■ On the human rights of bad guys

There’s been a lot of talk recently in the human rights field about tax justice issues – and rightly so. Now a new academic book to add to the collection, considering things from a different angle. It’s called The human rights of bad guys: corruption, asset recovery, and the protection of property in public international law, and the blurb goes:
“In recovering assets that are or that represent the proceeds, objects, or instrumentalities of grand corruption, do states violate the human rights of politically exposed persons, their relatives, or their associates? Radha Ivory asks whether cooperative efforts to confiscate illicit wealth are compatible with rights to property in public international law. She explores the tensions between the goals of controlling high-level, high-value corruption and ensuring equal enjoyment of civil and political rights. Through the jurisprudence of regional human rights tribunals and the literature on confiscation and international cooperation, Ivory shows how asset recovery is a human rights issue and how principles of legality and proportionality have mediated competing interests in analogous matters. In cases of asset recovery, she predicts that property rights will likewise enable questions of individual entitlement to be considered in the context of collective concerns with good governance, global economic inequality, and the suppression of transnational crime.”
Today’s blogger hasn’t read this book, and from the blurb it is not clear how sympathetic to TJN’s positions (essentially, to start from a position of seeking to support the interests of those oppressed by said bad guys) it will be. But it all adds to the debate, which is welcome.
For a shorter document looking at the “human rights of bad guys,” and a few other related issues, take a look at this.
For our web page on human rights and tax justice, click here.
Related articles

Amazon’s tax challenge: the Tax Justice Network podcast, the Taxcast
Taxation, illicit financial flows and human rights – Submission to UN Expert
29 June 2022

June 2022 Spanish language tax justice podcast, Justicia ImPositiva: Los grandes ganadores

Tax Justice Network Arabic podcast #54: كارتيل البنوك في تونس: أثرياء الحرب في زمن البؤس

The Tax Justice Network’s French podcast: Lancement en Afrique de l’Indice d’Opacité Financière 2022: L’urgence d’un système fiscal international sous l’égide des Nations Unies #40

Tax Justice Network Portuguese podcast: EUA: maiores facilitadores de corrupção global #37

The Financial Secrecy Index 2022 in the Tax Justice Network podcast, the Taxcast

May 2022 Spanish language podcast, Justicia ImPositiva: Estados Unidos: destino preferido de la corrupción

The Tax Justice Network’s French podcast: Financement de l’Education: Quel justice fiscale pour l’Afrique?
