Natural resources, human rights, and corruption: What are the connections?

The document examines how corruption in natural resource management (NRM) undermines human rights and how reframing corruption as a human rights issue can provide more effective solutions than a purely criminal justice approach. It uses the illegal abalone trade in South Africa and the role of rangers as case studies to illustrate how structural injustices and power asymmetries drive corruption and environmental crime. The brief advocates for integrating human rights mechanisms into anti-corruption strategies to address the root causes of illegality and protect vulnerable communities and environmental defenders.

• Corruption in the natural resource management sector is often embedded in the systems themselves, driven by weak institutions and a lack of transparency, and it negatively impacts the right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.
• A purely criminal justice approach to environmental crime is insufficient because it often ignores the structural drivers—such as poverty, social injustice, and historical discrimination—that enable corruption and push marginalized people toward illegal activities.
• In South Africa, the illegal abalone trade illustrates how apartheid-era discriminatory fisheries policies created structural injustices that criminal syndicates exploited, leading to a cycle where poverty and food insecurity drive poaching.
• Rangers are central to the nexus of corruption and human rights; they can be victims of rights violations due to poor working conditions and low pay, while some may also become perpetrators of abuses or engage in corrupt acts like stealing confiscated ivory.
• A human rights-based approach to anti-corruption focuses on the obligations of states and businesses, empowers the participation of rights-holders, and uses international monitoring bodies to hold states accountable for structural flaws.
• International human rights frameworks can address corruption beyond national borders, particularly regarding illicit financial flows and the extraterritorial obligations of states to prevent corporations under their jurisdiction from violating rights abroad.

APA

Sheill, K., & Parry-Jones, R. (2021). Natural resources, human rights, and corruption: What are the connections? WWF International. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/139/3lozs8qzlv_TopicBrief_Natural_resources_human_rights_and_corruption_What_are_t_A3KQIQT.pdf

Chicago

Sheill, Kate, and Rob Parry-Jones. Natural resources, human rights, and corruption: What are the connections? WWF International, 2021. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/139/3lozs8qzlv_TopicBrief_Natural_resources_human_rights_and_corruption_What_are_t_A3KQIQT.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Sheill |first1=Kate |last2=Parry-Jones |first2=Rob |title=Natural resources, human rights, and corruption: What are the connections? |publisher=WWF International |date=June 2021 |url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/139/3lozs8qzlv_TopicBrief_Natural_resources_human_rights_and_corruption_What_are_t_A3KQIQT.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{sheill2021natural, author = {Sheill, Kate and Parry-Jones, Rob}, title = {{Natural resources, human rights, and corruption: What are the connections?}}, institution = {WWF International}, year = {2021}, month = jun, url = {https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/139/3lozs8qzlv_TopicBrief_Natural_resources_human_rights_and_corruption_What_are_t_A3KQIQT.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }