Vance Center Hosts Roundtable on Human Rights and the Role of Victims in Anti-Corruption Efforts

L-R: Vance Center Associate Executive Director Jaime Chávez Alor; María Alejandra Márquez, founder of Venezuela Asset Recovery Initiative; Sebastián Inchaústegui, JD Candidate at Columbia Law School; and Vance Center Institutional Integrity Program Advisor Cuitláhuac Castillo after the roundtable discussion, November 10, 2025. Photo credit: Vance Center

On November 10, the Vance Center convened a roundtable, “Legal Innovation in Anti-Corruption: Human Rights Intersections and the Role of Victims,” bringing together leading legal practitioners, academics, and civil society advocates from Latin America and the United States at the New York City Bar Association. The interactive event examined emerging legal frameworks that view corruption as a human rights issue and explored practical mechanisms for ensuring that victims and NGOs can play a meaningful role in seeking justice. 

This roundtable was part of the Stronger Together initiative, a joint effort that aims to promote more widespread recognition of the impact of corruption on its victims and expand the role of civil society in advancing integrity, accountability, and justice. The campaign is coordinated by an international consortium of organizations: TOJIL, Due Process of Law Foundation, the Global Civil Society Coalition for the UNCAC (formerly UNCAC Coalition), Proética, Lawyers Without Borders, the Comité de Participación Ciudadana, and the Vance Center. 

Case Studies and Regional Perspectives 

Panelists discussed landmark cases that showcased ways for civil society to participate in corruption proceedings. Estefanía Medina, co-founder of the Mexican anti-corruption NGO TOJIL, presented the challenges faced by victims and NGOs under Mexico’s adversarial criminal system, where society itself is often the aggrieved party in major corruption cases.

Vance Center Institutional Integrity Program Advisor Cuitláhuac Castillo highlighted the Qali Warma case in Peru, in which the Vance Center submitted an amicus curiae brief. In a recent decision, Peru’s Supreme Court recognized that a civil society organization had standing as a victim in one of several cases related to alleged government corruption, setting an important precedent for similar efforts in the region.  

Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Distinguished Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of California, Hastings Law, offered a U.S. perspective, examining how the Crime Victims’ Rights Act has been applied to complex corporate corruption cases and discussed the implications of prosecutorial discretion for victims’ participation in these cases. 

Intersections of Human Rights and Anti-Corruption

Speakers and participants emphasized that corruption often constitutes a human rights violation, as it can undermine access to health, education, justice, and political participation. They discussed efforts to integrate human rights standards into anti-corruption compliance systems and international legal instruments such as the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption.  

The group also analyzed the role of the Global Magnitsky Act, a U.S. law that sanctions both corruption and human rights abuses, as an emerging enforcement model. 

Legal Innovation and Civil Society Mechanisms 

Participants highlighted creative procedural tools that could be utilized to push for accountability when traditional mechanisms fail. These included civil suits as alternatives to criminal proceedings, qui tam actions, asset recovery and forfeiture mechanisms, and amicus curiae briefs to expand NGO participation. Speakers offered comparative examples from France and several countries in Latin America to illustrate how third-party litigation models can ensure oversight in contexts where public prosecutors have been compromised. 

Panelists from the private sector and law firms including Cleary Gottlieb, A&O Shearman, and Dentons, discussed ways to integrate human rights impact assessments into anti-corruption compliance programs and to develop partnerships with NGOs to combine legal expertise with local knowledge of corruption risks. The conversation underscored that businesses must understand corruption as a human rights liability, instead of just a compliance risk. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

Participants identified several systemic barriers to moving toward a victim-centered approach to corruption cases. These include inconsistent definitions of “victim” across jurisdictions, prosecutorial resistance to NGOs participating in such cases, and the difficulty of proving direct harm in diffuse corruption cases. They stressed that overcoming these challenges will require coordinated advocacy, creative legal reasoning, and consistent cross-sector collaboration. 

The event reaffirmed the Vance Center’s commitment to fostering global dialogue and building coalitions that advance integrity, accountability, and access to justice through human rights–based approaches to fighting corruption. Through the Stronger Together campaign, the roundtable contributes to a broader global effort to promote collective standing for victims, enable civil society participation in corruption cases, and ensure that stolen assets are returned and benefit affected communities. 

Read more about the Vance Center’s regional anti-corruption work and see our most recent Latin America Anti-Corruption Assessment