Norm entrepreneurship and legal frameworks against corruption: human rights perspectives in international law

The study of corruption as a violation of human rights has been growing since the adoption of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption in 2003, as exemplified by the adoption of the United Nations General Assembly political declaration regarding commitment to effectively prevent and combat corruption in 2021. Corruption has devastating impacts on human rights, but it has not yet been legally established as a violation of human rights. The current scholarship on corruption as a violation of human rights is heavily dominated by legal research; therefore, the state-of-the-art of this article is the combination of international relations and legal theory. This article analyses the work of the norm entrepreneur in transforming corruption as a violation of human rights from an emerging norm into a legal norm. The concept of international norm dynamics is utilized to assess the stage of norm development. Interactional legal theory is used as a guide to suggest that the norm entrepreneur focuses on the subsequent norm entrepreneurship based on the standard of legality. This article argues that the transformation of an emerging norm into a legal norm is possible; however, its feasibility depends on the continuous work of the norm entrepreneur to fulfil the standard of legality.