A/HRC/40/59 36. In all of these examples, undue advantages are offered or requested in return for conduct violating obligations derived from the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment. This pattern of torture and ill-treatment involves corruption as a mere “facilitator” and, therefore, cannot be effectively addressed through anti-corruption efforts alone, but requires a broad understanding of the key factors contributing to a particular environment conducive to torture and ill-treatment such as confessions-based investigative methodologies, misconceived and discriminatory policies in areas such as counter-terrorism, law enforcement, minority protection and immigration, systemic failings in providing humane conditions of detention and a general failure of the justice system to prevent impunity, including for corruption and torture or ill-treatment. Exploiting exposure to torture or ill-treatment for “undue advantages” 4. 37. Another frequent pattern of interaction between corruption and torture or illtreatment is where State officials demand the transfer of undue advantages by deliberately exploiting a pre-existing exposure of persons to acts, threats or risks of torture or illtreatment on the part of other perpetrators. This variation of interaction between corruption and torture or ill-treatment can be particularly pervasive in armed conflicts and other situations of systemic violence marked by widespread torture and ill-treatment. The heightened risk of torture and ill-treatment prevailing in such situations, whether it is of a general or personalized nature, is deliberately exploited to extort undue advantages in exchange for offering to prevent or reduce the exposure to such risk. For example, in urban policing, violent areas or hotspots may be exploited for profit by law enforcement officials demanding bribes and other undue advantages from inhabitants and shopkeepers in return for protection from abuse at the hands of criminal gangs. Similarly, in the context of irregular migration, corrupt State agents, smugglers and other criminal elements often demand the payment of bribes and other undue advantages from migrants or their relatives in return for allowing them to apply for asylum or subsidiary protection or for refraining from extraditing, returning or otherwise deporting them to a country or territory where they would face a real risk of torture or ill-treatment (A/HRC/37/50). 38. Here too, the coercive element compelling victims or their relatives to offer the requested undue advantage is the alternative prospect of torture and ill-treatment, albeit this time at the hands of perpetrators unrelated to the corrupt official exploiting this risk, who may even be located in a different jurisdiction. In addition to broader efforts towards restoring the rule of law and remedying the surrounding risks of torture and ill-treatment, eradicating the exploitation of such risks by corrupt officials generally requires robust anticorruption measures, including accessible, independent and sufficiently staffed and funded monitoring, oversight and complaints mechanisms capable of detecting, investigating and prosecuting violations. Torture or ill-treatment as foreseeable “side effect” of corruption 5. 39. Even when not deliberately and purposefully interlinked with acts, threats or risks of torture or ill-treatment, corruption can cause or contribute to the exposure of persons to torture or ill-treatment or pose an obstacle to its prevention, investigation, or redress and rehabilitation. Corrupt practices of this kind may include, for example, high-level officials taking bribes or other undue advantages from extractive companies or other corporate actors in return for contracts involving resource exploitation or similar activity, such as mining, deforestation or construction contracts which, in the circumstances, pose a real risk of coercive practices against persons such as local residents, indigenous populations, activists and workers, including threats, harassment, violence and forced evictions, or living or working conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or even torture.13 13 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 24 (2017) on State obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the context of business activities, para. 15; European Parliament, Workshop on Corruption and Human Rights in Third Countries (2013), p. 13; United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and 11

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