A/HRC/40/59 General relationship between corruption and torture or ill-treatment 62. Despite the general consensus that both corruption and torture or ill-treatment are inherently unlawful and fundamentally destructive for any society tolerating such abuse, both practices continue to be widespread and deeply entrenched in national and international governance systems throughout the world. From a conceptual perspective, not every act of torture and ill-treatment necessarily involves or relates to corruption, and not every act of corruption necessarily involves or relates to torture and ill-treatment. In practice, however, there is a wide range of contexts, subcontexts and situational “niches” that are marked by some degree of interaction between corruption and torture or illtreatment. 63. Both corruption and torture or ill-treatment are rarely isolated in a few “bad apples” but, figuratively speaking, almost always extend to “rotten branches”, or even “rotten orchards”, and therefore are predominantly structural and systemic phenomena. Wherever corruption and torture or ill-treatment coexist, their relationship tends to be cyclical and mutually reinforcing, making it important to understand the predominant patterns of causal interaction. Nevertheless, from a systemic perspective, corruption and torture or illtreatment are best understood as concurrent effects of the same original cause, namely a failure of the relevant governance system to prevent the abuse of unchecked power. Thus, while measures targeting corruption and torture or ill-treatment on the level of individual officials, institutions and processes remain indispensable, there is no realistic prospect for eradicating either phenomenon without effectively addressing the underlying systemic governance failures conducive to both forms of abuse. Predominant patterns of causal interaction 64. In terms of causal proximity, the Special Rapporteur proposes to distinguish the following predominant patterns of interaction between corruption and torture or illtreatment: (a) Demanding “undue advantages” that per se amount to torture or ill-treatment; (b) Instrumentalizing torture or ill-treatment for “undue advantages”; (c) Instrumentalizing “undue advantages” for torture or ill-treatment; (d) Exploiting exposure to torture or ill-treatment for “undue advantages”; (e) Torture or ill-treatment as a foreseeable “side effect” of corruption; (f) Torture or ill-treatment and corruption as foreseeable “side effects” of other policies and practices. 65. Given the cyclical and mutually reinforcing relationship between torture or illtreatment, and regardless of the intentionality or purposefulness of that interaction, an international legal obligation to take anti-corruption measures can be derived directly from the duty of States to take effective legislative, administrative, judicial and other measures to prevent acts of torture and ill-treatment,18 and a legal obligation to take anti-torture measures can be derived directly from their duty to develop and implement or maintain effective, coordinated anti-corruption policies and practices.19 Systemic governance failures conducive to corruption and torture or ill-treatment 66. The most important systemic governance failures conducive to corruption and torture or ill-treatment include: 18 19 (a) Systemic tolerance for unchecked power; (b) Normative and institutional shortcomings; (c) Unchecked power of corporate actors; Convention against Torture, Part I. United Nations Convention against Corruption, chap. II. 17