A/HRC/23/26 I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 21/13, in which the Council requested the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to organize a panel discussion on the issue of the negative impact of corruption on the enjoyment of human rights at its twenty-second session and to prepare and submit a summary report on the panel discussion at its twenty-third session. II. Organization of the panel 2. The panel discussion was held on 13 March 2013 in Geneva. The panel was chaired by the President of the Human Rights Council and opened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Miklos Marschall, Deputy Managing Director of Transparency International, moderated the discussion. The panellists included Sangeetha Pursuhottam, Executive Director of Best Practices Foundation, India; Marling Haydee Rodriguez Cerro, President of the Union of Women’s Producer Cooperatives Las Brumas, Nicaragua; Zdzislaw Kedzia, member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Phil Matsheza, Global Policy Advisor for Anti-Corruption of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); Claudia Sayago, Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC); Suzanne Hayden, Senior Academic Programme Advisor of the International Anti-Corruption Academy; and Abdeslam Aboudrar, President of the Central Instance for the Prevention of Corruption, Morocco. 3. The objectives of the panel discussion were to draw attention to the manifold negative impacts of corruption on the enjoyment of human rights, particularly on the availability, accessibility, affordability and quality of human rights-relevant goods and services; to consider prospects and challenges from a gender perspective in relation to combating corruption as a human rights issue; and to make recommendations on ways to safeguard human rights by fighting corruption and strengthening anti-corruption efforts through the application of a human rights-based approach. III. Opening and contributions by panellists 4. In her opening statement, the High Commissioner stressed that corruption was an enormous obstacle to the realization of all human rights – civil, political, economic, social and cultural, as well as the right to development. The money stolen through corruption every year was enough to feed the world’s hungry 80 times over, and money siphoned from the public treasury could be spent to meet development needs; lift people out of poverty; provide children with education; bring to families essential medicine; and stop the hundreds of preventable deaths and injuries during pregnancy and childbirth that occurred every day. Corruption also denied access to justice for victims, exacerbated inequality, weakened governance and institutions, eroded public trust, fuelled impunity and undermined the rule of law. 5. The High Commissioner pointed out that corruption violated the core human rights principles of transparency, accountability, non-discrimination and meaningful participation and that, conversely, those principles, when upheld and implemented, were the most effective means to fight corruption. A human rights-based approach to anti-corruption efforts responded to the resounding public call for a social, political and economic order that delivers on the promises of “freedom from fear and want”. OHCHR had been working 3