6.- Toward a Structured Definition of Corruption

Articles

Table of Contents

Abstract 3

1. A Definition That Has Evolved Without Fully Defining the Phenomenon 4

2. Corruption as a Crime 4

3. International Organisations: Between Recognising Corruption and the Limitations of Its Treatment 5

3.1. United Nations, OAS, Council of Europe and OECD 5

3.2. The Council of Europe: The Venice Commission and the Protection of the Rule of Law 6

3.3. The European Union: Recognition of Harm and Limitations in Its Treatment 6

4. Seven Limitations of Existing Definitions 8

5. Who Can Be Involved in Corruption? 9

6. What Conduct May Constitute Corruption? 10

7. Benefits, Harm and the Public Interest in the Treatment of Corruption 11

8. Corruption Involving Public Authorities and Officials: Towards a Structured Definition 12

Author’s Experience and Accumulated Knowledge 14

Declaration on the Use of Artificial Intelligence and Author Contributions 15

SERIES ON CORRUPTION. Part 1 17

Abstract

Thirty years after the international anti-corruption convergence of 1996, general definitions of corruption continue to exhibit limitations in relation to the knowledge accumulated by international organisations themselves concerning its systemic, macroeconomic and institutional dimensions.

This article examines seven limitations of existing definitions and analyses the contributions of the Venice Commission, particularly compliance with the law and the prevention of abuse of power, alongside the inconsistencies between the harms recognised and their treatment under Directive (EU) 2026/1021. The analysis relates these shortcomings to the criminalisation gap and the normative, compliance and implementation gaps examined in previous articles in the series.

On this basis, the article proposes a structured definition of corruption involving public authorities and officials, grounded in the abuse of power or functions—including the use of an institutional position outside assigned functions—or non-compliance with the law, through acts or omissions.

The breadth of this definition is deliberate: it does not require benefits, harms or thresholds of seriousness, and distinguishes the conceptual identification of corruption from its subsequent legal treatment, including criminalisation. The proposal seeks to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of public corruption and to overcoming the shortcomings of the instruments designed to combat it.

Keywords: Public corruption; definition of corruption; abuse of power; non-compliance with the law; rule of law; Venice Commission; Directive (EU) 2026/1021; criminalisation gap; systemic corruption; macroeconomic corruption.

1. A Definition That Has Evolved Without Fully Defining the Phenomenon

In 1996, significant convergence emerged in the development of the international anti-corruption framework, involving both intergovernmental organisations and civil society.

The World Bank helped popularise a conception centred on the abuse of public office for private gain. Transparency International, representing civil society, initially used a similar formulation, focusing on the misuse of public power for private benefit. That same year, the Organization of American States adopted the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, which identified specific forms of conduct and established international obligations to combat them.

This convergence did not mean that these organisations shared an identical legal definition. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that the contemporary conceptualisation of corruption developed simultaneously within intergovernmental institutions and civil society.

Transparency International subsequently broadened its definition to the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, thereby moving beyond its initial restriction to public power.

However, this expansion of the scope of actors covered did not resolve other limitations of these formulations, particularly their focus on private gain, the absence of an explicit reference to non-compliance with the law, and the insufficient incorporation of the institutional, macroeconomic and systemic consequences of corruption.

Thirty years later, international organisations have developed numerous anti-corruption standards, recommendations and mechanisms. Nevertheless, their general definitions remain considerably narrower than the accumulated knowledge of the phenomenon.

The question is whether these definitions adequately capture the corruption that the organisations themselves identify in their analyses and seek to combat through their instruments.

2. Corruption as a Crime

This question is particularly relevant because the European Union places corruption within the criminal law framework, and its Treaties include corruption among areas of particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension.

Directive (EU) 2026/1021 on combating corruption reinforces this approach. Its fifth recital characterises corruption as fundamentally a criminal phenomenon, while also recognising the importance of integrity violations and conflicts of interest.

However, the general definition of corruption should not be subordinated to the requirements established for its criminalisation.

To develop a structured definition, three questions should be distinguished:

  • Who is involved?
  • What do they do, or fail to do?
  • Who benefits from, or is harmed by, the conduct?

The first two questions identify the actors and the conduct. The third helps explain its consequences and guide its treatment, including criminalisation.

This distinction is fundamental: the requirements for establishing criminal liability do not necessarily have to become limitations on the general definition of the phenomenon.

A sufficiently broad definition can provide a reference for examining shortcomings in existing legislation, guiding its development and contributing to the interpretation of conduct covered by corruption offences, while respecting the principles and safeguards of criminal law.

3. International Organisations: Between Recognising Corruption and the Limitations of Its Treatment

3.1. United Nations, OAS, Council of Europe and OECD

The first four articles in this series examined different dimensions of corruption and shortcomings in its international treatment.

The first two addressed its macroeconomic and systemic dimensions, drawing on available official figures and the assessments of international organisations themselves.

The third examined the criminalisation gap: the distance between the recognition of corruption as a systemic phenomenon and criminal law approaches focused primarily on specific individual acts.

The fourth analysed the normative, compliance and implementation gaps in international anti-corruption instruments, considering, among others, the frameworks of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Council of Europe, the OECD and the European Union.

These investigations show that international organisations have accumulated knowledge about corruption that extends beyond the situations covered by their general definitions and certain instruments designed to combat it.

The limitations of these definitions should not be interpreted as a lack of understanding of the phenomenon on the part of these organisations. On the contrary, many of the elements needed to develop a more comprehensive definition can already be found in their analyses, standards, recommendations and institutional criteria.

Two European instruments illustrate this issue particularly clearly.

3.2. The Council of Europe: The Venice Commission and the Protection of the Rule of Law

The Venice Commission is an advisory body of the Council of Europe specialising in constitutional law.

Its Rule of Law Checklist provides a particularly relevant framework for understanding public corruption beyond traditionally criminalised offences.

The Commission identifies compliance with the law by public authorities and the prevention of abuse of power as essential components of the rule of law. It also explicitly addresses corruption and conflicts of interest, preventive obligations, compliance with legal standards and the effectiveness of measures designed to combat them.

Public authorities must act on the basis of, and in accordance with, the law. The exercise of power does not constitute an independent authorisation to act; rather, it is a capacity subject to legal limits.

The concept of law is not confined to ordinary legislation. It encompasses the Constitution, international obligations, applicable legislation and regulations, and, where appropriate, binding judicial decisions.

This approach makes it possible to connect two elements that frequently appear separately in definitions of corruption: abuse of power and non-compliance with the law.

The Venice Commission’s framework also helps explain the institutional dimension of corruption. Deteriorating compliance with the law and abuse of power affect the functioning of institutions, equality before the law and the protection of individuals against arbitrary action.

The rule of law, democracy and human rights are interrelated fundamental principles whose protection depends, among other conditions, on public authorities being subject to the law.

Public corruption should therefore not be examined exclusively from the perspective of benefits obtained by its participants or the economic harm caused. Its effects on institutional obligations and on the collective legal interests that institutions are required to protect must also be considered.

The Venice Commission’s criteria thus provide a foundation for broadening the analysis of public corruption, although they do not literally establish the definition proposed in this article.

3.3. The European Union: Recognition of Harm and Limitations in Its Treatment

Directive (EU) 2026/1021 on combating corruption reveals a particularly significant inconsistency between the recognition of corruption’s consequences and their incorporation into the instruments designed to combat it.

Recital 17 recognises that the unlawful exercise of public functions can undermine citizens’ trust, the rule of law and economic fairness, as well as seriously harm the public interest and the rights or legitimate interests of individuals.

Recital 19 also recognises the harmful consequences that corruption can cause to society.

Furthermore, Article 5, concerning misappropriation, provides alternatively for the obtaining of an advantage by a public official or another person or entity, or harm to the financial interests of the entity concerned. It does not require both benefit and harm to occur simultaneously.

These provisions demonstrate that the European Union itself recognises consequences of corruption that extend far beyond private gain. They include individual, economic, social and institutional harm, some of which directly affects the collective legal interests highlighted by the Venice Commission.

However, this recognition is not incorporated to an equivalent extent into a general definition of corruption or into all the instruments used to address it. In particular, the Directive’s criminal provisions link harm to specific criminal conduct and establish particular requirements for criminalisation.

The difference is especially relevant in criminal law: while the recitals recognise consequences affecting the rule of law, institutional trust, the public interest and society, the criminalisation provisions do not establish general criminal protection for all these interests against every form of corrupt conduct.

This does not mean that the Directive should criminalise every legal infringement, or that its recitals constitute independent criminal offences. Rather, it means that a difference exists between the breadth of the harms recognised and the scope of the conduct subject to criminalisation.

This inconsistency reveals an additional manifestation of the criminalisation gap examined in the third article of this series, also related to the normative, compliance and implementation gaps analysed in the fourth.

Its consequences, however, are not limited to criminal law. An insufficient general definition can also affect prevention, the identification of corrupt conduct, institutional oversight, the evaluation of anti-corruption policies and the legal analysis of facts.

The contrast between these two European instruments highlights a central issue: institutional knowledge of corruption and its consequences is broader than its incorporation into general definitions and certain mechanisms designed to combat it.

This difference justifies examining a definition of public corruption that integrates abuse of power or functions and non-compliance with the law, without being subordinated to the limits of currently criminalised offences.

4. Seven Limitations of Existing Definitions

Comparing the instruments examined with international definitions reveals seven principal limitations.

The first concerns private gain. The expression “private gain” identifies a possible purpose or consequence of corruption but does not explicitly incorporate the harm it may cause. Moreover, a general definition does not necessarily have to require the identification of a benefit.

The second concerns abuse of power. The expression “abuse of power” is broad and useful, but it does not explicitly incorporate non-compliance with the law as a distinct element. Article 19 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption addresses abuse of functions as a specific form of conduct whose criminalisation States Parties are required to consider. This particular criminal offence does not exhaust the general concept of abuse of power.

The third concerns the concept of functions. Restricting conduct exclusively to acts performed in the exercise of formally assigned functions may be insufficient. A public authority may use an official position without performing one of the functions assigned to that position. Such use may involve influence, information, resources, relationships, access, decision-making capacity or institutional protection derived from that position. Trading in influence illustrates the importance of power associated with an institutional position.

The fourth concerns acts and omissions. Corruption does not arise solely through the performance of prohibited acts. It may also arise through failure to fulfil legal duties to act. Anti-corruption instruments recognise certain forms of omission, although their general definitions do not always explicitly address this dimension.

The fifth concerns the distribution of responsibilities. Contemporary organisations distribute decision-making, implementation, information, supervision and control among numerous individuals and bodies. Difficulty in immediately identifying the person who physically carried out an act does not demonstrate that the conduct did not occur.

The distribution of functions distributes duties and areas of responsibility; it does not eliminate them. Legal responsibility must subsequently be attributed in accordance with the applicable requirements and safeguards.

The sixth concerns the heterogeneity of the conduct addressed. International conventions, national legislation and instruments developed by international organisations do not always establish identical boundaries between corruption, corruption offences and related conduct. Differences in their scope and objectives contribute to this variation, but also make it more difficult to achieve a consistent general understanding of the phenomenon.

The seventh concerns the scale and treatment of corruption. Definitions centred on private gain describe particularly well certain relationships between those holding power and those obtaining an advantage. They are less comprehensive when benefits are concentrated while harm is distributed across institutions, economies or entire societies.

The first two articles in this series examined this issue from complementary perspectives: the macroeconomic dimension of corruption and its systemic and institutional consequences.

These seven limitations reveal a broader shortcoming: general definitions do not fully integrate accumulated knowledge about corrupt conduct, its participants and its consequences.

A fundamental distinction must also be made between conceptual definition and criminalisation. Requirements concerning seriousness, intent, benefit or harm that may be established for particular offences do not necessarily have to become conditions of a general definition of corruption.

These observations do not imply that international definitions are incorrect. They indicate that developments in anti-corruption standards and analyses have incorporated elements that their general definitions have not yet sufficiently integrated.

5. Who Can Be Involved in Corruption?

Identifying the actors requires distinguishing between public corruption, participation by private actors in public corruption, and corruption occurring exclusively within the private sector.

This article focuses on the first.

Public authorities and officials occupy a specific institutional position: they exercise powers or perform functions subject to the law and linked to public service obligations.

However, public corruption may involve individuals who do not exercise public functions.

Businesspeople, organisations, organised groups and private individuals may promote, organise, finance, facilitate, conceal or participate in corrupt conduct involving public authorities and officials.

Private participation does not require those involved to hold public office, nor does it mean that their legal responsibility is identical to that of public officials.

Organisations present an additional difficulty.

A decision may be adopted by one body, technically prepared by another, implemented by a third party and supervised by different hierarchical levels. The beneficiaries may be outside the structure that adopts or implements the decision.

It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the existence of corrupt conduct, its possible organisational dimension and the attribution of individual responsibility.

The inability to immediately identify a responsible natural person does not, in itself, demonstrate the absence of corruption.

Nor does the distribution of functions within an organisation exclude the obligations of those entrusted with management, prevention, supervision or control.

Failure to fulfil these obligations may occur through acts or omissions. Any resulting criminal liability must be established in accordance with the applicable legal requirements, without those requirements necessarily limiting the general definition of the phenomenon.

A specific definition of private-sector corruption requires separate analysis, among other reasons because the legal interests protected and the obligations of its participants are not necessarily the same. Its development falls outside the scope of this article.

6. What Conduct May Constitute Corruption?

The second element is conduct.

International instruments have progressively identified numerous forms of conduct related to corruption: active and passive bribery, transnational bribery, misappropriation or embezzlement, trading in influence, abuse of functions and illicit enrichment, among others.

Instrumental or related conduct may also be involved, including the misuse of information or resources, fraud, collusion, certain forms of unlawful political financing, money laundering, concealment and obstruction of justice.

These latter forms of conduct do not necessarily constitute, in themselves and in every circumstance, the original act of corruption.

It does not seem appropriate for a general definition to depend on a closed catalogue of offences. Developments over recent decades demonstrate that legal systems have progressively incorporated and modified the conduct they criminalise.

In public corruption, the common element can be sought in two related dimensions: abuse of power or functions and non-compliance with the law.

The first encompasses the abusive use of power or functions, including the use of an official position or institutional capacity in activities outside assigned functions.

The second encompasses failure to comply with applicable legal obligations through acts or omissions.

Including the use of an official position or institutional capacity makes it possible to overcome an excessively restrictive interpretation of the expression “in the exercise of official functions”.

What matters is not only whether the act fell within the perpetrator’s ordinary responsibilities, but also whether the power, influence, information, resources, access or protection derived from the institutional position were used.

These dimensions make it possible to formulate a general definition of public corruption without reducing it to currently criminalised offences.

7. Benefits, Harm and the Public Interest in the Treatment of Corruption

Benefits and harm are particularly relevant to understanding the consequences of corruption and to its legal treatment, including criminalisation. However, they are not necessary requirements of the general definition proposed in this article.

Undue benefits may be economic, financial, professional, political, institutional or personal. They may favour the perpetrator or other individuals, groups, organisations or institutions.

Harm may affect individuals, groups, organisations, institutions, economies, societies or systems at national or global level.

A single act may generate concentrated benefits and distribute harm among millions of people. It may also produce immediate benefits and subsequent harm.

This dimension is particularly relevant to understanding the macroeconomic and systemic consequences examined in the first articles of this series.

Criminal legislation should consider both benefits improperly obtained and harm improperly caused, without necessarily requiring both to occur.

Directive (EU) 2026/1021 provides an example in its provisions on misappropriation, which alternatively contemplate certain advantages or financial harm.

However, the treatment of public corruption cannot be limited to financial or individual benefits and harm.

Particular importance attaches to harm caused to the public interest by those institutionally entrusted with its protection.

For the purposes of this analysis, the public interest should be examined with reference to three elements: the rule of law, the protection of human rights and the improvement of living conditions for the majority of the population.

These references help prevent the determination of the public interest from depending exclusively on the interpretation of those exercising public power. Human rights protect all individuals and cannot be subordinated to the will of a majority.

The rule of law, democracy and human rights are fundamental institutional interests that may be affected by public corruption, as the Venice Commission’s criteria help demonstrate.

Improving the living conditions of the majority also provides a social and economic reference for evaluating the public interest, without replacing legal obligations or the rights of minorities.

This does not mean treating every political decision with negative consequences as corruption. The proposed definition requires identifying abuse of power or functions, including the use of an institutional position, or non-compliance with the law.

The determination of benefits, harm, responsibilities and sanctions belongs to the applicable stages of legal analysis and treatment.

8. Corruption Involving Public Authorities and Officials: Towards a Structured Definition

The preceding analysis shows that it is not necessary to abandon the elements developed over decades by international organisations.

Many of the components needed for a more comprehensive definition are already dispersed across their conventions, standards, recommendations, analyses and criteria concerning the rule of law.

The challenge is to integrate them.

The following definition emerges from this analysis:

Corruption involving public authorities and officials encompasses the abuse of power or functions—including the use of an official position or institutional capacity in activities outside their assigned functions—or non-compliance with the law, through acts or omissions.

This definition takes as its principal reference the Venice Commission’s criteria concerning compliance with the law and the prevention of abuse of power, essential components of the rule of law. Its formulation constitutes a proposal for conceptual integration, rather than a definition literally established by the Commission.

The breadth of this definition is deliberate. Its purpose is not to reproduce the boundaries of currently criminalised corruption offences, but to identify public corruption through abuse of power or functions and non-compliance with the law, whether through acts or omissions.

Consequently, the definition does not establish additional requirements concerning seriousness, significance, the obtaining of benefits or the causation of harm. It may therefore encompass conduct that existing legal systems do not classify as corruption offences and that receives different legal treatment.

This breadth does not imply equating all forms of conduct or their consequences. Criminalisation, the attribution of responsibility and the determination of sanctions belong to a subsequent stage, subject to the principles and safeguards of the applicable law.

Public corruption may also involve businesspeople, organisations, organised groups and private individuals who promote, organise, finance, facilitate, conceal or participate in corrupt conduct by public authorities and officials. Their involvement does not require them to exercise public functions, nor does it imply that their legal responsibility is identical to that of public officials.

The specific definition of private-sector corruption falls outside the scope of this article.

The distinction between general definition and criminalisation is particularly important in light of the gaps examined in the third and fourth articles of this series.

If the general definition is subordinated to the limits of existing legal provisions, those same limitations may hinder the identification of conduct that does not yet receive adequate treatment.

International organisations and Transparency International have contributed for decades to understanding corruption, including its systemic and macroeconomic dimensions. Nevertheless, their general definitions, including current formulations, present limitations and inconsistencies in relation to the scope of the phenomenon that their own analyses and instruments make it possible to identify.

These shortcomings constitute an important limitation on the understanding and treatment of corruption, particularly when its systemic and macroeconomic manifestations extend beyond traditionally recognised situations.

Thirty years after the international anti-corruption convergence of 1996, accumulated knowledge makes it possible to advance towards a more structured definition of public corruption.

The proposal presented here integrates abuse of power or functions and non-compliance with the law without being constrained by the boundaries of currently criminalised offences.

Its purpose is to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon and to provide a conceptual reference for examining shortcomings in its prevention, identification, legal treatment and institutional evaluation.

A general definition of public corruption should make it possible to identify the phenomenon before determining which forms of conduct are criminalised, who may be convicted and what sanctions should apply.

Author’s Experience and Accumulated Knowledge

This research programme is the result of a cumulative process spanning more than fifteen years of practical experience, observation and research into corruption and the functioning of institutional and anti-corruption mechanisms.

During this period, the author’s direct experience in reporting and communicating information concerning possible cases of corruption to Spanish, European and international institutions was broadened through the establishment and leadership of various civil society initiatives: as president of an association representing people affected by institutional actions, as the sole founder and president of a federation of associations, and as the sole founder and president of an alliance comprising associations and a social movement.

These activities enabled him to become directly involved in situations affecting other individuals and organisations, undertake actions before different institutions, and share projects and experiences with other civil society leaders.

This trajectory produced a progressive and cumulative process of knowledge acquisition.

Practical experience raised new questions that led to further research; this expanded the available knowledge and, in turn, prompted the investigation of other problems, the reconsideration of previously examined issues and the identification of relationships between phenomena that are commonly studied separately.

This process has influenced not only the questions addressed by the research, but also how those questions have been formulated, the sources and data examined, the relationships established between them, and the analytical framework through which the evidence is interpreted.

The resulting research has progressively connected the macroeconomic dimension of corruption with its systemic nature, the gaps between the phenomenon and its criminalisation, the gaps in the functioning of anti-corruption systems, their measurable outcomes, and the mechanisms through which corruption may adapt, persist, reproduce itself and contribute to institutional, economic, political and societal transformations.

The author’s accumulated knowledge has thus helped shape a research programme that goes beyond the study of individual acts of corruption to examine jointly the scale and nature of the phenomenon, the structures within which it operates, and the systems established to combat it.

The specific cases known to the author through this experience do not form part of the empirical evidence used in the seven articles comprising Part I of the series.

Their empirical basis consists of the documentary sources, official data and published evidence cited in each article.

Instead, the author’s experience and accumulated knowledge have contributed to identifying the questions to be asked, selecting the dimensions to be investigated, connecting evidence produced across different institutional and disciplinary contexts, and integrating these elements into the analytical framework developed throughout the series.

Declaration on the Use of Artificial Intelligenceand Author Contributions

ChatGPT (OpenAI) was used in the preparation of this article as a supporting tool for conceptual analysis, critical review, content organisation, editorial refinement, drafting assistance, and translation into English.

The author independently developed the research framework, identified the conceptual and normative shortcomings of existing definitions of corruption, established the connections with the findings of the preceding articles in the series, and formulated the proposed structured definition of public corruption. The author also selected the institutional and legal sources, developed the interpretation of their implications, and determined the article’s arguments and conclusions.

AI assistance was used to examine, organise, refine, and communicate these contributions, not to originate the research thesis or independently determine its findings.

The author directed and critically reviewed the AI-assisted work, made the final editorial and substantive decisions, and assumes full responsibility for the article’s content, accuracy, interpretations, and conclusions.

SERIES ON CORRUPTION. Part 1

  1. Without Corruption There Would Be No Public Debt. https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.21993280
  2. SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION. From Institutional Consequences to Systemic Transformation. https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.21994617
  3. The Criminalisation Gap in Corruption. Impunity Can Begin Before Prosecution. https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.22729133
  4. Three Gaps in the International Fight against Corruption. Thirty Years of Rules, Non-Compliance and Insufficient Implementation. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23019185
  5. Thirty Years of Fighting Corruption: What Have the Results Been? https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23333997
  6. Toward a Structured Definition of Corruption https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23684696
  7. Who Corrupts the Corrupt? From the Individual Corruptor to the Selection and Reproduction of the Corrupt (Forthcoming)

The first seven articles develop an integrated examination of the scale, systemic dimension, legal framework, institutional response, results and definition of corruption, concluding with an analysis of the actors and structures that corrupt and reproduce corruption.

Previous Research Underlying the Series

Related Historical-Structural Framework

Marzal, J. (2026). The Rise of the Macro-State: A Historical-Structural Analytical Framework for the Convergence of Economy and Power. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19089595.

Javier Marzal

ORCID: 0009-0009-4373-8068

www.javiermarzal.com