Rights-Based Framework for Anti-Corruption Work

Sor Juana's articulation of intellectual rights, freedom of conscience, and women's right to learn established a rights-based foundation for her resistance to corruption. Rather than appealing solely to institutional rules or legal technicalities, she grounded her position in deeper principles of human dignity and justice. Rights-based anti-corruption frameworks argue that corruption fundamentally violates human dignity—it denies people information they deserve, diverts resources from their welfare, and treats them as objects rather than moral agents. This framing connects anti-corruption work to broader justice movements, making it not merely an administrative concern but a human rights imperative. Sor Juana's approach elevated her critique beyond institutional efficiency to questions of who deserves voice, knowledge, and autonomy. Modern anti-corruption strategies benefit from this rights-centered grounding: protecting the right to information, ensuring fair access to justice, defending whistleblowers' freedom of expression, and prioritizing impacts on vulnerable populations. This approach integrates anti-corruption into comprehensive justice work rather than treating it as technical governance.