Protecting Survivors and Witnesses

               This post is a summary of the article published in 2016 with the title above at   https://www.newtactics.org/conversation/protecting-survivors-and-witnesses

               Protecting survivors and witnesses of human rights violations is crucial to effective human rights work. Protection is important because when victims and witnesses fear further persecution, they are unlikely to report their experiences, making redress and accountability much more difficult. The state is formally responsible for providing protection, but it is the state that is often the greatest source of perceived risk amongst witnesses and survivors. Under Article 13 of the U.N.Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), the State have an obligation to ensure that victims and witnesses are protected against "all ill treatment and intimidation as a consequence of his complaint or any evidence given." On Article 14 of UNCAT states that the States have the obligation to ensure victims obtain rehabilitation through a State-run facility. Civil society has an important role to play in ensuring protection of survivors and victims through civil society groups. As victims are inclined to approach NGOs for protection, NGOs ought to be equipped with good protection practice. At times, NGOs who work directly with the victims of human rights violations become themselves witnesses and victims and need protection. One way of protecting witnesses and victims is by recognizing the suffering of these victims and educating civil society to understand the value of these efforts on society. The media plays a significant role in this. The international community can play a vital role in applying pressure on governments to provide adequate protection. Broader alliances need to be built between different sectors of civil society.  Sometimes networks are crucial in terms of providing victims a safe house or to flee to another location within the country or to another country. Communication between human rights defenders and victims is equally important to give an assurance of protection. The importance of documentation of human rights abuses is essential. Documentation would assist in analyzing the 'trend of cases' to prepare wider 'advocacy strategy' to deal with the security concerns of victims and witnesses. The importance of support from international NGOs to human rights defenders, victims and witnesses is also essential. The types of risk can be categorized broadly into three types of risk, physical, phychological and digital. Economic risk could also be added. It is important to ensure that victims and witnesses have as much information as possible so that they are in the best position to assess their own risk. Hope, honor and dignity must put forward as a way to manage risk and to empower victims. The risk of vicarious trauma and the importance of self care must also be discussed. The role of international organizations such as U.N. and the E.U. in protecting victims were raised. But the State has the ultimate responsibility in providing protection but often it is the primary source of threat. This is where the role of civil society organizations play an important bridging role between the State and the victims by advocacy when States fail to meet their obligations. Recommendations that the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights provide to their Human Rights Office (HROs) when they travel to different countries to investigate violations provide useful suggestions. Protective measures by HROs can include: 1) Strengthening the cooperation person's capacity for self-protection; 2) Supporting or establishing community-level protection networks; 3) Using visibility strategies with a deterrent effect; 4) Seeking the support of international mechanisms, such as NGOs, diplomatic missions, U.N. agencies; 5) Mobilizing efforts to directly or indirectly provide physical protection to the person at risk, including through relocation; 6) Limiting the capacity of the source of the threat to carry out an attack by reducing the vulnerability factors of the person at risk; 7) Intervening to influence or requesting an influential person to intervene with the source of the threat; 8) Increasing the political and social costs to the source carrying out the threat through, for instance, public advocacy in partnership with national and international networks. The costs of carrying out the threat should outweigh the benefits; 9) Advocacy and engagement with national authorities, stressing their human rights obligations, including their duty to protect those at risk and to prosecute offenders; 10) Capacity-building and technical cooperation directed at developing or improving national witness protection capacities, as well as accountability mechanisms.       When weighing the pros and cons of the different protective measures, HROs should consider the following: 1) the effectiveness of such measures in guaranteeing protection; 2) Their promptness in responding to the security needs of the person at risk, including emergencies; 3) Their sustainability, particularly for protective measures that envisage long-term changes; 4) Their adaptability to new circumstances, such as deteriorating security conditions; 5) Their reversibility when the risk disappears (for example, in case of relocation, the person being able to return home).

International Day of Democracy - 2021

             Last Wednesday, 15th September, all over the world was celebrated the democracy. Democracy and human rights are closed related. This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published at https://nationaltoday.com/international-day-of-democracy/. The second was published at https://www.un.org/en/observances/democracy-day. The third was published at https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/international-day-of-democracy-2021-why-is-it-observed-2540655

                    International Day of Democracy allows the opportunity to celebrate and appreciate our democratic society. It is very easy for people who live in a free society to take their freedom for granted. Yet, when freedom is absent, life includes unimaginable challenges that are often incomprehensible. Today, let's reflect on the history of democracy around the world, thank those who influenced the development, and look for opportunities to promote and protect our own nation's democracy. From democracy's birth in ancient Greece to today, the foundation of a democratic society is the ability of its people to participate in the decision-making process of their nation. Democratic activities include: 1) Get involved in politics.  2) Learn about political candidates.  3) Exercise your rights, thanks to digital advancements, it's now easier than ever to advocate for causes and make a difference. Why we love democracy: 1) It gives power to the people, leading to a world of innovation and improvement.  2) It's based on change. A cornerstone of democratic societies is that they have the power to make change when necessary.  3) It's based on equality, equal rights under the law are central to democratic governments.                                                                                                                                                                                    The theme this year, "Strengthening Democratic resilience in the Face of Future Crises." The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has resulted in major social, political and legal challenges globally. As states around the world adopt emergency measures to address the crisis, it is critical that they continue to uphold the rule of law, protect and respect international standands and basic principles of legality, and the right to access justice, remedies and due process. The crisis raises the question how best to counter harmful speech while protecting freedom of expression. Sweeping efforts to el iminate misinformation or disinformation can result in purposeful or unintentional censorship, which undermines trust. The most effective response is accurate, clear and evidence-based information from sources people trust. Around the world civil society organizations have answered the U.N.'s call to action to address and counteract the wide range of ways the COVID-19 crisis may impair democracy and increase authoritarianism, by: 1) developing media literacy and digital safety, more critical than ever as activism is forced online, so as to address the risk of suppression, interference and closing of civic space.  2) fighting misinformation and hate speech, which have mushroomed in the crisis.  3) training journalists remotely to report on the impact of the pandemic with in-depth, fact-checked coverage.  4) empowering women against gender-based violence, which has surged amid lockdowns, quarantines, and economic pressures.  5) helping to highlight the challenges of inequality and weak service delivery made worse by the crisis, with specific focus on the needs and rights of the population, so as to help hold governments to account.  The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding period and genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy. In turn, democracy provides the natural environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights. These values are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines a host of political rights and civil liberties underpinning meaningful democracies.                                                        The U.N. General Assembly celebrates the Day of Democracy on September 15 to encourage governments around the world to strengthen and consolidate democracy. This day marks an opportunity to review the state of democracy around the world. It is also an opportunity to raise awareness and educate the public about their democratic rights, to highlight the important role of parliaments, their capacity and mandate to deliver justice, peace, development, and human rights. Many organisations hold debates and conferences and launch public campaigns to mobilise political will and public support for reinforcing democratic values. The Inter-Parliamentary Union ((IPU), the global organisation of national parliaments, says its support for this day stems from the core belief that democracy requires the participation of all citizens.

Paths to Inclusive Political Institutions

                       This post is a summary of the essay with the title above published in 2016 at   https://economics.mit.edu/files/19640

              In this paper we present a thinking about the circumstances under which inclusive political institutions, consisting of a state with a capacity and a broad distribution of political power, emerge. What makes a society economically successful? Most social scientists would argue that the critical factor are the economic institutions, the rules that create patterns of incentives and opportunities in the economic sphere and which shape saving, investment and innovation. We argued that economic institutions have to be thought of as an outcome of political choices which are shaped by political institutions which influences are aggregated by those who exercise power. In this case, lying behind economic institutions are political institutions. Two very successful historical instances of inclusive institution building, Classical Athens, and Early Modern England. In both cases, the historical evidence suggests that popular pressure and involvement was absolutely critical in the emergence of inclusive political institutions. Elite interests were at play too, but they had to find an equilibrium with those of society. In terms of democratization there is currently a great deal of consensus that democratization comes as a result of pressure from below rather than something that is willingly created by elites. Other arguments in the literature suggest that democracy emerges when elites give away power either because autocratic elites split, or because democracy can be a way of resolving conflicts between differents factions of elites, or because democracy solves a commitment problem that elites can not otherwise solve. These arguments may certainly apply in some cases. For example, many Latin America countries adopted democratic political institutions and held elections in the 19th century. Yet these were typically riven with fraud and malpractices and far from representing the broad distribution of power. Modern democracy emerged only in the 20th century and typically in the context of mass mobilization and demands for the excluded for political rights. The issue of where political pluralism comes from has been much less studied. Putnam (1993) is perhaps the most important empirical study of pluralism which is closely connected to his characterization of Northern Italian society having high levels of social capital or a very dense 'associational life'. Putnam traces the roots of this to the medieval organization of Northern Italy with its free communes, city states and mercantile political dominance. We argued that pluralism emerges from contestation with civil society playing an active role in demanding political change but only in the context where a 'broad coalition' makes these demands. In this essay we have advanced the hypothesis that the broad coalition is itself part of a co-evolution of state and society. In this essay we have argued that under some circumstances there is a basin of attraction where the two dimensions of inclusive political institutions are highly complementary. Indeed, they feed on each other to create a particular dynamic which leads to inclusive political institutions with a pattern of mutually reinforcing feedback. We argue that understanding this basin of attraction is a key to understanding the emergence of inclusive political institutions. Though in general the parameter space is multi-dimensional in this essay we have focused on one type of distinction which we believe is critical for determining the potential of different societies to move inside the basin of attraction: the strength and nature of social norms and informal institutions. The sequencing view we critique is similar to the one argued against by Tocqueville in "The Old Regime and the French Revolution", when he claimed that the French reformers of the 18th century, such as the Physiocrats, were mistaken when they sought reforms before political liberties. Rather political liberties are a critical complement to reforms and building the state, and one can not rely on automatic processes such as modernization to subsequently bring liberty. The Physiocrats, like many modern scholars, proposed that one should rely on education to make sure that state promoted social interests. The ideas proposed in this paper help to clarify just where the broad coalition comes from. In the classical Athenian and Early Modern English case, the answer presented here is that it came from social norms and informal institutions which facilitated not just the formation of the state, but also led to a distinct strengthening of civil society. Such argument may be though unsatisfying in the sense that it pushes the explanation for differences in political and economic development paths further back in time. Nevertheless, as we argued, divergent development historically is the result of institutional differences which start out small but acumulate over time. England did not experience the industrial revolution because of some huge shock to the society in the 18th century. It did so because of a long process of institutional change in which both the state and the society coevolved and entered into a virtuous circle ultimately leading to the broad coalition. England did not get onto this path because it was a radically different society from other Western European societies, but small differences mattered and it was inside a basin of attraction which turned out to have profound consequences.

The Right to Reparation in International Human Rights Law

             This post is a summary of the article with the incomplete title above published at   https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1191&context=bjil

              The evolution of international law towards a system capable of promoting "global justice" has been accompanied by a growing consensus that states bear an obligation both to punish wrongdoers and to act on behalf of victims in the wake of systematic human rights abuses. In fact, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 60/147, set forth "existing," complementary international legal obligations of states in this arena without introducing new obligations. The right to a remedy is premised on three core rights: 1) the right to "equal and effective access to justice"; 2) "the right to adequate, effective and prompt reparation for the harm suffered"; 3) "the right to truth." It is important to recognize the two different ways in which the term "reparations" is used. Within the context of international law, the term connotes the array of measures available to redress the different harms that a victim may have suffered due to certain crimes. Therefore, under international law, reparations may include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, and guarantees of nonrecurrence. Such measures, which include material and moral undertakings by a society in individual or collective form, seek to restore the victim to the status quo ante by expressing a society's "recognition, remorse and atonement for harms inflicted." Material reparations may include monetary compensation, service packages providing healthcare or counseling to promote rehabilitation, restoration of property rights, or a pension. Moral reparations focus on allowing the victim's story to be told and promoting a sense of justice, and may include official apologies, rehabilitation, and the creation of memorials or other acts of remembrance. The existing international legal framework for reparations to victims of human rights violations is inadequate as evidenced by the current situation in Bahrain. At least in the short term, legal recognition of a victim's right to reparations without an effective enforcement mechanism at the international level ultimately perpetuates the cycle of victimization for those whom the pronouncement of such principles seeks to protect. The implementation of a "comprehensive and coherent reparations program" is ultimately in the best legal, moral, and political interests of any regime. National courts are supposed to serve as the gateway for victims seeking reparations for violations of human rights.In fact, an individual lacks standing to even bring a claim before most international bodies until he or she has exhausted available domestic remedies. However, experiences has repeatedly proven the ineffectiveness of relying on national courts for such a purpose because the courts are "almost always... inoperative" during the conflict periods in which systematic human rights violations usually occur, and because "it takes quite some time for courts to assume an independent stance capable of finding powerful forces ( usually the government itself ) liable for violations. As a result, many victims of human rights violations have had more success pursuing their claims in foreign courts. The universality principle recognizes that certain crimes are so reprehensible that any nation may act on behalf of the international community to prosecute and punish those responsible, regardless of where the crimes were committed. A national court may thus exercise universal jurisdiction only over those crimes regarded as serious violations of international law.  Reparations, by their very nature, require the state to acknowledge its wrongful conduct by recognizing and compensating the victims. Some governments has proved tremendously reluctant to acknowledge and accept responsibility. Instead, it has offered only blanket condemnation for the "situation" combined with limited progress. Such reluctance is undoubtedly tied to the fact that "programs of reparation are part of a more general human rights agenda". Therefore, any program of reparations in Bahrain is inextricably tied to the access and exercise of power. This connection helps to explain the reticence exhibited by the Bahraini political elite in addressing the past and why the ruling regime has taken only carefully calculated measures designed to ease pressure without producing any fundamental changes to the power structure and its hold on power. Both the story of victim's rights under international law and the story of Bahrain's transitional justice experience are far from written. Efforts to close the gap between the rhetoric of human rights and the enforcement of such rights must remain a top priority. U.N. General Assembly's adoption of the 2006 Basic Principles marks an important step in the evolution of human rights law towards a more "victimcentric" framework, but the doctrine must be translated into action in order to protect "the inherent dignity... of all members of the human family" on which freedom, justice and peace in the world is based. In Bahrain, recent human rights developments serve as a reminder that there are many obstacles to overcome in guaranteeing respect for essential human rights at the domestic level. Nevertheless, there are also positive signs that some degree of justice may be forthcoming for Bahrain victims of state abuse. In 2007, eleven Bahraini human rights organizations took the unprecedented step of forming a reconciliation group to lobby the government for the creation of a truth and reconciliation committee to address human rights abuses committed by the government.

Social Injustice in Surveillance

                 We all have to fight injustice, so if you know about any human rights violation or privacy violation, record. We can't allow violations and injustices remain unpunished, even more when they are systematically and repeatedly done, affecting many victims, democracy, the rule of law, etc. This post is a summary of the article with the incomplete title above published at   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326613806_Social_Injustice_in_Surveillance_Capitalism

                 The digital platforms of the web, retail and e-commerce, mobile telecommunications, and smart infrastructure systems produce vast amounts of detailed data about users, their preferences as consumers, their spatial and temporal patterns and behaviours, their hopes, beliefs, and desires. Huge economic value is generated for the corporations that control these digital architectures since the data are produced without financial compensation to users. The use of personal data in advertising, strategic marketing, and client management is nothing new, however a new era of personal data analytics is upon us, defined by a new logic of accumulation that Shoshana Zuboff has called 'surveillance capitalism'. Knowability and visibility in surveillance is wildly asymmetrical however, power is sharply concentrated in the hands of the small number of companies and data brokers. Long recognized by surveillance scholars as a primary mechanism for social manipulation and control in the information age. Yet, early warnings about the harms of data surveillance at the dawn of the information age have thus far failed to result in sufficient public awareness or the development of satisfactory laws and regulations to counter the threats. This paper draws on normative political theory to demonstrate how these practices are specifically threats to social justice, towards an expanded conceptual vocabulary for challenging the range of potential harms that can occur when people and their data are separated. The rapid acceleration of surveillance has been enabled by exploitative agreements between data subjects and controllers, in which the data subjects have no ability to negotiate the terms of the agreement and often insufficient knowledge of the full extent or legalities of personal data collection and use. Public knowledge and concern about threats to privacy and data security are growing. Privacy is an internationally protected human right, providing a foundation for freedoms such as freedom of speech and freedom of association, and is thus a unifying narrative in democratic societies and a key concept invoked to challenge escalating practices of dataveillance. In addition to privacy harms, corporate personal data practices also threaten a diverse range of intersecting values and rights including autonomy, fairness, equality, democratic sovereignty, and property. The initial injustice of personal data maldistribution can lead to sociocultural misrecognition, which occurs when personal data are subjectto algorithmic processing and classification, as well as political misrepresentation, which renders people voiceless to challenge any misuse of their personal data. In identifying the injustices of specific practices inherent to the current mode, the paper calls for more explicit conceptual development of the social impacts of dataveillance, and attends to the requirements needed to intervene in these practices, which could reconfigure data as an agent of social equality rather than oppression. Nancy Fraser suggests that decentring the erstwhile 'what' of justice enables non-economic forms of injustice to be rendered visible, providing the possibility of broader, multivalent understandings of justice. The problem is that a stable framework is required to enable diverse justice claims to be recognized and addressed, but when the 'what', 'who', and 'how' are in dispute, overcoming injustice is immensely more challenging. This understanding of justice provides the basis for recognizing heterogeneous justice claims and the means to overcome injustice through the identification and removal of obstacles that prevent some individuals from participating as equals in social life. Fraser considers three obstacles to parity of participation that can serve as focal points for social justice struggle. The first obstacle, maldistribution, the second obstacle, misrecognition and the third obstacle, misrepresentation, that occurs when political subjects are not able to control their own representation or when voiceless subjects are unable to access democratic institutions. Beyond the growing concerns about state surveillance or the loss of sensitive personal details in data, the inability of data subjects to access their personal data creates significant injustices of maldistribution in which corporations are able to accumulate vast stockpiles of economically valuable personal data. Injustices of personal data maldistribution are enable further injustices of sociocultural misrecognition via algorithmic data processing, classification, and predictive analytics. The initial injustice of maldistribution is also leading to further injustices of misrepresentation, and the focus here, exposes meta-political injustices which, arises when a polity's boundaries are drawn in such a way as to wrongly exclude some people from the chance to participate in its authorized contests over justice. A rapidly accelerating phase of capitalism based on asymmetrical personal data accumulation poses significant concerns for democratic societies. A diverse range of economic, social, political and legal consequences must be fully interrogated, yet the frameworks for challenging practices of corporate dataveillance are underdeveloped. This article has argued that the recent, surprising acceleration of surveillance capitalism situates these personal data practices as important threats to social justice. This article draws on Nancy Fraser's theory of abnormal justice to make explicit how three core data practices inherent to surveillance should be viewed as threats to parity of participation in social life, and therefore targets of social justice reparations. This article illustrates how asymmetrical accumulation of personal data leads to injustices. This data maldistribution then lays the foundation for further injustices to take place. Recognizing the focused nature of this account of social harms specific to corporate personal data practices, there is clearly a need for more conceptual development of the threats of dataveillance as well as empirical research that exposes further examples of unjust data practices occurring within the broader assemblage of state and corporate surveillance. A focus on data justice is also of high priority, due to the inequalities baked directly into data. A central objective here should be to provide data subjects with ownership or at least meaningful access to their data as a necessary first step towards addressing the lag in social evolution, which has enabled the surveillance capitalists to normalize asymmetrical data accumulation and conduct further unjust data practices under cover of secrecy and under the protection of out-dated legal frameworks.

60th Anniversary of Amnesty International

               This month the world's largest NGO for human rights, Amnesty International completed 60 years. So this post is a tribute to them. We all must to work to strengthen the human rights, democracy and justice and I hope all human rights defenders understand the importance to share each other work, messages and stories, creating a large net of information about violations happening and possible risks to human rights defenders. If we all want a fairer and more democratic world, we all should become a human rights defender. Professionals defenders like those from Amnesty should have more power to make their claims. And I think everybody want a better world. This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published at https://northeastbylines.co.uk/amnesty-international-is-sixty-years-old/. The second was published at   https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU2105/S00248/amnesty-international-turns-60.htm. The third was published at https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/60-years-of-humanity-in-action/

               "Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a story from somewhere of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government...." These words are taken from an article by the late British lawyer Peter Benenson entitled "The Forgotten Prisoners" which was published in The Observer on 29 May 1961 yet they could have been written today. Beneson put pen to paper 60 years ago after learning of the imprisonment of two Portuguese students for raising a toast to freedom. (At that time the dictator Salazar ruled Portugal). Peter Benenson's article launched the "Appeal for Amnesty 1961", a worldwide campaign that provoked a huge response. Reprinted in newspaper across the world, his call to action resonated with the values and aspirations of decent people everywhere. This became the genesis of Amnesty International, the world's largest grassroots human rights organization. On 28 May representatives from North East England Amnesty International attended a 60th anniversary commemoration event. Glasses were raised in a toast to freedom in front of a stained glass window depicting the iconic Amnesty candle. This symbolic act is important not only as a mark of recognition for all cases that Amnesty has worked on over the decades, but also as a means of raising awareness of the ongoing violations that need our attention today. Steve Newman, Chair of Amnesty International's Wearside Group and one of the organisers behind the event, first got involved with the charity after travelling around the Asia in the 1980s. He learnt about a wide range of human rights abuses. Amnesty International works to protect people wherever justice, truth and dignity are denied, whether that is in the south or here in the U.K. Benenson's call to action was a heartfelt response to appalling abuse of power by state apparatus. He intended a simple year long campaign focused on 'prisoners of conscience'. 60 years later the work of Amnesty continues to be just as important. Sustained pressure has changed laws in dozens of countries on issues such as refugees, reproductive rights, LGBT equality, and free speech.                                                           A stunning film with Amnesty activists in five iconic global landmarks and dramatic celestial drone art is released to day to celebrate Amnesty International's 60th anniversary. An orchestral version of Peter Gabriel's human rights anthem 'Biko' provides the soundtrack with vocals from The Spirituals choir in London. Peter Gabriel, an Amnesty International Ambassador of conscience, said: "It was a race against time but definitely worth it. Now more than ever, we need as many people as possible to start taking injustice personally and to get involved in any way they can. Amnesty has been doing extraordinary work around the world which I believe is really important and supported for forty years." Bill Shipsey, Founder of Art for Amnesty, who conceived the idea of the film said: "This film combining art, music, poetry and technology is a thank you and testament to the contributions of the millions of Amnesty members present and past who have worked tirelessly for human rights over the past 60 years. We hope the film will inspire a new generation of activists to take action for human rights."                                                                                                                                                                 Amnesty International was founded in 1961 on the idea that together ordinary people can change the world. Today is a worldwide movement for human rights, calling on the collective power of 10 million people, each one committed to fighting for justice, equality and freedom everywhere. Change has not happened overnight. It's taken persistence and a belief in the power of humanity to make a difference. And the result? The release of tens of thousands of people imprisoned for their beliefs or their way of life. Previously untouchable leaders brought to account. Amended laws and changed lives. How do we measure 60 years of collective action? It's there in the accused who is given a fair trial. It's there in the activists freed to continue their defence of human rights. It's there in the marginalised communities who defended their homes from destruction. Sixty years on, we are still battling for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all. And we won't stop until it's achieved. In 1973, Amnesty issues its first full urgent action, encouraging the public to act on behalf of Luiz Basilio Rossi, a Brazilian professor arrested for political reasons. "I knew that my case had become public, I knew they could no longer kill me. Then the pressure on me decreased and conditions improved." Since then, Amnesty supporters across the world have campaigned on behalf of thousands of individuals, families and communities. In the 1970s, Chile's regime under General Pinochet agrees to admit a Amnesty International mission to investigate allegations of massive human rights violations. More than 20 years later, Amnesty is a party to legal proceedings that lead to Pinochet's arrest in the U.K. for crimes committed in Chile. In 1979, Amnesty International publishes a list of 2,665 cases of people known to have "disappeared" in Argentina after the military coup. In 2017, the Kenya High Court blocks the government's decision to shut Dadaab refugee camp. the world's largest refugee camp. The ruling comes in response to a petition by two Kenyan human rights organizations, which was supported by Amnesty. In 2018, an European Court of Human Rights ruling finds that the U.K. intelligence services bulk interception of millions of private communications breached human rights laws. The landmark judgment was further expanded by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in 2021, marking clear that unfettered surveillance, violates people's rights to privacy and to free expression and requiring the establishment of robust safeguards against abuse.

The Global State of Democracy 2019

                 This post is the summary of the book published with the incomplete title above in November 2019 at https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/the-global-state-of-democracy-2019.pdf

                    Democracy is ill and its promise needs revival. While the idea of democracy continues to mobilize people around the world, the practice of existing democracies has disappointed and disillusioned many citizens and democracy advocates. Democratic erosion is occurring in different settings and contexts. New democracies are often weak and fragile. Older democracies are struggling to guarantee equitable and sustainable economic and social development. The rise of populist politics is linked to a variety of context-specific factors, but some common drivers include a disenchantment with traditional political actors; the perceived inability of political systems to address core societal and economic problems; and a clash between expectations of what democracy should provide. Populists tap into citizen discontent about rising inequalities, corruption, increasing mass migration, unemployment, and increased digitalization and its impact on labour markets. At the same time, a number of large countries with political and economic clout seem immune to democracy. These political regimes not only persist as non-democracies (e.g. China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia), but have also begun to export their model of governance. Despite this gloomy picture, there are also reasons for optimism. Democratic transitions continue to occur in regimes that seemed staunchly undemocratic or stuck in the hybrid grey zone between democracy and non-democracy. Examples include: Gambia, Ethiopia, Armenia and Malaysia. Popular demands for democratic reforms backed by intense social mobilization have been witnessed across the world in places such as Algeria, Hong Kong, Russia and Sudan. New democracies such as Timor-Leste and Tunisia have also consolidated their democratic gains. The data shows that democracies are more likely to create the conditions for sustainable development. Levels of gender equality are higher in democracies, access to political power is more equal, and there is less corruption. The world needs more and better democracy, to revive the democratic promise. A total of 10 countries are currently experiencing democratic backsliding. The most severe cases are Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Turkey. Venezuela represents the most severe democratic backsliding case in the past four decades. Latin America is the third-most democratic region in the world, after North America and Europe, with all but three countries classified as democracies. Democracies in the region have proven resilient. Latin America has a heterogenous democratic landscape. The best performing aspects of Latin American democracy compared to the rest of the world are Electoral Participation and Freedom of Religion. Latin America and the Caribbean ((LAC) is the region  with most advances in political gender equality in the past decades. Together with Europe, the region has the highest representation of women in parliament, averaging 27% which is above the world average of 24%. Cuba is the only country in the region not to have undergone a democratic transition since 1975 and to have persisted as a non-democratic regime for the past four decades. Political parties in LAC are suffering from a crisis of representation. This crisis derives from their difficulty in adapting to societal transformation and increasing expectations of a population deceived by lack of delivery in reducing corruption and inequalities. In order to continue to advance democratically, LAC need to tackle the societal problems they face, reduce corruption and reinvigorate their political party systems. While the large majority of countries in the region have undergone democratic transition and consolidation in the past decades, two countries stand out from that pattern. Nicaragua and Venezuela are among ten countries in the world that have suffered from severe democratic backsliding. Brazil, while still performing in the high range on representative government, had the highest number of subattribute declines in the region between 2013 and 2018. Bolsonaro's election has been seen as a protest against traditional parties and their perceived inability to stave off corruption, reduce social inequalities, reduce crime and violence, and revive an ailing economy. As in other regions in the world, social media is contributing to a profound change in electoral dynamics. Information and communication tech now play an important role as political tools across the political spectrum, and the dissemination of political messages through social media has been a frequent feature in recent elections. In LAC, the current election cycle reveals increasing levels of political polarization, as well as the depth of frustation with political elites and the 'old style of politics'. These developments suggest that the deeper malaise appears to be with politics as it is practised, rather than with the idea of democracy itself. Recent elections of presidential candidates often described by the media as anti-establishment, including Andrés Lopez Labrador in Mexico and Bolsonaro in Brazil, have largely been driven by a sense of civic anger, often directed at corrupt elites, along with a quest to find a political redeemer. However, it is unclear if the region's newly elected leaders will be able to combat its continuing high levels of corruption or whether they will go down the same path as their predecessors who failed in this task. The judiciary is generally perceived as one of the most problematic branches of the state in LAC and remain weak in many countries. Weak judicial capacity affects the ability of countries to adequately combat corruption, crime and violence. Despite democratic advances, levels of corruption remain high in a number of countries in LAC. This constitutes a serious impediment to strengthening the quality of democracy in the region. After the Middle East and Africa, LAC has the largest share of democracies with high levels of corruption. Efforts to fight corruption in the region have often faced resistance from those with political power. This resistance stems from the fact that corruption in a number of countries is deeply embedded within the political structure. Corruption can undermine democracy as high levels of corruption have been shown to reduce citizens trust in democracy. Public funding of political parties, although constructive, has not been the panacea many had expected. In addition, laws regarding limits on campaign have been difficult to impose. The role of illicit funding sources remains a critical problem, particularly at the local level. In Colombia, for instance, about one-third of the legislators in the congress in  were allegedly linked to paramilitary squads. Similar to other regions, LAC has also seen a recent increase in violence against journalists and activists fighting to protect human rights. Along with the concentration of news media, studies have detected large numbers of 'news deserts'  or towns without local news coverage. In Brazil, more than half of all municipalities have no local news outlets. 64 million Brazilians are deprived of adequate news coverage, and therefore impoverished in terms of the quality of democratic debate. The political empowerment of the middle classes is crucial for democracy. Middle classes have demanding effective solutions to the societal challenges affecting the region. Access to justice is the aspect on which LAC performs the poorest compared to the rest of the world. It is urgent to strength the capacity, autonomy, accountability and transparency of the judiciary. Only two countries, Jamaica e Uruguay, have high levels of judicial independence. LAC is the region in the world with the largest share of countries with both high levels of representative government and high levels of corruption. The fight against corruption requires strong political will, intolerance of impunity and a political impartial and integrated approach. Promoting a culture of integrity must become a core priority for all level of government. This requires the input of multiple state institutions at all levels, as well as the private sector and civil society. Their strategies must combine efforts to identify and minimize corruption risks, prevent and sanction corruption, improve technical capacity to investigate and reward integrity. Modernizing the state and strengthening the capacity of a merit-based civil service and public administration and the implementation of open and transparency strategies are also key to the fight against corruption.