Report on The Use of Targeted Sanctions to Protect Journalists

Abuses of media freedom around the world are stifling speech and shredding the very fabric of democracies. As the publisher of The New York Times has observed, over the last few years, ‘a growing number of governments have engaged in overt, sometimes violent’ efforts to discredit the work of journalists and ‘intimidate them into silence’.1 Similarly, the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has observed that ‘an unfree media is spreading … from countries that are leading by bad example’.2 2. This grim conclusion is supported by data. Annual reports on democracy record that ‘media freedom has been deteriorating around the world over the past decade’ in ‘open societies and authoritarian states alike’.3 Of all the indicators that go into defining a liberal democracy, freedom of expression and the media are ‘the areas under the most severe attack by governments around the world’,4 through censorship of the media5 as well as ‘more nuanced efforts to throttle’ an independent press.6 3. The threats faced by journalists and the media today are varied as well as extensive.

These include: (i) extra-judicial killings; (ii) torture and other cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment; (iii) abductions and physical abuse; (iv) unfounded arrest, unfair trial and arbitrary detention; (v) other forms of persecution, including through the enforcement of excessive libel laws, the filing of frivolous lawsuits or financial investigations, threats and online harassment, surveillance and ‘doxing’ of sources; and (vi) systemic restrictions on the media, including limitations on licensing, accreditation and financing as well as shutdowns of entire media outlets and internet communications. Such measures have led to a ‘worldwide assault on journalists’, an ‘assault on the public’s right to know, on core democratic values’ and, ultimately, on ‘the concept of truth itself’.7 4. In the last two years alone, over 130 journalists and media workers have been killed.8 India and Brazil, two of the world’s largest democracies, have some of the highest murder rates of journalists.9 In approximately one out of four murders, the prime suspects have been government or military officials.10 And the vast majority of these murders have gone unpunished.11 In addition, 165 journalists reporting on armed conflict were killed in the last decade while reporting from war zones.12 5. Journalists are also frequently silenced through false charges, unfair trials and lengthy prison terms. In 2019, over 250 journalists around the world were in prison ‘for their work’, including an increasing number for allegedly spreading ‘false news’.13 6. Targeted sanctions are an international tool that can be used to respond to human rights violations by freezing individuals’ assets and banning their entry into certain countries. They can be imposed unilaterally by governments, or by a small group of governments acting together. And they target individuals or corporate entities rather than entire states. 7. Targeted sanctions can be deployed in response to a range of conduct, including terrorism and corruption as well as violations of human rights. And their targets can range from governmental officials to police, prosecutors and judges; from high-ranking ministers to lower level henchmen; from private businessmen to multinational companies complicit in human rights violations. The idea is that ‘[i]f all advanced democracies, with desired banks, schools and hospitals, adopted [human rights-based sanctions] laws and pooled information and target lists, the pleasures available to the cruel and the corrupt would be considerably diminished. They will not be put in prison, but they will not be able to spend their profits as and where they wish, nor travel the world with impunity. They may then come to recognize that violating human rights is a game not worth the candle’.14 8. Sanctions help to shine a spotlight on misconduct and signal a state’s disapproval of it.15 They constitute a form of accountability.16 And they help to maintain pressure on the responsible actors, to deter them from continuing their abusive behaviour and discouraging third parties from doing the same.17 At a time when multilateral efforts to enforce human rights through the United Nations Security Council and international criminal courts are in decline, targeted sanctions can be one of the few ways, or in some cases the only way, to enforce international norms.

The report recommends that laws relating to targeted sanctions for violations of international human rights norms should be drafted, interpreted and applied in a manner that is broad enough to encompass the principal ways in which media freedom is being abused. In addition, it recommends that multilateral organizations, including the European Union (EU), and the governments of key jurisdictions worldwide, including those that have become banking centres and playgrounds for potential sanctions targets, should consider adopting targeted human rights sanctions regimes.

This report focuses on recommendations to governments regarding the design and use of a system of targeted sanctions to protect journalists and freedom of the press, as well as other human rights.

The author of this report is also grateful to members of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, including Judge Manuel Cepeda, Mr. Irwin Cotler and Baroness Françoise Tulkens, for their helpful comments on the topic of this report, as well as to Samarth Patel and Katharina Lewis for their excellent research assistance. The author also thanks the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute for acting as the secretariat for the Panel’s work, and in particular Baroness Helena Kennedy, Perri Lyons and Zara Iqbal for their support.

The author would also like to express particular thanks to Professor Sarah Cleveland, who provided expert analysis and detailed comments on an earlier Report on the Use of Targeted Sanctions to Protect Journalists 15 draft of this report, and to Peter Lichtenbaum, Daniel Feldman, Lisa Peets and their colleagues Alex Ely, Hannah Edmonds-Camara, Doron Hindin, Sam Karson, Katharine Kinchlea, and Elena Postnikova at Covington & Burling LLP for the substantial research assistance and expertise provided during the preparation of this report.

Barrister Amal Clooney is Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, UK.