An 80-page report which focuses on the relentless attacks on journalists, ranging from online harassment to arbitrary detention and extra-judicial killings as well as the glaring decline of media freedom has been launched.
The publication titled Report on Use of Sanctions to Protect Journalists was written by Amal Clooney, Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts, and launched by the Secretariat to the High-Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, in collaboration with Chatham House.
It highlighted statistics from various press freedom groups and showed that more than 130 journalists and media workers were killed in the last two years, with 250 journalists around the world imprisoned ‘for their work’, including an increasing number for allegedly spreading ‘false news’ in 2019 .
The most publicized and cold-blooded example of what Ms. Clooney characterized, during the launch, as a “global gag on speech” was the case of Jamal Khashoggi, the U.S.-based Saudi journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia’s government who was killed after walking into the country’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 and which provoked worldwide outrage. She noted however that attacks on media freedom and credibility are not always as sensational.
An aspect of the report focused on the power of targeted penalties on individuals as a tool to enforce governments’ international human-rights obligations, including their responsibilities to respect free speech and to protect journalists.
While asserting that media freedom has been in decline for a decade, through systemic censorship, the report frontally blamed many governments for refusing to hold perpetrators of media attacks to account.
The report recommends that governments, including signatories to the Global Pledge on Media Freedom, adopt targeted sanctions regimes to ensure that journalists, media professionals and others engaged in journalistic activities can carry out their work without harassment, intimidation, false imprisonment or violent attack.
The report focuses on three sanctions-related issues in its analysis and recommendations that are most relevant in the context of the media and these include: the appropriate scope of human rights abuses that should trigger the imposition of sanctions (what should be included);the appropriate targets of a sanctions regime (who should be included); and the appropriate triggering mechanisms for a targeted human rights sanctions regime (how it should be activated).
It has been endorsed by the 15High Level Panel members on media freedom, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) (Secretariat to the Panel), the CPJ, Reporters without Borders, PEN America, as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, David Kaye.
The report which was launched on February 13, 2020 had Baroness Helena Kennedy QC Director, IBAHRI and Maria Ressa, Co-Founder and CEO, Rappler Online News Network, Philippines giving the opening remarks.
On the panel were Lord Neuberger, former President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom; Amal Clooney Barrister, Doughty Street Chambers and UK Special Envoy on Media Freedom; Professor Sarah Cleveland Louis Henkin, Professor of Human and Constitutional Rights, Faculty Co-Director of the Human Rights Institute, Columbia Law School; and The Honourable Irwin Cotler, Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Canada.
Segun Fatuase
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