International standards must keep pace with the erosion of civic space — INCLO’s input to General Comment 38

Thirteen INCLO member organizations made a joint submission to the UN Human Rights Committee to ensure that the General Comment has the necessary ambition to keep pace with the renewed attacks on civic space.

Issued by the UN Human Rights Committee, General Comments clarify what states are actually required to do to meet their obligations under international law. They matter because domestic courts and governments look to them as benchmarks. General Comment 38 will provide a global authoritative interpretation of the right to freedom of association under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — a foundational human rights treaty ratified by almost all countries in the world.

INCLO members welcomed the Human Rights Committee’s call for input and used the opportunity to push for stronger protections in several areas:

1. A wide-ranging definition of association that reflects how civil society social movements actually organize today
2. Stronger language on “foreign agent”-style laws, which are increasingly used to defund and delegitimize civil society organizations
3. Expanded provisions on surveillance technologies and their chilling effect on freedom of association
4. Recognition of a positive obligation on states to regulate private actors — including social media platforms — in the digital sphere
5. Clarity on state obligations to protect civil society from extraterritorial sanctions such as those targeting the ICC
6. Explicit protection against the misuse of counter-terrorism laws, and recognition of civil disobedience as a protected form of expression
7. A positive obligation on states to address SLAPPs — strategic lawsuits used to silence activists and journalists through legal harassment

The underlying concern across all of these recommendations is the same: that discriminatory restrictions, surveillance, and legal harassment are being applied under the guise of security — and that international standards must be robust enough to prevent it. INCLO members remain committed to international human rights fora as a space where those standards can be defended and strengthened.

Read our complete submission here.