“The freedoms of peaceful assembly and association are not cultural or specific to a particular place or time. They are born from our common human heritage. It is human nature – and human necessity – that people come together to collectively pursue their interests.”
- Former UN Special Rapporteur, Maina Kiai
Assemblies — whether protests, parades, online meetings, or other forms of gatherings — are a core component of thriving pluralistic societies. The freedom to peacefully assemble is a fundamental right protected by international, regional, national, and local legal instruments.
ICNL and ECNL actively monitor restrictions on the freedom of assembly worldwide. We also offer resources and technical expertise on laws and regulations to enable the full enjoyment of this right.
People worldwide are coming together in unprecedented numbers to seek change through nonviolent demonstrations. However, many governments have met these protests with repression. This briefer provides an overview of threats to peaceful protest and shares tools to defend and advance this right.
Other Recent ICNL Work on the Right to Freedom of Assembly
This page collects ICNL’s extensive resources related to the right to freedom of peaceful assembly in the U.S, including our US Protest Law Tracker, our state terrorism laws database, and more.
ECNL built this library of resources to support efforts to develop international standards for freedom of assembly and to help organizations advocate more effectively. Includes UN and regional materials related to the right of peaceful assembly.
This resource is designed to provide easily accessible legal arguments for lawyers, activists, and judges to use to protect and promote association and peaceful assembly rights. Arguments are organized by theme and focus on common restrictions on FOAA rights around the world.
This seminal 2012 report from the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association outlines best practices for promoting and protecting freedom of assembly.
This 2016 joint report from the United Nations special rapporteurs on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions offer recommendations for managing assemblies to protect the rights of the people involved.
• ICNL’s Digital Legal Library: a collection of nearly 4,000 laws, reports, and other legal resources from more than 200 countries and territories, written in more than 60 languages.
In 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee issued General Comment No. 37, which provides comprehensive guidance on the right to peaceful assembly. ICNL and ECNL contributed to its development by providing legal expertise, organizing consultations with civil society, and coordinating their contributions. We also produced a short guide to the General Comment.
Explore our full resource collection, which includes reports, legal analysis, and curated collections of materials covering an array of issues impacting civic space around the world.
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