Following a swell of racial justice protests that have taken to the streets, politically charged bills are being introduced across the United States which give immunity to drivers who injure protestors.

In this article, Tamara Teebi explains the complex challenges facing women’s organizations and activists in Palestine. Women human rights defenders and women-led civil society organizations are subjected to harassment, restrictions, and violations, both online and offline, that limit their right to the freedom of peaceful assembly and association. This systematic repression makes their work difficult and excludes women from public life.

Dr. Taqi Al-Majali interviewed activists and experts on the rights of persons with disabilities about whether laws in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region protect people with disabilities and support their civil rights.

This guide, created by Lifeline, is meant to support activists, civil society organizations, and social movements who want to explore tactics and strategies to respond to smear campaigns or negative stereotypes by creating new, positive narratives to counter them.

In April 2022, ICNL LLC held a workshop to familiarize civil society organizations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially in the southern region of Jordan, with FATF and the importance of complying with Recommendation 8.

Localization—giving local partners more control and ownership of development initiatives—is a priority for the international development community. Local civil society organizations (CSOs) that can lead, design, and implement effective projects are indispensable to this agenda. This, in turn, is predicated on the existence of an enabling environment for civil society.

In an article in Cornell Law Review, ICNL’s Nick Robinson and Elly Page argue for more robust constitutional protection for civil disobedience at demonstrations. 

In January and February 2022, ICNL worked with NRGI, PWYP, Oxfam USA, and the Institute of Development Studies to convene a diverse group of partners from civil society, academia, and multilateral institutions to explore strategies and approaches for promoting natural resource governance (NRG) and expanding civic space in politically hostile environments. The meetings focused on rethinking goals and approaches to advancing NRG in restricted environments, addressing new strategies and approaches to defending and expanding civic space for NRG activists, and implications for just energy transitions.

Written by ICNL consultant Meghna Sharma, this briefer examines how authoritarian COVID-19 policies in the Indo-Pacific region have affected civil society’s freedom of expression in Asia. Drawing from the ICNL-ECNL Covid-19 Civic Freedoms Tracker, the briefer examines various repressive measures, including censorship of speech through criminalization measures, harassment in the name of targeting ‘fake news,’ cyber-attacks, and other methods used to suppress the free expression of civil society actors.

Authored by ICNL consultant Kirana Anjani, this briefer dives deep into the challenges faced by civil society in Southeast Asia as a result of authoritarian COVID-19 policies adopted by many governments in the region, to the detriment of civic space and effective COVID-19 response. Drawing from data in the ICNL-ECNL Covid-19 Civic Freedoms Tracker, the briefer examines examples of rampant digital surveillance by governments, lack of transparency and access with respect to critical public health information, and attacks on both community COVID-19 initiatives and medical frontline workers.