Advice on Promoting More Effective Investigations into Abuses against Journalists

Authored by Nadim Houry, Executive Director of the Arab Reform Initiative, human rights lawyer and member of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, the report has been endorsed by the High Level Panel, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, as well as, Ambassador Stephen J. Rapp, Senior Fellow at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Centre for Prevention of Genocide and at Oxford University’s Centre for Ethics, Law & Armed Conflict, Chair of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) and former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, Association of European Journalists, Centre for Freedom of the Media, University of Sheffield, Commonwealth Journalists Association, Committee to Protect Journalists, David Kaye, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression (2014-2020), Federica D’Alessandra, Executive Director Oxford Programme on International Peace and Security at the Blavatnik School of Government's Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict, and also holds an appointment with the Oxford Bonavero Institute for Human Rights. Co-Chair of the International Bar Association Human Rights Law Committee, Justice for Journalists, Media Legal Defence Initiative, Patrick Penninckx, Head of the Information Society Department of the Council of Europe and Reporters Without Borders.

The report concludes with three major recommendations to the signatories to the Global Pledge on Media Freedom, and other key governments, to strengthen investigations into attacks on journalists, address the issue of impunity and progress towards accountability, including the creation of a standing international Investigative Task Force.

The High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom is an independent body that was convened by the Chair Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury at the request of the UK and Canadian governments. The High Level Panel comprises a diverse group of leading lawyers from around the world, including the Deputy Chair, Amal Clooney and the IBAHRI Director, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC.

The event was organised by the Secretariat to the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, as part of the International Bar Association's Virtually Together Conference.