A Feminist Future for the UN: Why the Next Secretary-General Must Champion Civil Society

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Opinion

Jesselina Rana is the UN Advisor at CIVICUS’s New York office. Mandeep S. Tiwana is Interim Co-Secretary General of CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance.

NEW YORK, May 5 2025 (IPS) – Climate change is threatening to engulf small island states such as Maldives and the Marshall Islands. Gender apartheid is still practiced in theocratic states such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. War crimes and genocide are taking place in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Sudan.

Hunger looms large in the Congo and Yemen. People continue to be arbitrarily imprisoned in places as far apart as El-Salvador and Eritrea. Russia continues to violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity while China and the United States look the other way despite being permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Even a casual observer can concede that the UN’s mission to maintain peace and security, protect human rights and promote social progress along-with respect for international law is in crisis.

As the United Nations approaches its 80th anniversary this October, a pivotal question looms: Who should lead it into its next era? Surely, in a world impacted by multiple intersecting crises, the answer cannot be business as usual. After nearly eight decades, nine Secretary-Generals, and zero leaders from civil society—let alone a woman—the time for a transformative shift is now.

A movement is underway to demand a visionary Secretary-General who embodies feminist, principled, and courageous leadership. We need a world leader who will boldly stand up for human rights and ensure the inclusion of voices that have for too long been pushed to the margins, even as the UN faces questions about its financial sustainability.

Members of the Sub-commission on the Status of Women, from Lebanon, Poland, Denmark, Dominican Republic and India, prepare for a press conference at Hunter College in New York on 14 May 1946. Credit: UN Photo

Notably, since its inception the UN has been presided over by men, which is less than representative of the global community that the UN serves. Appointing a woman as Secretary-General would not only break this historical pattern but signal a commitment to gender equality and inspire women and girls worldwide, demonstrating that the highest levels of international leadership are accessible to all, regardless of gender. 92 states have already expressed support for a woman Secretary General.

The current Secretary General, Antonio Guterres is due to step down at end of December 2026 upon completion of his second term. The UN Charter mandates the appointment of the head of the UN by the General Assembly following the recommendation of the Security Council. Essentially, 9 out of 15 members of the Security Council must agree on the final recommendation to the General Assembly which then makes a decision on the final candidate through a majority vote.

All permanent members of the UN Security Council have the right to veto any candidate before a recommendation is made to the UN General Assembly. A lot of behind the scenes political wrangling takes place at this stage to select a candidate who will be acceptable to powerful states that seek to exert control over the UN, which is why the 1 for 8 billion campaign are demanding a process that is fair, transparent, inclusive, feminist and rigorous.

It’s no secret that the UN’s overly bureaucratic approaches and the inclination of its leadership to play safe in the face of multiple intersecting crises, including glaring violations of the UN Charter by powerful states are pushing the institution from being ineffective to becoming irrelevant.

Although many within the UN lay the blame on powerful states for co-opting the institution to assert narrow national interests and for not paying their financial dues, the problems run much deeper.

Ironically, civil society actors who work with the UN to fulfill its mission are being sidelined. In last year’s negotiations on the UN’s Pact for the Future and in current Financing for Development conversations, civil society delegates have struggled to find space to have their voices adequately included.

Many of us in civil society who have supported the UN through decades in the common quest to create more peaceful, just, equal and sustainable societies are deeply concerned about the current state of affairs.

Civil society actors have been instrumental in shaping some of the UN’s signature achievements such as the Paris Agreement on climate, the universal Sustainable Development Goals and the landmark Treaty on Enforced Disappearances. But diplomats representing repressive regimes are increasingly seeking to limit civil society participation.

These tactics are not isolated acts. They represent a coordinated, global assault on civic space and democratic norms. They are also contributory factors to the erosion of public trust in multilateral bodies which is threatening the legitimacy of the UN itself.

Tellingly, the long-standing demand for the appointment of a civil society envoy at the UN to streamline civil society participation across the UN system and to drive the UN’s outreach to civil society beyond major UN hubs has gone unheeded by the UN’s leadership.

Over the last decade and a half, civil society organisations and activists have faced a relentless assault from authoritarian-populist governments. The situation is alarming: latest findings of the CIVICUS Monitor, a participatory research collaboration, affirm that over 70% of the global population now live under repressive civic space conditions.

Across continents, activists are being illegally surveilled, arbitrarily imprisoned, and physically attacked. The right to peaceful protest is being quashed even in democracies. In far too many countries, independent civil society organisations are being dismantled and prevented from accessing funding. Just in the last two months, countries as diverse as Peru and Slovakia have introduced repressive anti-NGO laws.

As civic space closes, major financial supporters —from the US and UK to several EU states—are slashing official development assistance, thereby depriving civil society of crucial resources to resist these restrictions. A recent CIVICUS survey confirms that frontline efforts in health, civic engagement, and human rights are among the hardest hit.

The next Secretary-General must meet the crisis head-on. They must make the defence of civic space a strategic imperative. That means speaking out against governments that silence dissent and ensuring safe and meaningful participation for civil society at all levels. An effective way to do this would be to report on the implementation of the 2020 UN guidance note on civic space and accelerate its mainstreaming across the UN’s agencies and offices around the world.

Civil society remains a resilient engine for global progress. From climate justice and anti-corruption work to feminist organising, civil society groups often lead where governments and multilateral institutions falter. The UN would be well served by a Secretary General who sees civil society less as an after-thought and more as a co-creator of global policy who embodies feminist leadership principles and who understands that multilateralism cannot function without grassroots engagement—that justice, sustainability, and peace are not top-down aspirations, but bottom-up imperatives.

IPS UN Bureau

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‘The International Response Should Follow the Principle of ‘Nothing about Us, Without Us’’

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May 1 2025 (IPS) – CIVICUS speaks with Ukrainian gender rights activist Maryna Rudenko about the gendered impacts of the war in Ukraine and the importance of including women in peacebuilding efforts.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has profoundly impacted on women and girls. Many have been displaced and are struggling with poverty and unemployment. Those who’ve stayed endure daily missile attacks, damaged infrastructure, lack of basic services and sexual violence from Russian forces if they live in occupied territories. Women activists, caregivers and journalists are particularly vulnerable. The international community must increase support to ensure justice for victims and women’s inclusion in peace efforts.

Maryna Rudenko

What have been the impacts of the war in Ukraine, particularly on women and girls?

The war began in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, with Indigenous women, particularly Crimean Tatars, immediately and severely affected. They risked losing their property and livelihoods, and to continue working they were forced to change their citizenship. Pro-Ukraine activists had to flee and those who stayed faced arrest. This placed a heavier burden on many women who were left in charge of their families.

At the same time in 2014, Russia began supporting separatist movements in eastern Ukraine, leading to the occupation of territories such as Donetsk and Luhansk and the displacement of over a million people. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, many lost their homes again. Nearly seven million fled to European countries. This population loss poses a significant demographic challenge to Ukraine’s post-war development.

Since 2015, conflict-related sexual violence has been a major issue. Around 342 cases have been documented. The International Criminal Court recognised that conflict-related sexual violence has been committed in the temporarily occupied territories since 2014.

Ukraine also experienced the largest campaign of child abduction in recent history: Russia took close to 20,000 Ukrainian children from occupied territories and sent then to ‘camps’ in Crimea or Russia, where the authorities changed their names and nationalities and gave them to Russian families. Ukrainian children were forced to change their national identity. This is evidence of genocidal approach in Russia’s war activities.

The war has also devastated infrastructure and the economy. In my town, 30 km from Kyiv, the heating station was hit by 11 ballistic missiles, leaving us without electricity or water for a long time. It was very scary to stay at the apartment with my daughter and know that Russian ballistic missiles were flying over our house. Roughly 40 per cent of the economy was destroyed in 2022 alone, causing job losses at a time when the government spends over half its budget on the military. Civilians, including a record 70,000 women, have taken up arms.

Beyond the immediate human cost, the war is causing serious environmental damage, with weapons and missile debris polluting soil and water beyond national borders. Russia’s occupation of Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, poses a very real risk of a nuclear disaster for Ukraine and Europe as a whole.

How have Ukrainian women’s organisations responded?

Starting in 2014, we focused on advocacy, championing United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1,325, which reaffirms the role of women in conflict prevention and resolution. The government adopted its National Action Plan on the implementation of the resolution in 2016. We formed local coalitions to implement this agenda, leading to reforms such as opening military roles to women, establishing policies to prevent sexual harassment, integrating gender equality in the training curriculum and gender mainstreaming as part of police reform.

Following the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian women’s civil society organisations (CSOs) shifted to providing immediate humanitarian relief, as survival became the top priority. Women’s CSOs began helping people, particularly those with disabilities, relocate to western Ukraine and providing direct aid to those who remained. As schools, hospitals and shelters for survivors of domestic violence were destroyed, women’s CSOs tried to fill the gap, providing food, hygiene packages and cash and improvising school lessons in metro tunnels.

People stood up and helped. In Kharkiv, which is located 30 km from the boarder with Russia, the local government created underground schools. It’s unbelievable that this happened in the 21st century and because of the aggression of a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Our children, women and men can’t sleep normally because every night there are missile and drone attacks.

In the second half of 2022, women’s CSOs and the government tried to refocus on long-term development. One of the first initiatives was to amend the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security to better address conflict-related sexual violence in both occupied and liberated areas. This was a much-needed response given the many reported cases of killing, rape and torture. This involved training law enforcement officers, prosecutors and other officials on how to document these crimes and properly communicate with survivors, who often blame themselves due to stigma surrounding the violence.

We have also reported Russia’s violations of the Geneva Conventions, particularly those concerning women, to UN human rights bodies.

Women’s groups are pushing for more donor support for psychological services to address trauma and helping plan for long-term recovery, aiming to rebuild damaged infrastructure and improve services to meet the needs of excluded groups. Some donors, like the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, have agreed to support the costs of mental recovery for women activists to help them restore their strength and support others.

How should women’s voices be integrated into recovery and peacebuilding efforts?

Women must have a real seat at the negotiation table. Genuine participation means not just counting the number of women involved but ensuring their voices are heard and their needs addressed. Unfortunately, the gender impacts of the war remain a secondary concern.

We have outlined at least 10 key areas where the gender impacts of the war should be discussed and prioritised in negotiations. However, it looks like these are being largely ignored in the current high-level negotiations between Russia and the USA. We heard that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the importance of returning Ukrainian children when he met with Donald Trump. It’s highly important for the mothers and fathers of these children and for all Ukrainians.

Women’s CSOs are working to ensure all survivors can access justice and fair reparations, and that nobody forgets and excuses the war crimes committed. We urgently need accountability; peace cannot be achieved at the expense of truth. This is particularly important because the Council of Europe’s Register of Damage for Ukraine only accepts testimonies of war crimes that happened after the 2022 invasion, leaving out many survivors from crimes committed since 2014. We are working to amend this rule.

The international response should follow the principle of ‘nothing about us, without us’. International partners should collaborate directly with women-led CSOs, using trauma-informed approaches. For women affected by combat, loss or abduction, recovery must start with psychological support, and civil society can play a vital role in this process.

The effective implementation of Resolution 1,325 also requires reconstruction funds that incorporate a gender perspective throughout. Ukrainian women’s CSOs prepared a statement to highlight the importance of analysing the war’s impact on the implementation of the UN’s Beijing Platform for Action on gender equality and we used this as common message during the recent meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Additionally, we believe it’s time to consider the successes and failures in implementation of Resolution 1,325 and its sister resolutions, because it’s 25 years since its adoption and the world is not safer.

We appreciate any platforms where we can speak about the experience of Ukraine and call for action to support Ukraine to help make a just and sustain peace in Europe and the world.

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SEE ALSO
Ukraine: ‘Civil society remains resilient and responsive, but financial constraints now hamper its efforts’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Mykhailo Savva 25.Feb.2025
Russia: Further tightening of restrictions on ‘undesirable’ organisations CIVICUS Monitor 30.Jul.2024
Russia and Ukraine: a tale of two civil societies CIVICUS Lens 24.Feb.2024

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The Disappeared: Mexico’s Industrial-Scale Human Rights Crisis

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Opinion

Credit: Raquel Cunha/Reuters via Gallo Images

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Apr 28 2025 (IPS) – They found shoes, hundreds of them, scattered across the dirt floor of an extermination camp in Jalisco state. These abandoned shoes, once belonging to someone’s child, parent or spouse, stand as silent witnesses to Mexico’s deepest national trauma. Alongside charred human remains and makeshift crematoria meant to erase all evidence of humanity, they tell the story of a crisis that has reached industrial-scale proportions.

In March, volunteer search groups uncovered this sprawling death camp operated by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Teuchitlán. The discovery wasn’t made by sophisticated government intelligence operations but by mothers, sisters and wives who’ve transformed their personal grief into relentless collective action. For them, the alternative to searching is unthinkable.

Mexico is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe of staggering proportions. Over 121,000 people have disappeared over the past decades, with 90 per cent of cases occurring since 2006, when then President Felipe Calderón militarised the fight against drug cartels. Add to this the estimated 52,000 unidentified human remains held in morgues across the country and the true scale of this national tragedy begins to unfold.

A web of complicity

What makes Mexico’s crisis particularly sinister is the systematic collusion between arms of the state and organised crime. The Jalisco camp’s proximity to federal security installations raises troubling questions about official complicity and active participation in a system that treats some populations as expendable.

The crisis follows a well-established pattern. In states such as Jalisco and Tamaulipas, criminal organisations collaborate with local authorities to enforce territorial control. They use violence to recruit forced labour, eliminate opposition and instil terror in communities that might otherwise resist. Security forces are often implicated, as seen in the 2014 disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College, where investigations revealed that military personnel witnessed the attack perpetrated by a criminal organisation but failed to intervene.

Young people and women from poorer backgrounds bear the brunt of this horror. In Jalisco, a third of missing people are between 15 and 29 years old. Women and girls are systematically targeted, with disappearances often linked to human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Ciudad Juárez has become notorious for femicides, with over 2,500 women and girls disappeared and murdered since the 1990s. Migrants transiting through Mexico are vulnerable to abduction for extortion or forced recruitment, as seen in the 2010 San Fernando massacre, when 72 migrants were executed for refusing to work for a criminal group.

Mothers turned activists

Faced with government inaction or complicity, civil society has stepped in. Human rights organisations document disappearances, support victims’ families and demand accountability, including by organising public demonstrations, collaborating with international bodies and bringing cases before international courts. But the most remarkable response comes from grassroots collectives formed by families of the disappeared. Throughout Mexico, hundreds of groups such as Guerreras Buscadoras, predominantly led by women – mothers, wives and sisters of the disappeared – conduct search operations, comb remote areas for clandestine graves, perform exhumations and maintain secure databases to document findings.

Their courage comes at a terrible price. In May 2024, Teresa Magueyal was assassinated by armed men on motorcycles in Guanajuato state after spending three years searching for her son José Luis. She was the sixth mother of a disappeared person to be murdered in Guanajuato within a few months. Another mother, Norma Andrade, has survived two murder attempts. Despite knowing the risks, she and countless others continue their quest for truth and justice.

Years of pressure from civil society culminated in the 2017 General Law on Forced Disappearance, which formally recognised enforced disappearance in national legislation and established a National Search Commission. While a significant achievement, implementation has proven problematic, with inconsistent application across Mexico’s federal system, inadequate information systems, insufficient forensic capacity and minimal penalties for perpetrators.

Time for change

The discovery of the Jalisco extermination camp has generated unprecedented public outrage, sparking nationwide protests. President Claudia Sheinbaum has declared combating disappearances a national priority and announced several initiatives: strengthening the National Search Commission, reforming identity documentation, creating integrated forensic databases, implementing immediate search protocols, standardising criminal penalties, publishing transparent investigation statistics and enhancing victim support services.

For meaningful progress, Mexico must undertake comprehensive reforms that address the structural underpinnings of the crisis. Critical measures include demilitarising public security, strengthening independent prosecutors and forensic institutions, guaranteeing transparent investigations free from political interference and providing sustained support for victims’ families.

The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has announced the opening of an urgent procedure examining Mexico’s disappearance crisis – a step that could elevate these cases to the scrutiny of the UN General Assembly. International oversight is needed to ensure state compliance with human rights obligations.

This moment – with public outrage at its peak, presidential commitments on the table and international scrutiny intensifying – creates a potential inflection point for addressing this national trauma. If there was ever a time when conditions favoured substantive action, it’s now.

But whatever happens at the official level, one thing remains certain: Mexico’s mothers of the disappeared will continue their quest. They’ll keep searching abandoned buildings, digging in remote fields and marching in the streets carrying photos of their missing loved ones. They search not because they have hope, but because they have no choice. They search because the alternative is surrender to a system that would prefer they kept silent.

And so they continue, carrying their message to the disappeared and to a state that has failed them: ‘Until we find you, until we find the truth’.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Standing Firm: Civil Society at the Forefront of the Climate Resistance

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Opinion

Credit: Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

LONDON, Apr 15 2025 (IPS) – The recent US court case that ordered three Greenpeace organisations to pay damages of over US$660 million to an oil and gas company was a stunning blow against civil society’s efforts to stop runaway climate change and environmental degradation. The verdict, following a trial independent witnesses assessed to be grossly unfair, came in reaction to Indigenous-led anti-pipeline protests. It’s vital for any prospects of tackling the climate crisis that Greenpeace’s appeal succeeds, because without civil society pressure, there’s simply no hope of governments and corporations taking the action required.

Civil society is more used to winning climate and environmental court cases than losing them. As CIVICUS’s 2025 State of Civil Society Report outlines, litigation has become a vital part of civil society’s strategy. Just last year, a group of Swiss women won a groundbreaking precedent in the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled the government was violating their rights by failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions. South Korea’s Constitutional Court found that the lack of emissions reduction targets breached young people’s constitutional rights. Other positive judgments came in countries including Ecuador, India and Italy. At the last count, climate lawsuits had been filed in 55 countries.

But fossil fuel companies have noticed civil society’s litigation successes and are also taking to the courts. They have the deep pockets needed to hire expensive lawyers and sustain legal actions over many draining years. Fossil fuel companies have filed over 150 lawsuits intended to silence criticism in the USA alone since 2012.

Protest restrictions

Civil society is doing all it can to demand climate action that matches the scale of the crisis, winning victories by combining tactics such as street protest, non-violent direct action and litigation, but it’s coming under attack. Peaceful protesters are being jailed and activists are facing violence in many countries. Alongside the chilling effect on protests of lawsuits such as the one against Greenpeace, governments in several countries are criminalising legitimate forms of protest. Globally, climate activists and defenders of environmental, land and Indigenous rights are among the groups most targeted for repression.

Security force violence and mass arrests and detentions, particularly of protesters, are in danger of becoming normalised. Last year in the Netherlands, authorities detained thousands for taking part in mass roadblock protests demanding the government keep its promise of ending fossil fuel subsidies. In France, police used violence at a protest against road construction in June and banned another in August. In Australia, activists opposing a huge coal terminal and a gas project were among those arrested in 2024.

In Uganda, campaigners against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline continue to face state repression. Last year, authorities arbitrarily arrested 11 activists from the campaign. These activists have faced intimidation and pressure to stop their activism.

Campaigners from Cambodia’s Mother Nature group paid a heavy price for their work in trying to stand up to powerful economic and political interests seeking to exploit the environment. Last July, 10 young activists were given long jail sentences after documenting river pollution.

Some states, like the UK, have rewritten protest laws to expand the range of offences, increase sentences and strengthen police powers. Last July, five Just Stop Oil activists were handed brutally long sentences of up to five years for planning a roadblock protest. The UK now arrests environmental protesters at three times the global average rate.

Italy’s right-wing government is introducing new restrictions. Last year, parliament passed a law on what it calls ‘eco-vandals’ in response to high-profile awareness-raising stunts at monuments and cultural sites. Another repressive law is being introduced that will allow sentences of up to two years for roadblock protests.

The struggle continues

Yet civil society will keep striving for action, which is more urgent than ever. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and it was crammed with extreme weather events, made more likely and frequent by climate change. Far too little is being done.

Fossil fuel companies continue their deadly trade. Global north governments, historically the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, are watering down plans as right-wing politicians gain sway. International commitments such as the Paris Agreement show ambition on paper, but not enough is achieved when states come together at summits such as last December’s COP29 climate conference.

There’s a huge funding gap between what’s needed to enable countries to transition to low-carbon economies and adapt to climate change. Global south countries want the most powerful economies, which have benefited from the industries that have caused the bulk of climate change, to pay their share. But of an estimated annual US$1.3 trillion needed, the most global north states agreed to at COP29 was US$3 billion a year.

Nor are fossil fuel companies paying their share. Over the past five decades the oil and gas sector has made profits averaging US$2.8 billion a day. Yet companies are currently scaling back renewable energy investments and planning still more extraction, while using their deep pockets to lobby against measures to rein them in. Making the global tax rules fairer and more effective would help too: US$492 billion a year could be recovered by closing offshore tax loopholes, while taxes on the excessive wealth of the super-rich could unlock US$2.1 trillion a year, more than enough to tackle the climate crisis.

Civil society will keep pushing, because every fraction of a degree in temperature rises matters to millions. Change is not only necessary, but possible. For example, following extensive civil society advocacy, last September the UK shut down its last coal-fired power station.

Civil society played a major role in campaigning for the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which requires large companies to align with the Paris Agreement. And last December, the International Court of Justice began hearing a case brought by a group of Pacific Island states, seeking an advisory opinion on what states are required to do to address climate change and help countries suffering its worst impacts. This landmark case originated with civil society, when student groups urged national leaders to take the issue to the court.

Trump’s return to the White House has made the road ahead much rockier. The world’s biggest historical emitter and largest current fossil fuel extractor has again given notice of its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, torn up renewable energy policies and made it easier to drill for fossil fuels. In response, other high-emitting nations must step up and show genuine climate leadership. They should start by committing to respecting the right of civil society to hold them to account. States and companies must cease their attacks on climate and environmental activists and instead partner with them to respond to the climate emergency.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org.

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Digital Democracy at a Crossroads. Key Takeaways from RigthsCon2025

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Opinion

RIO DE JANEIRO / ABUJA, Apr 7 2025 (IPS) – In an increasingly digital world, democratic practices are evolving to encompass new forms of participation. Digital democracy – the use of technology to enhance civic action, movement building and access to information – has become a crucial force in shaping local and global political landscapes.

As digital spaces become central to public discourse, civil society’s work is crucial to ensure these spaces remain accessible, open, participatory and resistant to disinformation, censorship and repression.

RightsCon 2025, recently held in Taiwan, offered an opportunity to discuss the current challenges and opportunities at the intersection of tech and human rights.

The digital democracy dilemma

Internet access has expanded among excluded communities, providing new opportunities for civic action and organising for historically excluded communities. But at the same time there’s increasing use of digital surveillance, censorship and algorithmic manipulation by governments and companies with the aim of suppressing dissent and controlling public discourse.

In 2023, the last year for which full data is available, internet penetration in low-income countries grew by three per cent, but this came alongside a record decline in global electoral integrity, with state-backed disinformation campaigns influencing elections in at least 30 countries. This means there’s an urgent need for policies that both enhance digital inclusion and safeguard civic freedoms from technological threats, particularly given that AI use is growing.

Civil society is calling for a global regulatory framework that ensures tech is beneficial for all, while facing the challenge of tech-facilitated attacks on civic freedoms. At the same time, civil society resourcing is shrinking and stigmatising narratives from authoritarian governments spread by tech are on the rise. Meanwhile – as CIVICUS’s 2025 State of Civil Society Report outlines – big-tech corporations focus on protecting their political and profit agendas. This makes spaces for convening and deliberation like RightsCon more vital than ever.

What next?

A global framework is crucial to ensure technology serves the public good and contributes to a more inclusive and equitable society. As digital technologies become deeply embedded in every aspect of governance and civic space, as well as cultural and belief systems, the risks of fragmented digital policies and regulations grow, leading to inconsistent mechanisms for protection and unequal access across regions. This fragmentation can significantly increase exposure to disinformation, exploitation and surveillance, particularly for traditionally excluded and vulnerable groups.

The Global Digital Compact (GDC) agreed at last year’s UN Summit of the Future represents the kind of comprehensive, multilateral framework civil society should advocate for. By fostering global cooperation, the GDC aims to establish shared principles for digital governance that prioritise human rights, democratic values and inclusive access to digital tools.

Through international bodies and cross-sector collaborations – such as those held at RightsCon – civil society can contribute towards shaping this framework, ensuring that civil society, governments and the private sector, including tech companies, work together to create a cohesive and accountable approach to digital governance.

Challenges and opportunities

Follow-up to the GDC must address a wide range of challenges, including digital access and inclusion. The existing digital ecosystem hinders equitable participation in democratic processes and efforts to realise human rights. There’s a need to close digital divides through targeted investments in education, digital skills and infrastructure, ensuring that everyone, regardless of geography or socioeconomic status, can access the tools needed to participate fully in shaping society. Civil society’s work here must be locally led, putting communities’ needs at the heart of advocacy and focusing on curating spaces for consultation and participation.

Another critical challenge is the intersection of government digitalisation and civic engagement. E-governance and online public services offer the potential for greater transparency, efficiency and participation, but they also introduce risks for privacy and security, reinforcing longstanding structural injustices such as racism and gender discrimination. Guidelines are needed to ensure transparency and accountability in digital governance while protecting the right to privacy. Polices need to enable the use of digital tools to fight and prevent corruption and ensure governments are held accountable.

And then there are the complex issues of AI governance. As AI technologies rapidly evolve, there come growing threats of algorithmic biases, a lack of transparency and the manipulation of public discourse and information ecosystems. Robust ethical standards for AI are needed that prioritise human rights and democratic values.

From the manipulation of public opinion, efforts to distort electoral outcomes and the generation of false narratives that can incite violence and social unrest, disinformation has many negative impacts on democracy. Evidence has repeatedly shown that in countries where politicians intensively use disinformation tactics, people’s trust in public institutions and democratic processes wanes and civic participation, a critical ingredient for democratic progress, falls. Conversations during RightsCon 2025 emphasised that civil society must engage with governments and regional and global institutions to help develop policies that regulate how information is managed in the digital age while working to improve media literacy and fact-checking initiatives.

The added value of civil society lies in its ability to act as a convener, broker and watchdog, and an advocate with and for traditionally excluded voices. Civil society is key in pushing for the inclusion of strong data protection laws, digital rights protections and regulations that curb the unchecked power of tech companies, where many grey areas for accountability remain underexplored. Working alongside governments and the private sector, civil society can lead the way in developing policies that safeguard democratic values, enhance accountability and ensure technology remains a tool for positive societal change. Through collective advocacy and partnership, civil society can drive a vision of a truly inclusive and ethical digital future.

Digital democracy and the challenges it faces aren’t national issues but global ones. Disinformation, cyberattacks and the erosion of digital rights transcend borders. More grounded international solidarity and cooperation is needed to create and enforce standards that protect online civic space and rights. The GDC must be supported and made more robust as a global framework for digital governance that upholds human rights, promotes transparency and ensures accountability.

Initiatives like the Digital Democracy Initiative should be championed in recognition of the unique role society plays in monitoring, analysing and challenging threats to digital democracy. It’s never been more crucial to enable and amplify civil society action in the face of global democratic decline amid an increasingly digital age.

Carolina Vega is Innovation Quality Management Lead at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. Chibuzor Nwabueze is Programme and Network Coordinator for CIVICUS’s Digital Democracy Initiative.

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‘Energy Transfer’s Lawsuit Against Greenpeace Is an Attempt to Drain Our Resources and Silence Dissent’

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Apr 4 2025 (IPS) –  

CIVICUS speaks with Daniel Simons, Senior Legal Counsel Strategic Defence for Greenpeace International, about the lawsuit brought by an oil and gas company against Greenpeace and its broader implications for civil society. Greenpeace is a global network of environmental organisations campaigning on issues such as climate change, disarmament, forests, organic farming and peace.

Daniel Simons

In March, a North Dakota jury ruled that Greenpeace in the USA and Greenpeace International should pay damages of over US$660 million to Energy Transfer, which filed lawsuits alleging that Greenpeace instigated resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017 and caused operational disruptions and financial losses. The protests were led by Indigenous communities, particularly the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and focused on water protection and tribal rights. Energy Transfer claims the pipeline was properly regulated and provides economic benefits. Civil society has condemned the legal action as a SLAPP – a strategic lawsuit against public participation – designed to silence criticism. Greenpeace is appealing.

What prompted Energy Transfer to take legal action against Greenpeace?

The route of the Dakota Access Pipeline crosses underneath the Missouri River a short distance from the reservation of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. In April 2016, tribal members set up prayer encampments to express their opposition to the construction. They worried that sites of cultural importance would be damaged, and that the pipeline might contaminate the river, the Tribe’s water source.

Energy Transfer took a number of provocative actions. It sued the Tribe’s chairperson and other participants in the Indigenous resistance, and not long after, bulldozed an area less than 24 hours after the Tribe had filed a declaration in court stating there were burial grounds and resources of cultural significance in the area. These events coincided with a huge growth in attention for and attendance at the camp.

Energy Transfer alleges that the Greenpeace defendants were somehow the masterminds, coming in and secretly organising everything that happened during the Standing Rock protests, and that this included trespassing, property damage and creating public nuisance. The company also accuses the Greenpeace defendants of defamation, complaining about nine statements in particular. Additionally, Energy Transfer claims Greenpeace’s actions delayed the refinancing of the pipeline’s construction loan, causing financial harm to the company.

What was Greenpeace’s actual involvement in the protests and its relationship with Indigenous communities?

Greenpeace – including Greenpeace Inc and Greenpeace Fund, both based in the USA, and Greenpeace International, a Dutch foundation – played only a limited role in the protests. Greenpeace Inc had some connections to the Indigenous communities at Standing Rock; as I understand it, the relationship was respectful but not extensive.

Greenpeace Inc supported the protests by funding five trainers from an independent Indigenous network to provide training on non-violent direct action for two weeks, conducting supply drives for the camps, providing short-term staff mainly to help with preparing the camp for winter and donating some lock boxes that protesters could use to form a human chain, although no evidence suggests they were ever used. It also published articles and co-signed two letters to banks containing the nine statements Energy Transfer now claims are defamatory. These statements had already been widely reported by media and United Nations bodies before Greenpeace’s involvement.

According to an Indigenous activist who testified in court, Greenpeace Inc was present but followed the lead of people on the ground. Its involvement was so minimal that most tribal nations at Standing Rock wouldn’t even have been aware of it. The activist described claims that Greenpeace controlled the resistance as ‘paternalistic’ and emphasised that many Indigenous leaders had the ability to run a complex movement and engage with media themselves.

Greenpeace International’s only relevant action was signing an open letter led by the Dutch civil society organisation BankTrack, alongside 500 other organisations. Meanwhile, Greenpeace Fund had no involvement in the Standing Rock resistance, yet Energy Transfer argues that sharing resources such as office space and contact details with Greenpeace Inc makes it liable.

How is Greenpeace defending itself and what impact has the lawsuit had on its operations?

We argue that Energy Transfer has greatly exaggerated our role in the protests and is attempting to recover costs that are all unrelated to our actions. There is just no evidence of any link between the Greenpeace defendants’ activities and the damages the company claims. And there is certainly no link to any act of violence or property damage.

Greenpeace International has also taken legal action in the Netherlands, using the new European Union anti-SLAPP directive for the first time to challenge what we view as an attempt to drain our resources and silence dissent. Defending ourselves has required significant financial and personnel resources. While Greenpeace has the capacity to fight back, there are concerns that such lawsuits could deter smaller or less experienced organisations from challenging the powerful US oil and gas industry – which appears to be one of the goals of this case.

What are the next steps in the legal proceedings and how do you see this case resolving?

While the jury has reached a verdict that decided the Greenpeace defendants must pay US$666 million for defamation and the other claims, the judge still needs to enter a final judgment. There are obvious issues with jury verdict and we are in the process of challenging those. Greenpeace Inc and Greenpeace Fund have already announced they will appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Greenpeace International is pursuing its case against Energy Transfer in the District Court of Amsterdam, with the first procedural hearing scheduled for 2 July.

The battle is far from over. Greenpeace is determined to defeat these claims and hold Energy Transfer accountable for filing repeated SLAPP suits. This fight extends beyond Greenpeace – it concerns the protection of freedom of expression. An attack on one is an attack on all, and we hope civil society will stand with us.

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SEE ALSO
Italy: ‘Authoritarian tendencies manifest themselves in efforts to control information and stifle dissent’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Ilaria Masinara 22.Jun.2024
Europe: ‘Members states must introduce national anti-SLAPP legislation to protect public watchdogs’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Francesca Borg Constanzi 21.Mar.2024
How SLAPPs undermine democracy: a case study of the USA CIVICUS 02.Jul.2018

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