The closing and resilience of civic space from a human rights perspective: Scope, causes, responses

Abstract

The individual and collective action of human rights defenders and civil society has been facing structural pressure and attacks in the last fifteen years. These attacks play out in three dimensions: in deliberate anti-civil society laws and policies, in discourse offline and online and in practical room for maneuver. These tendencies, which manifest to different extents in more authoritarian and democratic states, strike at the heart of core human rights such as freedoms of expression, assembly, and association and more broadly participation rights. It also affects transnational civil society and international human rights institutions. In reaction, civil society in many places has started to develop new tools and tactics and to build new networks to defend, shift and at times enlarge civic space. This chapter will, from a human rights perspective, delve into both the closing of civic space and the opportunities for its resilience.