In 20 percent of national elections, at least one losing candidate or party rejects the result as global voter turnout falls 10 percentage points from 2008 to 2023.

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The credibility of elections is under threat globally as fewer people turn out to vote and results are increasingly contested. Almost one in three voters this year is casting a ballot in countries where election quality is worse than five years ago, according to a report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA).

• Globally, in almost 20 per cent of elections between 2020 and 2024, one of the losing candidates or parties rejected the results, and elections are being decided by court appeals at the same rate. In total, one in three elections was disputed in some way, from boycotts to legal challenges.
• The global average percentage of the voting age population who vote has declined from 65.2 per cent in 2008 to 55.5 per cent in 2023.
• Only one in four countries is making progress in democratic performance while four out of every nine are worse off.
• In 2023, the Credible Elections indicator was significantly lower in 39 countries (21 in Africa) than in 2018. Only 15 countries had higher scores than five years before.
• Declines have been most concentrated in Representation and Rights categories. Within Representation, the factors of Credible Elections and Effective Parliament have declined the most, while Economic Equality, Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press are the most negatively affected aspects of Rights.

‘This report is a call for action to protect democratic elections,’ said International IDEA’s Secretary-General, Kevin Casas-Zamora. ‘Elections remain the single best opportunity to end democratic backsliding and turn the tide in democracy’s favour. The success of democracy depends on many things, but it becomes utterly impossible if elections fail.’

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The Taliban’s discriminatory policies towards women, and their strict implementation, amounts to a deliberate attempt to erase women from public life, the NGO Afghan Witness (AW) finds in a report.

"These policies have resulted in the systematic exclusion of women from many public spaces in Afghanistan, including education, the work force, and even online. Most significantly, these policies have resulted in gender–based violence and femicide, an absolute erasure from female participation in Afghan life."

• Taliban policies have resulted in a reported 25% increase in the rate of child marriage, and a 45% increase in the rate of early childbearing, alongside associated negative inter-generational social and economic consequences.

• Reports monitored by AW between January 2022 and June 2024 found that at least 840 women and girls were the victims of gender-based violence, many at the hands of the Taliban. Of these women and girls, at least 332 were killed. These figures likely significantly understate the scale of gender-based violence in Afghanistan, as these issues often go unreported, further underscoring the erasure of women and girls from Afghan society.

• Since girls are banned from attending school beyond the sixth grade (ages 11-12), and women from pursuing higher education in, a reported 80% of school-aged girls and young women in Afghanistan do not have access to education. Afghanistan is the only country in the world to have banned girls’ education.

• Between 2020 and 2023, according to the World Bank, women’s labour force participation rate fell from 16% to 5%. Afghan women have been restricted in the types of government positions they are allowed to hold, being banned from working in the civil service, and have been prohibited from working for NGOs.

• In January 2024, the Taliban initiated a campaign to arrest women and girls for non-compliance with mandatory hijab rules. Dozens of women and girls were taken into Taliban custody, with many reporting degrading treatment, torture, and even rape. The arrests led to widespread fear among Afghan women and girls, and reports of families preventing women and girls from leaving their houses due to safety concerns, as well as social stigma surrounding women held in Taliban custody.

Despite increased restrictions on women’s rights, women’s protests remain active in Afghanistan. However, over the past three years, the number of outdoor protests sharply decreased, while ‘indoor protests’ in private spaces has risen, indicating that women are prioritising their safety amidst a wave of Taliban suppression and intimidation of protesters,

Afghan women have also established libraries, secret schools, and underground beauty salons. Moreover, those in exile have launched campaigns, protests, and newsrooms, giving a voice to those severely suppressed inside the country.

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The fossil fuel industry is attempting to codify criminal penalties for some forms of climate protest. Pressed by industry donors, [U.S.] Congress has been working to broaden preexisting laws against destroying pipelines—a felony mandating up to 20 years in prison—with more expansive language extending such penalties to people who “[impair] the operation of” pipelines. Indigenous and other environmental activists rightly fear that the whole range of pipeline protests—from sacred rituals to Willie Nelson concerts—could be effectively outlawed. Exxon Mobil, Koch, and other bad actors have been lobbying hard for this, even as peaceful pipeline protesters are already finding themselves facing stiff prison sentences.

[...]

In the United Kingdom, too, climate protesters are facing alarming crackdowns. Last month, five Just Stop Oil protesters who had nonviolently stopped traffic on a major roadway in southern England were sentenced to four years each, with the leader of the group receiving a five-year sentence.

[...]

[Similarly] some of those who protested on [U.S.} university campuses against the war in Gaza this past year were initially charged with felonies (thankfully most of those have been dropped). Students at George Washington University are facing orders to stay away from campus, which will vastly complicate their academic lives, and is, according to local experts, a dramatic departure from past prosecution of protest in the District of Columbia.

[...]

Other than the Anglo-American world, where else is protest criminalized to this extent? The answer isn’t pretty: China, Cuba, Bangladesh, Belarus, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, and other places with authoritarian regimes. These aren’t countries whose political culture most Americans would like to emulate.

But some elites clearly disagree. Just as Donald Trump and Elon Musk think it’s legitimate (and even funny) to talk about firing striking workers, billionaire snowflakes who profit from the climate crisis want to punish anyone who threatens their complacency, or their ability to ravage our planet unimpeded.

https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/08/anti-authoritarian-organizer-scot-nakagawa-participation-advantage-confronting-political-violence

For more than 40 years, Scot Nakagawa has served as an organizer, political strategist and social movement analyst in the struggle against authoritarianism. A movement veteran, Nakagawa got his start in in the U.S. in the late 1980s, where he worked on anti-racist and LGBTQ+ organizing, drawing not only parallels between the threats communities were facing but also the potential organizing solutions.

In this interview, he stresses the importance of learning from others when abroad who struggle in their fight for human rights and democracy, and that each non-violent movement become stronger as diversity increases.

We should be "promoting diversity within our movements, centering women’s leadership, and making movements not all about doom and gloom, " Nakagawa says.

People tend to go along with majorities. If we say the majority of people are becoming hateful, people tend to become more hateful, for instance. Spreading messages of hope can make people more hopeful. And hope is the cure to nihilism, and nihilism is the fuel of authoritarianism. So we need to be hopeful — and we need to be hopeful in ways that are concrete and not just about flowery language and lovely platitudes. We need to actually talk about what can be achieved.

The Russian government’s dismantling of civic freedoms since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is a dramatic escalation of its sustained assault on fundamental rights spanning more than a decade, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 205-page report, “Russia’s Legislative Minefield: Tripwires for Civil Society since 2020,” focuses on the wave of repressive legislation and policies that the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin has adopted since 2020 and how the Kremlin has used them to suppress internal dissent and incapacitate civil society. These laws severely restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and impose state-enforced historical, social, and political narratives in public life.

Penalties have stiffened over time and now include fines, imprisonment, and revocation of citizenship for naturalized citizens. By 2022-2023, amendments also excluded alleged “foreign agents” from many aspects of public life, including civil service and teaching, as the authorities sought to create, in the words of one activist, “a caste of untouchables.”

A series of amendments shredded what had remained of freedom of peaceful assembly, effectively making legitimate protest illegal, Human Rights Watch said.

Pakistan is once again engulfed in a summer of protests, facing significant social upheaval with ongoing anti-state demonstrations in many areas [...]

The state's response to the current unrest combines longstanding repressive tactics with new approaches [that seem to be] heavily influenced by its subservient and dependent relationship with Beijing. The Pakistani security agencies have adopted new repressive methods to suppress domestic dissent, especially in Balochistan and KPK, areas where Pakistan has upheld a quasi-imperial political structure since the mid-20th century [...]

Pakistan's tactics closely resemble China's longstanding approach to suppressing social unrest, political resistance, and minority groups. Beijing is a symbol of extending authoritarianism into the digital realm through mechanisms such as the 'Great Firewall' and the 'Great Digital Wall of China'.

The Chinese government has created one of the most restrictive media environments worldwide, implementing stringent censorship "to control information in the news, online, and on social media".

Additionally, it has established numerous concentration camps in Xinjiang for the ethno-religious Uyghur Muslim minority. These camps, termed "re-education camps" by the state, hold millions of Uyghurs.

The Chinese government also compels Uyghur women to marry Han Chinese men as part of its effort to suppress this ethnically and religiously distinct minority, which it views as a challenge to its homogenization agenda.

Similarly, cultural assimilation tactics have been employed against Tibetan Buddhists to integrate them into the dominant Han Chinese culture.

Drawing from China's methods to suppress minorities and stifle political dissent, Pakistan's military-dominated establishment [...] has recently sanctioned the creation of a national digital firewall.

This firewall, sourced from China, effectively grants the Pakistani state the authority to regulate social media platforms and restrict citizen access to crucial socio-political sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok [which] allows government agencies to trace individual IP addresses, which Pakistani officials label as primary sources of ongoing "anti-state propaganda" [...]

In addition to implementing a nationwide digital firewall, the Pakistani government has also pledged to regulate the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) within the country [...]

This scenario highlights how Pakistan is adopting the repressive tactics of the Chinese state, using them to target Baloch and Pashtun communities, and rendering their struggle invisible while continuing to suppress their calls for an end to ongoing state abuses.

Written by Kevin Sheives, Deputy Director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy, and Caitlin Dearing Scott, Director for Countering Foreign Authoritarian Influence at the International Republican Institute.

Beijing’s effort to undermine core democratic values and practices spans the globe and includes: a school in Tanzania where the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] trains members of African political parties; the muzzling of newspaper editors and journalists in Canada, South Africa, and Malaysia; secret pay-to-play deals for PRC-sponsored infrastructure and media projects in Ecuador, Sri Lanka, and the Solomon Islands; the manipulation of university life in Germany, New Zealand, and the United States to limit criticism of the CCP regime and push “positive” views of China; and the use of CCP-affiliated media concerns and business groups to support pro-Beijing political candidates in Australia, Taiwan, and the United States [...]

In this campaign [of the CCP], civil society and the broader nongovernmental sector has come under attack. To eliminate any opposition to CCP rule under Xi Jinping, the CCP has conducted a sustained assault on China’s own civil society. As the world saw in the A4 protest movement in November 2022, a single spark could ignite the underlying frustration that so many Chinese citizens face when denied their basic freedoms. At home, the CCP is bent on curbing social unrest by coopting or targeting civil society [...]

In South Asia, it financed an academic culture that lauded the Belt and Road Initiative and used fear of lost scholarships to make South Asian students in China avoid “controversial” topics. In Kenya, journalists have said that their reporting on a PRC-built railway brought their publications warnings of ad boycotts by PRC-based companies. And among Chinese dissidents abroad or even foreign citizens of Chinese heritage, Freedom House paints a picture of “the most sophisticated, global, and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression in the world.” [...]

In an era when public trust in government and other key institutions has declined, civil society can also speak locally and credibly. Civic organizations’ proximity to their constituents is a key component of their local legitimacy, which can make them effective at countering PRC narratives [...]

Advocacy and other civil society activities can also be particularly sensitive to the will of citizens. One Peruvian environmental-advocacy group exposed the negative impact of a PRC company on Amazonian and indigenous areas, activating Peruvian policymakers and even the PRC embassy to address these community vulnerabilities. In Ghana, a consortium of journalists, researchers, and activists exposed Chinese companies’ illegal mining activity. The revelations not only sparked new policy platforms for Ghanaian political parties, but the continued public pressure on Ghanaian law enforcement led to the prosecution of a Chinese national. A Sri Lankan media organization secured greater transparency and access to information for the public by holding public dialogues and conducting investigations of PRC infrastructure projects in the country [...]

The sprawling, full-spectrum influence and engagement campaign that the Chinese Communist party-state is waging around the world requires an equally comprehensive response from civil societies, governments, and economic actors that back democracy. Yet civil societies must not wait for governments to act. In this escalating contest of values across democratic societies, the CCP is clearly not waiting either.

Preview snippet:

"Across the world this week, authoritarian regimes predictably continue leveraging centralized technologies and top-down policies to tighten their grip on power. In Russia, Vladimir Putin pushes for harsh regulations on Bitcoin mining, citing fears of potential power outages. These measures would grant the regime unilateral control over where Bitcoin can be mined and who can mine it. While cracking down on access to an open network, he is simultaneously advocating for an expansion of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). This would inevitably grant his regime unprecedented control over individual financial transactions."

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First, and foremost, references to States’ obligations under international human rights law are not sufficiently robust nor consistently mainstreamed throughout the text. We call on Member States to ground all objectives set out in the document in international human rights law. This includes adding references to “international human rights law” while also maintaining the role of international human rights law as a body of international law. For example, we are concerned that paragraph 30(d) refers to “international law” and fails to recognize the need for States to refrain from the use of mass surveillance and ensure that targeted surveillance technologies are only used in compliance with international human rights law, including the principles of legality, legitimacy, necessity, and proportionality. This paragraph should also acknowledge the need for States to promote privacy-preserving and rights-respecting technologies, including end-to-end encryption, pseudonymity, and anonymity, which secure and protect the confidentiality and security of digital communications, in accordance with various UN resolutions (including the UN Human Rights Council resolution on the Right to privacy in the digital age A/HRC/RES/54/21 and the new General Assembly resolution on the Promotion and protection of human rights in the context of digital technologies A/RES/78/213). We further call on Member States to add references to “international humanitarian law” and “international refugee law” where relevant for the same reasons.

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Summary

The International Court of Justice has found that Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, violate international law. The Court determined that Israel’s actions, such as its settlement policy, acts of annexation, and discriminatory legislation and measures, constitute a breach of international law, including the prohibition on the use of force and the non-acquisition of territory by force. Israel’s presence in the territory is deemed unlawful, and the Court has called for an end to settlement activities, evacuation of settlers, reparations for damages caused, and non-recognition of the illegal situation by states and international organizations.

Key Insights

• The International Court of Justice has determined that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, violates international law.
• Israel’s settlement policy, acts of annexation, discriminatory legislation, and measures were found to be in breach of international law.
• The Court has called for an end to settlement activities, evacuation of settlers, reparations for damages, and non-recognition of the illegal situation.
• The General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations are tasked with considering further action to end Israel’s presence in the territory.
• The Court emphasizes the importance of achieving a just and lasting peace in the region for the benefit of all parties involved.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question

What actions were deemed unlawful by the International Court of Justice in the Occupied Palestinian Territory?

Answer

The Court found Israel’s settlement policy, acts of annexation, discriminatory legislation, and measures to be in violation of international law.

Question

What measures did the Court call for to address Israel’s presence in the territory?

Answer

The Court called for an end to settlement activities, evacuation of settlers, reparations for damages caused, and non-recognition of the illegal situation.

Question

Which international organizations are obligated not to recognize the illegal situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory? Answer All states and international organizations are obligated not to recognize the illegal situation in the territory.

Question

What role do the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations play in addressing Israel’s presence in the territory?

Answer

The General Assembly and Security Council are tasked with considering further action to end Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

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In a historic ruling the International Court of Justice has found multiple and serious international law violations by Israel towards Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including, for the first time, finding Israel responsible for apartheid. The court has placed responsibility with all states and the United Nations to end these violations of international law. The ruling should be yet another wake up call for the United States to end its egregious policy of defending Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and prompt a thorough reassessment in other countries as well.

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Decarbonization of the energy, transportation and industrial sectors by 2050 is a formidable challenge, and getting there will require significant use of nuclear power. But whether nuclear power figures into a country’s future energy mix or not, rigorous planning is needed to determine the clean energy composition that will work best depending on country-specific factors.

The publication, entitled ‘From Knowledge to Action: IAEA Toolkit for Sustainable Energy Planning’, was presented during a side event held on the margins of a meeting of the G20’s Energy Transitions Working Group in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

“All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated. The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis.”

• Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, as adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993

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50th anniversary of the Human Rights Covenants

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"More and more people are waking up to realize, we do not want private insurance companies to be in control of our healthcare system," said one advocate who attended the latest Sanders Institute Gathering.

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This is the Center’s eighth political typology since 1987, but it differs from earlier such studies in several important ways. It is the first typology conducted on Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel, which provides the benefit of a large sample size and the ability to include a wealth of other political data for the analysis, including the Center’s validated voter study.

The four Democratic-oriented typology groups highlight the party’s racial and ethnic diversity, as well as the unwieldy nature of the current Democratic coalition. (For complete descriptions of all nine typology groups see Chapters 3-11; for profiles of the Democratic and Republican coalitions see Chapters 1 and 2 of this report.)

They include two very different groups of liberal Democrats: Progressive Left and Establishment Liberals. Progressive Left, the only majority White, non-Hispanic group of Democrats, have very liberal views on virtually every issue and support far-reaching changes to address racial injustice and expand the social safety net. Establishment Liberals, while just as liberal in many ways as Progressive Left, are far less persuaded of the need for sweeping change.

Two other Democratic-aligned groups could not be more different from each other, both demographically and in their relationship to the party. Democratic Mainstays, the largest Democratic-oriented group, as well as the oldest on average, are unshakeable Democratic loyalists and have a moderate tilt on some issues. Outsider Left, the youngest typology group, voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden a year ago and are very liberal in most of their views, but they are deeply frustrated with the political system – including the Democratic Party and its leaders.

The four Republican-oriented groups include three groups of conservatives: Faith and Flag Conservatives are intensely conservative in all realms; they are far more likely than all other typology groups to say government policies should support religious values and that compromise in politics is just “selling out on what you believe in.” Committed Conservatives also express conservative views across the board, but with a somewhat softer edge, particularly on issues of immigration and America’s place in the world. Populist Right, who have less formal education than most other typology groups and are among the most likely to live in rural areas, are highly critical of both immigrants and major U.S. corporations.

Ambivalent Right, the youngest and least conservative GOP-aligned group, hold conservative views about the size of government, the economic system and issues of race and gender. But they are the only group on the political right in which majorities favor legal abortion and say marijuana should be legal for recreational and medical use. They are also distinct in their views about Donald Trump – while a majority voted for him in 2020, most say they would prefer he not continue to be a major political figure.

The only typology group without a clear partisan orientation – Stressed Sideliners – also is the group with the lowest level of political engagement. Stressed Sideliners, who make up 15% of the public but constituted just 10% of voters in 2020, have a mix of conservative and liberal views but are largely defined by their minimal interest in politics.

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Take our quiz to find out which one of our nine political typology groups is your best match, compared with a nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 U.S. adults by Pew Research Center. You may find some of these questions are difficult to answer. That’s OK. In those cases, pick the answer that comes closest to your view, even if it isn’t exactly right.

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Social Model of Disability

The social model of disability views the social, civic, political, and economic environments as the disabling entity, not an individual's impairment. A social model perspective does not deny the reality of impairment nor its impact on the individual. However, it does challenge the physical, attitudinal, communication and social environment to accommodate impairment as an expected incident of human diversity. The social model frames “disability” as the result of the interaction between people living with impairments and an environment filled with physical, attitudinal, communication and social barriers.

Disabled people are not “objects” of charity, medical treatment, and social protection but “subjects” with rights, capable of claiming those rights, able to make decisions for their own lives based on their free and informed consent and be active members of society. The emphasis is on the physical, attitudinal, communication and social environment to change to enable people living with impairments to participate in society on an equal basis with others.

In line with the social model, we use the term “disabled person” throughout this article. We acknowledge that the CRPD and some others use the term of people or persons with disabilities.

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Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company.

The benefits have flowed from Trump’s businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign’s top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee.