In order for civil space issues to be formally captured within the G20 platform, it must be part of the C20 Working Group – the functionary of civil society. The C20 Civic Space Sub-Working Group Policy Brief is just one piece of an effort for collective action from civil society organizations and individuals from around the world. The global phenomenon of shrinking civil space (SCS) alerts the Government of Twenty (G20) to take immediate action to #ProtectandExpandCivicSpace.
The G20
Must Stand
Expand Civic Space!
INTRODUCTION
What's more, civic space has also been a valuable component used in many democracy monitoring indices: it serves as a trajectory in which independent countries reveal their development orientation. However, a number of reports show that civil space has experienced major retreat at the global level during the pandemic times to date. Among the G20 member states alone, only Canada and Germany are classified as having open civic spaces according to the latest Government Monitoring Report by CIVICUS.
Seven member states are restricted (Argentina, Australia, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom), while the other four are in restricted civil space (Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and the United States of America). Three countries are suppressed (India, Mexico and Turkey) and the remaining two countries are in closed civil space conditions (China and Saudi Arabia). Furthermore, shrinking civic space (SCS) is the term used to depict the declining situation of the previous democratic components necessary to enable citizen control.
What does seem to be evident in some countries, however, are the tendencies to overlook meaningful participation in both the policy-making process and the implementation process. Regarding these issues, the 2022 C20 Civic Space Sub-Working Group draws attention to the following challenges, opportunities and recommendations for G20 leaders to address.
Repression Towards Peaceful Expressions, Critical Speech, and Freedom of Assembly
CHALLENGES
Even in a country with a better civil space landscape like Germany, police authorities reportedly attacked and arrested demonstrators following a series of protests against the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Such repression also intrudes into personal privacy: in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, for example, the local government carried out raids against sexual minorities on the basis of sexual disorientation.
Anti-NGO Laws and Barriers
Similar patterns also exist in the regions of Africa and South America, where civil society organizations are strictly mandated to routinely report all their activities due to the enactment of anti-NGO laws ( Romo & Rivas, 2016 ). A different kind of barrier was introduced by the host country of the G20 2022, Indonesia, as the Civil Organizational Law of 2017 recognizes extrajudicial disassembly for any civil society group that the authority determined was not in line with the national ideology. Similar approaches against the right to assembly appeared in China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, where a number of faith-based communities were prevented from carrying out their organizational activities as a result of the state's deradicalization approach (Aarup, 2021). .
Repetitive Attacks, Threats and
Judicial Harassments Against Civil Society Actors
In Brazil, for example, filed 37 lawsuits by local judges and prosecutors after local HRDs uncovered possible corruption cases related to salary increases for judges and court officials (Lowery, 2022). Apart from state actors, common motives for judicial harassment of human resources in most Third World countries were linked to corporate capture, which was often orchestrated by some financially leveraged business actors. In the Southeast Asia region alone, the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (2020) finds an 84% increase in legal harassment cases in 2019, and from this particular analysis, an increase of 294 cases was found, along with an average annual increase of 48% since 2015 , bringing the total to 857 cases over the last 5 years.
Haris Azhar, executive director of Lokataru, together with KontraS coordinator Fatia Maulidiyanti, head of advocacy and adviser for the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute Nelson Simamora, and lawyer Pieter Eli wore masks with an X as a symbol to silence democracy after gave them an invitation to mediate over alleged audience. slander.
Internet Shutdowns, Restriction to Information Access, and Digital Privacy Violation
In developing countries such as Indonesia, India and many others, the right to privacy is often countered by doxing attacks involving some anonymous social media accounts that favor the ruling side. Such threats and attacks are often experienced by figures and groups critical of the elite – more often than not HRDs or those defending the interests of vulnerable groups. These threats and attacks include, but are not limited to smearing individuals and groups with blackmail campaigns or creating hostile opinions against those who oppose the status quo.
Tokenistic Model of Citizen Participation
Amid massive popular outcry in 2020, the Indonesian government passed the controversial Employment Law, which includes a revision of a total of 79 laws, without adequate public consultation. A similar pattern was previously observed after the government and parliament hurriedly amended the anti-corruption law in 2019, weakening the country's fight against corruption and resulting in days of civil unrest in Jakarta and many other cities. This inadequate public participation not only degraded the most essential principles of good governance, but also turned the policy-making process into a completely exclusive domain of political elites.
Such participation should be provided at all levels of policy-making from the design, implementation and monitoring phases (OHCHR, 2020). A worse case scenario for this trend would be vertical conflict between grassroots and elites, which occurred in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and many other countries. The way things stand may have been driven by rent-seeking motives, where trade-offs of civil liberties are sacrificed in the name of short-term economic growth.
However, such a perspective is archaic and shows a very narrow understanding of how development should be perceived, because sacrificing freedom means limiting the idea of growth itself.
Marginalization and
Discrimination of Vulnerable Groups
Maximize Use of Digital Technology to Enable Citizen Participation
OPPORTUNITIES
Utilize Soft-Law Instruments to Enhance Corporate Compliance in Business and Human Rights Standards
This provides the idea that the role of HRDs and CSRs as a watchdog over corporate capture practices is actually in line with sustainable development goals, as opposed to what is often stigmatized as anti-development or anti-growth.
Emphasizing the Positive Correlation of Expanded Civic Space to Sustainable Development Goals
The 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will never be achieved without the proper protection of civic space and the full participation of civil society. When civic space is narrowed, development risks excluding voices and increasing social mistrust, which ultimately increases inequality and makes development less sustainable (ACT Alliance, 2019). As the concept and measurement of development is constantly challenged, G20 leaders can reap benefits from the ongoing debate by showing initiatives to measure and prove the connection and productive contribution from the expansion and protection of civic space.
Such political will to protect civil space was recently raised by G7 countries in the 2022 Resilient Democracy Statement, which deserves an appreciation from civil society. However, it is highly expected to see such commitments fulfilled by the G20 leaders, presented in their G20 final document this year, and maintained in the upcoming presidencies.
Youth Collective Action
Initiate Discussions over the Best Possible International Instrument to Promote
Expanded Civic Space in Multilateral Forum
It is believed that the current global emergence of the SCS represented an opportunity for the G20 leaders to take the initiative to a whole new level by starting a discussion on the best possible instrument to support the monitoring, implementation, protection of civic space and accountability for the violation of civic space at the global level. An international instrument must redefine the expansion of civic space as an integrated agenda of the UN's sustainable agenda until 2030. Such a specified instrument should commit member states to create legal frameworks that guarantee citizens the right to meaningful participation at all levels of dialogue; prohibit any hostile retaliation against civil society actors who exercise their rights to protect rights; as well as to introduce a mechanism and indicators for monitoring the civic space to be used by each country in order to expand civil liberties within its jurisdiction.
A rather similar initiative that can be observed at the regional level is the Escazú Agreement in South America, where 24 countries have signed the agreement. The final day of the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 1) to the Agreement included a high-level event celebrating the first anniversary of its entry into force and International Mother Earth Day. Moreover, unlike most soft law instruments that do not contain sanctions, political pressure from international communities to sign and comply with the new settlement could be a bargaining power to overcome the lack of political will to protect civil space , which is often the case. is the case among the countries of the South.
Most importantly, this idea should also be further discussed and consolidated by global civil society groups in the near future, to find the best ways to come up with proposals.
Revoke Legal Barriers & Enable
Public Funding to CSOs for Better Collaboration
RECOMMENDATIONS
Protect and expand civic space
Put an end to attacks, criminalization, stigmatization of civil society actors
Build and strengthen partnership with civil society actors in public policy development and decision making
Retrieved June 26, 2022, from https://civicus.org/state-of-civil-society-report-2021/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CIVICUS-State-of-Civil-Society-Report-ENG - REVIEW.pdf. Retrieved June 26, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/oxfam-says-its-work-in-india-is-imperilled-by-ban-on-foreign-funding. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.economist.com/international the-pandemic- has-accelerated-a-global-decline-in-the-rule-of-law.
UN experts are backing calls to halt pipeline construction in North Dakota, citing rights abuses against protesters. 8 shocking facts about threats to human rights worldwide and the people fighting to defend them. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://civitates-eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Mapping-shrinking-civic-space-in-Europe-final.pdf.
Retrieved 26 June 2022 from https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2020/09/right-participation-matters-more-ever-un-secretary-general. WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK MEMBERS OF THE C20 CIVIC SPACE SUB-WORKING GROUP FOR THEIR ACTIVE CONTRIBUTION TO THE POLICY ASSIGNMENT.
Protect andExpand
