Hypocrisy by powerful countries undermined the rules-based international order and repressions against human rights and climate activists stalled or reversed progress around the world, says the State of Civil Society Report by CIVICUS.
The annual report by the global civil society alliance assesses activism around the world in 2023 and analyses the year’s events from a civil society perspective. The report is based on over 250 interviews and articles published by CIVICUS covering over 100 countries and territories.
The report underlines that global governance failures are making it harder to promote human rights and resolve the world’s most devastating wars, global civil society alliance CIVICUS announced in a new report.
“Armies, rebels and militia around the world committed horrific human rights abuses in 2023 because they knew they could get away with it thanks to a flailing international system full of double standards,” said Mandeep Tiwana, CIVICUS Chief Officer of Evidence and Engagement. “Starting with the UN Security Council, we need global governance reform that puts people at the centre of decision making.”
War zones were not the only places where the powerful tried to silence civil society. The report shows that authoritarian governments repressed activists at major meetings from the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai to the G20 meeting in New Delhi. Even at the UN General Assembly and Sustainable Development Goals summit in New York, bureaucratic blockages resulted in exclusion of many civil society representatives from decision-making spaces.
Governments and big polluters have shifted their tactics from denying climate science to repressing climate activism. The growing oppression of climate activists in global north countries that are home to vibrant protest movements is particularly alarming. In the USA, police in Atlanta shot and killed activist “Tortuguita” who was resisting the planned destruction of a vital forest to make way for a police-training facility.
Despite the repression, climate activists scored significant wins in 2023 thanks to persistent and creative action from blocking roads to disrupting high-profile events. At COP28, intense civil society pressure throughout the year resulted in states acknowledging the need to cut fossil fuel emissions.
Legal action also emerged in 2023 as a successful front for climate action, with court victories in Belgium, Germany, and the US state of Montana, where young activists won a suit alleging government support of fossil fuels violated their right to a healthy environment.
“Throughout 2023, civil society offered workable, people-centered solutions to the world’s most pressing problems,” said Tiwana. “But time and again, global institutions and leaders preferred to sideline activists rather than work with them to achieve positive change. If humanity is to overcome today’s multiple overlapping crises, civil society must have a seat at the table.”
A severe backlash against decades of steady gains for feminist and LGBTQI+ movements in 2023 resulted in backsliding on gender rights all over the map, from Russia’s crackdown on LGBTQI+ activism, to a harsh new anti-gay law in Uganda, to anti-trans hysteria in the US, to the Taliban’s imposition of gender apartheid against women, to record levels of femicide in Latin America.
But gender activists across the world still found new ways to resist oppression. In Afghanistan and Iran, women activists circumvented restrictions by holding clandestine demonstrations and building international solidarity. Amid rising femicides, feminists from Italy to Kenya to Bulgaria led major protests demanding policy action to end to violence against women.
“Attacks on civil society were the norm in 2023, even from governments that claim allegiance to democratic values,” said Tiwana. “The prevalence of such abuses proves the international system desperately needs reform. We are facing an acute crisis of moral leadership on the international stage.”
