By Ines Pousadela, Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime hailed the recently agreed Cybercrime Convention as a ‘landmark step’ in cooperating to tackle online dangers. But human rights organisations aren’t so sure.
Ominously, the resolution that started the process, passed by the UN General Assembly in December 2019, was sponsored by authoritarian Russia and backed by some of the world’s most repressive states. Some of them already had cybercrime laws they use to stifle legitimate dissent. Many more have passed similar laws since.
When Russia’s resolution was put to a vote, the EU, USA and many other states, alongside human rights and digital rights organisations, urged states to reject it. But once the resolution passed, they had to engage with the process to try to prevent the worst possible outcome: a treaty lacking human rights safeguards that could be used as a repressive tool.
They succeeded in tempering some of the worst aspects of early drafts, but the results still leave much to be desired.
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