The Safety of Journalists

A/HRC/RES/39/6No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 3Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2018.

What other versions does this mandate have?

6 versions · 2014–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/HRC/RES/59/15

2025A/HRC/RES/59/15The safety of journalistsLatestCompare with previous version
2022A/HRC/RES/51/9The safety of journalistsCompare with previous version
2020A/HRC/RES/45/18The safety of journalistsCompare with previous version
2018A/HRC/RES/39/6The safety of journalistsCompare with previous version
2016A/HRC/RES/33/2The safety of journalistsCompare with previous version

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

10 topics

Accountability Administration of Justice Crime Prevention Data Collection Digital Technology Freedom of the Press Gender Discrimination Human Rights Violations Journalists Right to Security of Person

What does this mandate say?

34 operative paragraphs

Condemns unequivocally all attacks and violence against journalists and media workers, such as torture, killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and arbitrary detention, expulsion, intimidation, threats and harassment, online and offline, including through attacks on or the forced closure of their offices and media outlets in both conflict and non-conflict situations;

Also condemns unequivocally the specific attacks on women journalists and media workers in relation to their work, such as gender-based discrimination, including sexual and gender-based violence, threats, intimidation and harassment, online and offline;

Strongly condemns the prevailing impunity for attacks and violence against journalists and expresses grave concern that the vast majority of these crimes go unpunished, which in turn contributes to the recurrence of these crimes, and calls upon States to develop and implement strategies for combating impunity for attacks and violence against journalists, including by using, where appropriate, good practices such as those identified during the panel discussion held by the Human Rights Council on 11 June 2014 and/or compiled in the report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights thereon, inter alia (a) the creation of special investigative units or independent commissions, (b) the appointment of a specialized prosecutor, and (c) the adoption of specific protocols and methods of investigation and prosecution;

Urges States to ensure accountability through the conduct of impartial, prompt, thorough, independent and effective investigations into all alleged violence, threats and attacks against journalists and media workers falling within their jurisdiction, to bring perpetrators, including those who command, conspire to commit, aid and abet or cover up such crimes to justice, and to ensure that victims and their families have access to appropriate remedies;

Urges the immediate and unconditional release of journalists and media workers who have been arbitrarily arrested or arbitrarily detained, taken hostage or who have become victims of enforced disappearance;

Condemns unequivocally measures in violation of international human rights law aiming to or that intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online and offline, which undermine the work of journalists in informing the public, including measures to unlawfully or arbitrarily block or take down media websites, such as denial of service attacks, and calls upon all States to cease and refrain from these measures, which cause irreparable harm to efforts at building inclusive and peaceful knowledge societies and democracies;

Expresses concern about the spread of disinformation and propaganda, including on the Internet, which can be designed and implemented so as to mislead, to violate human rights, including the right to privacy and to freedom of expression, and to incite violence, hatred, discrimination or hostility, and emphasizes the important contribution by journalists in countering this trend;

Urges political leaders, public officials and/or authorities to refrain from denigrating, intimidating or threatening the media, including individual journalists, and thereby undermining trust in the credibility of journalists as well as respect for the importance of independent journalism;

Urges States to do their utmost to prevent violence, intimidation, threats and attacks against journalists and media workers, including by:

Increasing and accelerating efforts to create and maintain, in law and in practice, a safe and enabling environment for journalists to perform their work independently and without undue interference;

Giving full support to and raising public awareness of the importance of an independent, plural and diverse media, online as well as offline;

Publicly, unequivocally and systematically condemning violence, intimidation, threats and attacks against journalists and media workers;

Establishing or enhancing information-gathering and monitoring mechanisms, such as databases, to permit the collecting, analysis and reporting of concrete quantitative and qualitative disaggregated data on threats, attacks or violence against journalists;

Establishing an early warning and rapid response mechanism to give journalists and media workers, when threatened, immediate access to authorities competent and adequately resourced to provide effective protective measures;

Supporting capacity-building, training and awareness-raising in the judiciary and among law enforcement officers and military and security personnel, as well as among media organizations, journalists and civil society, regarding States’ international human rights and international humanitarian law obligations and commitments relating to the safety of journalists;

Putting in place safe gender-sensitive preventive measures and investigative procedures in order to encourage women journalists to report offline and online attacks against them, and providing adequate support, including psychosocial support, to victims and survivors;

Ensuring better internal coordination and sharing of information, in particular within and between relevant ministries, law enforcement and the judiciary at the local and national levels;

Signing and ratifying the international and regional human rights instruments relevant to the safety of journalists;

Implementing more effectively the applicable legal framework for the protection of journalists and media workers, relevant resolutions adopted by United Nations bodies and regional intergovernmental organizations, as well as the recommendations made by the treaty bodies, the special procedures and in the context of the universal periodic review relating to the safety of journalists;

Integrating the safety of journalists and media freedom into national development frameworks under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

Also urges States to bring their laws, policies and practices fully into compliance with their obligations and commitments under international human rights law, and to review and where necessary repeal or amend them so that they do not limit the ability of journalists and media workers to perform their work independently and without undue interference;

Calls upon States to ensure that measures to combat terrorism and preserve national security or public order are in compliance with their obligations under international law and do not arbitrarily or unduly hinder the work and safety of journalists, including through arbitrary arrest or detention, or the threat thereof;

Also calls upon States to ensure that defamation and libel laws are not misused, in particular through excessive criminal sanctions, to illegitimately or arbitrarily censor journalists and interfere with their mission of informing the public, and where necessary to revise and repeal such laws, in compliance with States’ obligations under international human rights law;

Further calls upon States to protect in law and in practice the confidentiality of journalists’ sources, including whistle-blowers, in acknowledgement of the essential role of journalists and those who provide them with information in fostering government accountability and an inclusive and peaceful society, subject only to limited and clearly defined exceptions provided for in national legal frameworks, including judicial authorization, in compliance with States’ obligations under international human rights law;

Emphasizes that, in the digital age, encryption and anonymity tools have become vital for many journalists to exercise freely their work and their enjoyment of human rights, in particular their rights to freedom of expression and to privacy, including to secure their communications and to protect the confidentiality of their sources, and in this regard calls upon States to comply with their obligations under international human rights law and not to interfere with the use of such technologies, and to refrain from employing unlawful or arbitrary surveillance techniques, including through hacking;

Calls upon States to tackle gender-based discrimination, including sexual and gender-based violence, threats, intimidation, harassment and incitement to hatred against women journalists, online and offline, as part of broader efforts to promote and protect the human rights of women, eliminate gender inequality and tackle gender-based stereotypes in society;

Encourages States and all other relevant stakeholders to take the opportunity of the proclamation of 2 November as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists to raise awareness regarding the issue of the safety of journalists and to launch concrete initiatives in this regard;

Emphasizes the important role that media organizations can play in providing adequate safety, risk awareness, digital security and self-protection training and guidance to journalists and media workers, in particular for journalists on dangerous assignments, together with protective equipment and insurances, where necessary;

Recognizes the important contribution of the promotion and protection of the safety of journalists in the realization of target 16.10 of the Sustainable Development Goals, and calls upon States to strengthen national data collection, analysis and reporting on the number of verified cases of killing, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, torture and other harmful acts against journalists and associated media personnel, in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal indicator 16.10.1, and to do their utmost to make these data available to the relevant entities, in particular the Office of the High Commissioner and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization;

Stresses the need to ensure better cooperation and coordination at the international level, including through technical assistance and capacity-building, with regard to ensuring the safety of journalists, and encourages national, subregional, regional and international human rights mechanisms and bodies, including the relevant special procedures of the Human Rights Council, treaty bodies and national human rights institutions, in the framework of their mandates, to continue to address the relevant aspects of the safety of journalists in their work;

Invites United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, other international and regional organizations, Member States and all relevant stakeholders, when applicable and in the scope of their mandates, to cooperate further in promoting awareness of and implementing the United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, and to this end calls upon States to cooperate with relevant United Nations entities, in particular the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, relevant special procedures of the Human Rights Council and international and regional human rights mechanisms;

Invites States to share information on a voluntary basis on the status of investigations into attacks and violence against journalists, including in response to requests by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization through the mechanism operated by its International Programme for the Development of Communication;

Encourages States to continue to address the issue of the safety of journalists through the process of the universal periodic review;

Decides to continue its consideration of the safety of journalists in accordance with its programme of work.

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