The Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity

A/RES/74/157No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 70bHuman rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, published in 2020.

What other versions does this mandate have?

8 versions · 2014–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/217

2025A/RES/80/217The safety of journalists and the issue of impunityLatestCompare with previous version
2023A/RES/78/215The safety of journalists and the issue of impunityCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/76/173The safety of journalists and the issue of impunityCompare with previous version
2020A/RES/74/157The safety of journalists and the issue of impunityCompare with previous version
2018A/RES/72/175The safety of journalists and the issue of impunityCompare 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?

3 topics

Freedom of the Press Impunity Journalists

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2021.

2021A/76/285Safety of journalists and the issue of impunity report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

22 operative paragraphs

Condemns unequivocally all attacks and violence against journalists and media workers, such as torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and arbitrary detention, expulsion, intimidation, threats and online and offline harassment, 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 and violence, including online and offline sexual harassment, intimidation and incitement to hatred against women journalists, and calls upon States to tackle these issues as part of broader efforts to promote and protect the human rights of women, eliminate gender inequality and tackle gender-based stereotypes in society;

Strongly condemns the prevailing impunity for attacks and violence against journalists, and expresses concern that the vast majority of these crimes go unpunished, which in turn contributes to the recurrence of these crimes;

Calls upon States to develop and implement effectively legal frameworks and measures for the protection of journalists and media workers and for combating impunity, taking into consideration the gender dimensions thereof, including, where appropriate, through the creation and strengthening of special investigative units or independent commissions, the appointment of a specialized prosecutor and the adoption of specific protocols and methods of investigation and prosecution;

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

Calls upon all States to pay attention to the safety of journalists covering events in which persons are exercising their rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, taking into account their specific role, exposure and vulnerability;

Encourages States 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;

Requests the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in consultation with relevant entities of the United Nations system, and mindful of the provisions of the annex to Economic and Social Council resolution 1980/67 of 25 July 1980, to continue to facilitate the implementation of the International Day in collaboration with Governments and relevant stakeholders;

Urges Member States to do their utmost to prevent violence, threats and attacks targeting journalists and media workers, to ensure accountability through the conduct of impartial, speedy, thorough, independent and effective investigations into all alleged violence, threats and attacks against journalists and media workers, including sexual and gender-based violence against women journalists and media workers in armed conflict and non-conflict situations, 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 political leaders, public officials and/or authorities to refrain from denigrating, intimidating or threatening the media, including individual journalists and media workers, specifically women, which thereby undermines trust in the credibility of journalists as well as respect for the importance of independent journalism;

Calls upon States 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, taking into account the gender dimensions thereof, inter alia, by means of (a) legislative measures; (b) supporting the judiciary in considering training and awareness-raising and supporting training and awareness-raising among law enforcement officers and military personnel, as well as among journalists and civil society, regarding international human rights and international humanitarian law obligations and commitments relating to the safety of journalists, including with a strong focus on combating sexual and gender-based discrimination, and violence against women journalists, as well as the particularities of online threats and harassment of women journalists; (c) regular monitoring and reporting of attacks against journalists; (d) collecting and analysing concrete quantitative and qualitative data on online and offline attacks or violence against journalists, that are disaggregated by, among other factors, sex; (e) publicly and systematically condemning online and offline attacks, harassment and violence against journalists and media workers; (f) dedicating the resources necessary to investigate and prosecute such attacks and to develop and implement gender-sensitive strategies for combating impunity for attacks and violence against journalists, including by using, where appropriate, good practices such as those identified in Human Rights Council resolution 33/2;9 and (g) putting in place safe gender-sensitive preventive measures and investigative procedures, in order to encourage women journalists to report online and offline attacks against them and provide adequate support, including psychosocial support, to victims and survivors;

Condemns unequivocally measures taken by States in violation of international human rights law aiming to or that intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or the dissemination of information online and offline, aiming to undermine the work of journalists in informing the public, including measures to unduly restrict, 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;

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;

Emphasizes that, in the digital age, encryption and anonymity tools have become vital for many journalists to freely exercise 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 calls upon States not to interfere with the use of such technologies and to ensure that any restrictions thereon comply with States’ obligations under international human rights law;

Also 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, together with protective equipment;

Stresses the need to ensure better cooperation and coordination at the international and regional levels, including through technical assistance and capacity-building, with regard to helping to improve the safety of journalists at the national and local levels;

Calls upon States to cooperate with relevant United Nations entities, in particular the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as well as international and regional human rights mechanisms, including the relevant special procedures of the Human Rights Council, and 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;

Encourages the Secretary-General to further intensify his efforts regarding the safety of journalists and media workers, and invites the agencies, organizations, funds and programmes of the United Nations system to actively exchange information and enhance cooperation, including through the network of focal points, as well as accelerate gender mainstreaming in the implementation of the United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, in cooperation with Member States and under the overall coordination of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization;

Recognizes the important contribution of the promotion and protection of the safety of journalists in the realization of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals,14 in particular target 16.10, and calls upon States to strengthen national collection of disaggregated data, 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 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization;

Requests the Secretary-General to further assist in the implementation of the present resolution and to report to the General Assembly at its seventy-sixth session and to the Human Rights Council at its forty-ninth session on the safety of journalists, with a special focus on the activities of the network of focal points in addressing the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity and taking into account the United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity and the follow-up thereto.

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Who created this mandate?

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What does this mandate say?

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