3619 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "Online intermediaries and digital media should implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and conduct due diligence to ensure that their products, policies and practices, including in the areas of collection of private data and microtargeting of messages, do not interfere with human rights."
- "Digital actors should, as relevant, be transparent about the use and any practical impact of any automated tools they use, albeit not necessarily the specific coding by which those tools operate, including inasmuch as those tools affect data harvesting, targeted advertising, and the sharing, ranking and/or removal of content, especially election-related content."
- "States are under a positive obligation to create a general enabling environment for seeking, receiving and imparting information and ideas (freedom of expression), including through the following measures: (…) v. ensuring that defamation laws are exclusively civil rather than criminal in nature and do not provide for excessive damages awards."
- "States also have a positive obligations to protect media freedom, including through the following measures: (...) vii. guaranteeing the right to protect confidential sources of information, including through protection of source-identifying material such as notes and professional archives in different ways, including through the encryption of communications."
- "States are under a positive obligation to provide protection to journalists and others who are at risk of being attacked for exercising their right to freedom of expression, to launch effective investigations when such attacks do occur, so that those responsible may be held accountable, and to offer effective remedies to victims."
- "States should refrain from adopting unnecessary and/or disproportionate laws criminalising or imposing harsher penalties on online expression than its offline equivalent."
- "Restrictions on freedom of expression which rely on notions such as “national security”, the “fight against terrorism”, “extremism” or “incitement to hatred” should be defined clearly and narrowly and be subject to judicial oversight, so as to limit the discretion of officials when applying those rules and to respect the standards set out in sub-paragraph (a), while inherently vague notions, such as “information security” and “cultural security”, should not be used as a basis for restricting freedom of expression."
- "Politicians and public officials should refrain from taking actions which undermine the independence of the media, such as interfering politically in the operations of or taking commercial control over regulatory bodies or commercial, community or public service media, or putting pressure on online platforms to engage in content regulation."
- "States should put in place effective systems to ensure transparency, fairness and nondiscrimination in access by the media to State resources, including public advertising."
- "Media outlets and online platforms, as (often) powerful corporate actors, should take seriously their responsibility to respect human rights."
- "Media outlets and online platforms should enhance their professionalism and social responsibility, including potentially by adopting codes of conduct and fact-checking systems, and putting in place self-regulatory systems or participating in any existing systems, to enforce them."
- "Online platforms should, beyond the minimum legal requirements, operate as transparently as possible, in particular by giving users the tools they need to identify the creators of content and understand its prioritisation (or lack thereof) on their platforms."
- "The Committee reaffirms that a person’s status as a person with a disability or the existence of an impairment (including a physical or sensory impairment) must never be grounds for denying legal capacity or any of the rights provided for in article 12. All practices that in purpose or effect violate article 12 must be abolished in order to ensure that full legal capacity is restored to persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others."
- "States parties must refrain from denying persons with disabilities their legal capacity and must, rather, provide persons with disabilities access to the support necessary to enable them to make decisions that have legal effect."
- "In its concluding observations on States parties’ initial reports, in relation to article 12, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has repeatedly stated that States parties must “review the laws allowing for guardianship and trusteeship, and take action to develop laws and policies to replace regimes of substitute decision-making by supported decision-making, which respects the person’s autonomy, will and preferences”."
- "In order to fully realize the equal recognition of legal capacity in all aspects of life, it is important to recognize the legal capacity of persons with disabilities in public and political life (art. 29). This means that a person’s decision-making ability cannot be a justification for any exclusion of persons with disabilities from exercising their political rights, including the right to vote, the right to stand for election and the right to serve as a member of a jury."
- "The Committee further recommends that States parties guarantee the right of persons with disabilities to stand for election, to hold office effectively and to perform all public functions at all levels of government, with reasonable accommodation and support, where desired, in the exercise of their legal capacity."
- "Internet-based technologies play an increasing role in the exercise of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. The Internet can be used for forms of online activism related to assemblies, and such activities warrant protection. The Internet and social media may also legitimately serve as a means of facilitating assemblies."
- "States have a positive duty to facilitate and protect the exercise of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. This duty should be reflected in the legislative framework and relevant law enforcement regulations and practices. It includes a duty to facilitate assemblies at the organizer’s preferred location and within ‘sight and sound’ of the intended audience. The duty to protect also involves the protection of assembly organizers and participants from third party individuals or groups who seek to undermine their right to freedom of peaceful assembly."
- "Counter-demonstrations shall be facilitated so that they occur within ‘sight and sound’ of their target unless this does not physically interfere with the other assembly and does not give rise to a risk of imminent violence that cannot be mitigated or prevented."
- "All reasonable and appropriate measures should be taken to ensure that spontaneous and non-notified assemblies are facilitated and protected in the same way as assemblies that are planned in advance. "
- "A notification regime should never be turned into a de facto authorization procedure. The procedure for providing advance notification to public authorities should not be onerous or overly bureaucratic."
- "Any restrictions imposed on assemblies must have a formal basis in law and be based on one or more of the legitimate grounds prescribed by relevant international and regional human rights instruments: national security, public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals, and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."
- "Any restrictions on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, whether set out in law or applied in practice, must be both necessary in a democratic society to achieve a legitimate aim, and proportionate to such an aim. The least intrusive means of achieving a legitimate aim should always be given preference."
- "Law enforcement agencies should adopt a human rights-based approach to all aspects of the planning, preparation and policing of assemblies. This means they take into consideration their duty to facilitate and protect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly."
- "Force should only be applied to the minimum extent necessary, following to the principles of restraint, proportionality, minimization of damage and the preservation of life."
- "Any abuse of powers and violations of the law by state officials, including instances of use of disproportionate force or unlawful dispersal of assemblies, should lead to prompt and independent investigations."
- "The right to freedom of assembly, in principle, also includes the right to choose the date and time of the assembly."
- "People also have the right, in principle, to choose the location or route of an assembly in publicly accessible places. The location or route may include, but need not be limited to, public parks, squares, streets, roads, avenues, sidewalks, pavement, footpaths, and open areas near public buildings and facilities."
- "Legislation and state policies should therefore ensure that the Internet can be used to prepare and organize assemblies and especially to use social media as a medium to mobilize and organize assemblies that later take place offline."
- "Access to the Internet and social media should not be blocked before or during assemblies. Since the planning and organization of an assembly is likewise covered by the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, websites and other electronic tools used to advertise and inform about an assembly shall not be restricted or blocked; any attempts to do so would usually constitute a violation of this right."
- "Given the state’s duty to facilitate assemblies, and its general public order mandate, the authorities may not levy charges on assembly organizers for providing relevant services, including adequate and appropriate policing, medical services or health and safety provisions, such as street cleaning."
- "Those seeking to exercise the right to freedom of peaceful assembly should have recourse to a prompt and effective remedy against decisions disproportionately, arbitrarily or illegally restricting or prohibiting assemblies."
- "Prohibiting an assembly should be a measure of last resort and should only be considered when a less restrictive response would not achieve the purpose pursued by the authorities in safeguarding other relevant rights and freedoms, and public order."
- "States should ensure accessibility and provision of reasonable accommodation."
- "Full exercise of the right must be the norm; the right may only be restricted where the test for the implementation of restrictions under international law is met, namely that the restrictions in question are provided for by law, serve a legitimate interests recognised by international human rights law, and are a necessary and proportionate means of protecting that interest."
- "The peacefulness of an assembly must be presumed, and the term “peaceful” must be interpreted broadly and exclude only acts of widespread and serious violence that cannot be isolated from the assembly."
- "Force must not be used unless strictly unavoidable, and where employed must be limited in accordance with the requirements imposed by international human rights law, including international norms and standards on the use of force."
- "Crisis situations, including public health emergencies, must not be used as a pretext for rights infringements and the imposition of undue restrictions on public freedoms. In particular, blanket bans of assemblies are likely to constitute an unnecessary and disproportionate infringement of the right, even in emergency situations."
- "Individuals must be free to participate in shaping decisions that will effect them and in policy formation during times of crisis as at other times; public participation is crucial to surmount any crisis, and civil society must be regarded as an essential partner of governments in this endeavor."
- "States have a positive obligation to promote the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. This requires States not merely to refrain from interfering with assemblies, but also to take positive steps to enable individuals to express their views, including through protecting assemblies from attacks by third parties and by otherwise facilitating the ability for the right to freedom of assembly to be exercised."
- "To the extent the law suggests that assembly organizers provide the authorities prior notification, the purpose of that notification should be to enable the State to put in place necessary arrangements to facilitate the exercise of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to protect participants, public order, public safety and the rights and freedoms of others."
- "In accordance with their role providing access to information and ensuring public accountability, media access to and ability to provide coverage of assemblies must be assured."
- "States must refrain from using information and communication technology to intimidate, harass or otherwise deter individuals from exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly, including through the spreading of disinformation, targeted harassment, mass surveillance, and the generalized use of facial recognition technology."
- "An assembly should not be banned or dispersed merely on the basis that it temporarily interferes with commercial activities or the free flow of traffic."
- "States must ensure that assembly participants are able, to the extent possible in light of other legitimate concerns recognized by international human rights law, to conduct their assemblies within “sight and sound” of their target audience."
- "The right to freedom of peaceful assembly also applies to online spaces and the use of information and communications technology. States must refrain from restricting access to the Internet, specific websites or telecommunication networks for the purpose of preventing peaceful assemblies."
- "Participants in assemblies must have clear and effective avenues to bring legal action against authorities where their right to freedom of peaceful assembly is infringed, including in cases involving the illegitimate banning or imposing of restrictions on assemblies; violence or retaliations against assembly participants, their family members, journalists or observers; mass surveillance; harassment; and public defamation and smear campaigns."
- "Providing support, whether of a financial or regulatory nature, for media outlets or media content, for example in certain formats or languages, that serve the information and voice needs of different individuals and groups."
- "Generally putting in place a legal and regulatory framework that promotes the rights of different individuals and groups to access and use media and digital technologies to disseminate their own content as well as to receive relevant content produced by others."