Getting from the global to the local: Norms and systems for protecting journalists in the times of the sustainable development goals

This article analyses the potential at country level to develop norms about monitoring, as well as creating practical monitoring mechanisms for systematically tracking threats against journalists. It is in the wake of progress in underlining international norms for protection of journalists, and a global consultation by UNESCO in 2017 on how to strengthen implementation of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity Impunity

Sample

norms of safety for journalists are built, persist and prevail, ... this serves as the ‘default’ value set against which the performance of many actors can (and should) be assessed, and divergence then be deemed as exceptional ... Safety is not only a cross-cutting but also a universal matter. In this regard, one can note how the range of attacks on journalists is escalating in all countries.

Main Findings

The evolution of global norms in relation to the safety of journalists has strengthened significantly at international level in recent years, and particularly within the SDGs. International institutionalisation to advance and implement these norms has also advanced in terms of material steps taken across a range of constituencies. An encouraging sign of progress at national level has been greater awareness and sensitivity to the issues of safety of journalists by states. One indicator of this has been the steady increase in responses by UNESCO Member States to the annual requests by the Organisation for information about judicial process following the killing of journalists. These

Policy recommendations/implications

A powerful entry point is monitoring as a means to produce systematic information in order to fuel normative advocacy and guide institution building. Media actors, civil society and academics have a large part to play in this – both as individual constituencies and by working together. Recognition and actions in favour of journalists’ safety by international private actors, especially among media and key Internet intermediaries, appears to be less developed, and given their role as conduits of journalism they still have much room to join in with increased normative and practical steps of their own