These steps are encouraging and indicate welcome Western awareness of the repression that continues to define the political climate in today’s Belarus. Nevertheless, there is still a sense that not nearly enough is being done by the international community to challenge the impunity enjoyed by Lukashenka and members of his regime.

These concerns were amplified recently when the largest prisoner swap between the Kremlin and the West since the Cold War went ahead without featuring any Belarusian political prisoners. Lukashenka himself was closely involved in the complex negotiations behind the exchange. The Belarusian dictator agreed to free German national Rico Krieger, who was being held in Minsk on terrorism charges, as part of efforts to convince the German government to release Russian secret service assassin Vadim Krasikov.

Many have questioned why prominent Belarusian pro-democracy leader Maria Kalesnikava, who had previously lived for many years in Germany, was not also freed as part of the trade. Kalesnikava was jailed amid nationwide protests following Lukashenka’s rigged 2020 election. One of the figureheads of the anti-Lukashenka protest movement, she has reportedly been suffering from deteriorating health for the past year and a half. Similar questions were also asked regarding fellow political prisoners Ales Bialiatski, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, and Ihar Losik, a prominent blogger and journalist for RFE/RL’s Belarus Service.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Four years since the sham ballot that sparked the biggest protests of Lukashenka’s three-decade reign, he appears more comfortable than ever with the idea of holding large numbers of political prisoners as hostages. This must change. With no regime-linked Belarusians in Western custody who are anything like as valuable as Krasikov was to Putin, other approaches are clearly needed to increase the pressure on Lukashenka and convince him to release political prisoners.

Economic measures can be used to target the largely state-controlled Belarusian economy, but this is more likely to have an impact as part of a long-term strategy. One alternative approach would be to engage third parties such as China, which has considerable influence in Minsk. Earlier diplomatic efforts succeeded in securing the release of US citizen Vital Shkliarau, indicating that negotiations of this nature can yield results.

Finding the right formula to keep up the pressure on individual members of the Lukashenka regime is crucial. At present, comparatively few of those involved in repressive measures are subject to international sanctions. For example, I was recently sentenced in absentia by a Belarusian court to ten years in prison alongside nineteen other independent Belarusian analysts and journalists. The judge in our case has a history of handing down lengthy sentences to prominent opposition figures, but has yet to be sanctioned.

During the past four years, only 261 Belarusians have been placed on the EU sanctions list. While the work of sanctions teams is commendable, their capacity is limited. Past experience has also demonstrated how sanctions can be sabotaged, as was the case in 2020 when Cyprus was accused of blocking the introduction of new restrictions against Belarus. There is also room to improve cooperation between Western partners, with a view to developing a more unified approach to sanctions.

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Strikingly, the quantity of Belarusians currently facing Western sanctions is far less the almost 1,400 political prisoners in the country’s prisons. According to human rights groups, tens of thousands of Belarusians in total have been detained in recent years for political reasons. Behind these arrests and prosecutions stands an army of enablers including government officials, security personnel, and judges. The vast majority of these people have yet to be held accountable by the international community for their role in the repressive policies of the Belarusian authorities.

There are some indications that Western policymakers are looking to broaden the scope of sanctions and increase individual accountability. However, while the recent round of sanctions included new measures targeting officials responsible for regime propaganda, other representatives of the Belarusian state media received international accreditation to cover the Olympics in Paris.

The West already has powerful tools at its disposal that can realistically make Belarusian officials consider the consequences of their actions. Standard personal sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes go far beyond mere symbolism and are capable of creating problems that can have far-reaching practical implications in everyday life. However, more leverage is required in order to maintain the pressure on the regime and on the individuals responsible for specific abuses.

Looking ahead, the West needs to make the issue of political prisoners far more uncomfortable for the entire Lukashenka regime. There is no single solution to this problem; instead, a range of options should be explored including broad economic restrictions, personal sanctions, and diplomatic pressure. Crucially, sanctions should be applied to thousands of officials rather than just a few hundred. The end goal must be to significantly raise the costs of the repressive policies pursued by Lukashenka and all those who enable his regime.

Hanna Liubakova is a journalist from Belarus and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Further reading

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Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has erased the last of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and made a complete mockery of the West’s frequently voiced escalation fears, writes Peter Dickinson.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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I am very happy that some of the hostages, including Russian citizens who were captured solely because of their honesty and courage, have been freed. They stood against the war in Ukraine and fought for freedom. Until the moment they were released, I feared that some of them would end their lives in prison.

Who gained freedom thanks to these efforts?

One is seventy-one-year-old Oleg Orlov, a legendary Soviet human rights defender and one of the leaders of Memorial, an organization that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. Orlov publicly called the Putin regime totalitarian and fascist, and for this, he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison this year.

There is also Sasha Skochilenko, a thirty-three-year-old artist from St. Petersburg. At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she made a small art performance in which she replaced price tags in a grocery store with anti-war slogans. For this, she was sentenced to seven years in prison. Her imprisonment posed a direct threat to her life: Sasha has a heart defect and bipolar disorder, and in the conditions of a Russian prison, she could have died.

Another example is the schoolboy Kevin Lik, who is now nineteen years old but was arrested while still a minor. He was accused of photographing military equipment and sending the photos to someone abroad. He was accused of state treason. Obviously, the Russian authorities themselves did not believe that a schoolboy could be a spy, and in the end, he was sentenced to only four years in prison, whereas in Russia, espionage usually results in much longer sentences. However, this is practically a child, and he was sentenced to four years in prison.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent activist and journalist whom Russian special services tried to poison, sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Ilya Yashin, probably the most famous opposition figure in Russia after Navalny’s death, sentenced to eight-and-a-half years. 

Now Evan, Paul, Oleg, Sasha, Kevin, Vladimir, Ilya, and other hostages of Putin’s regime have gained freedom.

But even on such a day, I cannot stop thinking about the thousands of people who remain in Putin’s prisons. About the poet Zhenya Berkovich. About the politician Alexei Gorinov, who protested against the war from the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is now dying in prison. About Daniil Kholodny, an information technology specialist who was imprisoned for eight years for creating a website for now-deceased opposition leader Alexei Navalny. About thousands of other people.

I do not call them all “hostages” by chance.

I am sure that most people living in Russia feel like hostages. About twenty-five years ago, power in Russia was seized by a gang of terrorists led by Vladimir Putin. All these years, they have been terrorizing the country’s population, imprisoning people for any disobedience, teaching citizens to think that resistance is impossible and useless, doing everything to make Russians develop Stockholm syndrome. It is impossible to help all of them; it is impossible to exchange millions of people. But it is important to remember that thousands of hostages are sitting in Putin’s prisons. And over the years, Putin has successfully turned the whole country into a gulag. And many people feel like hostages, even if they are not behind bars.

Mikhail Zygar is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker, and the founding editor-in-chief of Russia’s only independent news television channel, Dozhd (TVRain). He was recently sentenced in absentia by a Moscow court to eight and a half years in prison for criticizing the Russian army.

A version of this article originally appeared on Zygar’s Substack, the Last Pioneer.

The post As sixteen of Putin’s prisoners come home, don’t forget the millions of hostages who remain appeared first on Atlantic Council.

We at the Atlantic Council are overjoyed and relieved that Evan has been released after 491 days of wrongful imprisonment in Russia. This is a great day for Evan, his family, and his colleagues at the Wall Street Journal, who worked tirelessly to secure his release. However, it doesn’t diminish our need to speak out against Russia’s crimes not only against Evan but against free speech more broadly.

As Almar Latour, Wall Street Journal publisher and Dow Jones CEO, said at the Atlantic Council’s Distinguished Leadership Awards in May 2023, “Evan’s arrest is a symbolic reminder of the fight that we find ourselves in today. It’s autocrats versus the power of the pen—disinformation versus reliable information as the bedrock of free society.”

Latour’s point was underscored by those released with Evan: two other Americans wrongfully detained—journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and former US Marine Paul Whelan—as well as Russian political dissident and Pulitzer Prize winner Vladimir Kara-Murza, among others. In exchange, a contemptible lot, including a convicted murderer and several hackers and spies, was welcomed back to Russia by President Vladimir Putin.

Watch Latour’s full speech below:

Evan’s resilience and steadfastness are testament to the courage of journalists worldwide who take risks every day in service to freer societies. In partnership with Adrienne Arsht, the Atlantic Council has been proud to champion Evan’s cause through our “Reporters at Risk” series, which highlights those dangers and underscores the importance of supporting their critical work.

The Atlantic Council remains committed to press freedom and defending the safety of reporters at risk like Evan. As a twenty-five-year veteran of the Wall Street Journal, I welcome him home as a colleague. On behalf of the Atlantic Council, we commit ourselves to defending the freedoms he and reporters like him around the world represent.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points Today newsletter, a column of quick-hit insights on a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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Click to jump to an expert analysis:

John E. Herbst: Putin’s motivation for hostage trades is personal

Mercedes Sapuppo: The prisoner releases are historic—but the Kremlin’s strategy hasn’t changed

Hanna Liubakova: German national’s case reveals Belarus’s hostage-taking tactics

Brian Whitmore: This wasn’t a Cold War prisoner swap, but rather a negotiation with a crime syndicate

Putin’s motivation for hostage trades is personal

Today’s news is a truly extraordinary event: a large prisoner exchange involving twenty-four captives in seven countries. Russia and Belarus released sixteen prisoners; and the United States, Germany, Poland, Norway, and Slovenia sent eight back to Russia. Those released by Moscow include three Americans held essentially as hostages on trumped-up charges—businessman Whelan and journalists Gershkovich and Kurmasheva—and political prisoners Kara-Murza and Yashin. Belarus released Rico Krieger, a German convicted of “terrorism” in Belarus, who was sentenced to death but then pardoned by Lukashenka’s regime. The most notable prisoner released to Russia is Krasikov, a Kremlin operative who murdered a Chechen activist in Germany.

Two constants drove this deal. The first is Putin’s great interest in securing the release of Russian spies and provocateurs captured and jailed in the West. When he succeeded in trading American basketball player Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout with the United States in December 2022, Putin’s highest priority became the release of Krasikov from Germany. When Putin gave up Griner, he still had Whelan as a hostage for future trades with the United States. Then he added Gershkovich in March 2023 for additional trade bait and Kurmasheva this past spring. The second constant is the Biden administration’s interest in securing the release of all Americans unfairly detained by Moscow. After the Griner-Bout exchange, US efforts to secure the freedom of Whelan and then Gershkovich foundered on the refusal of Germany to include Krasikov—Putin’s prime objective—in any trade.

These constants alone do not explain this deal. The new factor was the arrest of Krieger in Belarus last fall. This gave Berlin a reason to consider releasing Krasikov. Germany’s willingness to do so likely set in motion a long negotiation that led to today’s news. The final deal also gave Putin back Russian operatives in Norway, Poland, and Slovenia; and provided an opportunity to free prominent Russian opposition figures Kara-Murza and Yashin.

It is notable that sixteen prisoners moved West and only eight east. But, as we know from the lopsided trade that sent 215 Ukrainian prisoners of war home in exchange for Putin-favorite Viktor Medvedchuk and others in the fall of 2022, there are times when Putin’s interest in a particular captive persuades him to make an uneven trade.

Still, Putin has the tactical advantage of being able to grab additional hostages from Americans and other Western visitors in Russia. One way for the West to reduce this nasty advantage would be to lower the evidentiary requirements for holding spies from Russia and other US adversaries.

—John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

The prisoner releases are historic—but the Kremlin’s strategy hasn’t changed

The news that Gershkovich, Kurmasheva, Whelan, Kara-Murza, and Yashin—along with other human rights activists and innocent civilians—have been released from Russia in a prisoner swap is historic. For those now free who were wrongfully detained on contrived and false charges and bravely endured the conditions of Russian detention, today is hugely celebratory. It is also a good day for their families and for all who have been advocating for their freedom, including the Biden-Harris administration. The swap released many who suffered unjustly and marks a positive day for independent media and press freedom.

The timing of this swap—and its scope—indicates that Putin thought it was time to cash out the bargaining chips that he had illegally collected to leverage against the West in the form of innocent Americans and Russian activists. However, it does not suggest that the Kremlin will pull back on its malign tactics of aggression against Ukraine as well as the United States and its allies, and Putin is by no means walking away empty-handed: Russia will welcome home convicted murderers, spies, hackers, fraudsters, and smugglers.

What this swap demonstrates on the Kremlin’s strategic front is a twisted and self-serving pragmatism that is unlikely to translate into a deescalation of Russia’s violence in Ukraine, nor into a new appreciation for international norms. Putin is still a war criminal, and he is still bolstering his autocratic alliances abroad. The drive demonstrated by global leaders and advocates pushing for the release of these unjustly detained journalists and activists should not be the end. Rather, it should be only the beginning of continued work to defeat Putin in Ukraine and deter his aggression, which includes the imprisonment of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers being kept in harrowing conditions in temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine.

—Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

German national’s case reveals Belarus’s hostage-taking tactics

The prisoner swap story between Russia and Western countries took an unexpected turn with Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s involvement. Krieger, a German national sentenced to death in Belarus, was among the Western prisoners released in Thursday’s exchange. His case gained attention following his pardon on July 30. The unusual circumstances surrounding Krieger’s sentencing had sparked speculation that the Minsk regime was positioning itself for a high-profile prisoner exchange.

Shortly after the pardon, Lukashenka’s spokesperson indicated that Minsk was open to negotiations regarding Krieger, stating that various “proposals” had been made. This suggested that the pardon was a strategic maneuver to facilitate discussions with Germany. Krieger’s exchange demonstrated the Belarusian regime’s manipulative tactics, with speculation arising that he was swapped for Krasikov, a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) assassin imprisoned in Germany.

Krieger was arrested in Belarus in October for allegedly acting as a mercenary and planting explosives. He appeared in a propaganda video, claiming he wanted to fight in Ukraine but was directed to a mission in Belarus. However, the inconsistencies in the video raise doubts about his claims.

The regime’s actions—capturing a foreigner, sentencing him to death, and then negotiating his release—resemble hostage-taking tactics. While Russia may have reclaimed some of its agents in part through Krieger’s exchange, Lukashenka seems to be sacrificing his relationship with Germany to support Putin’s interests. This mirrors Lukashenka’s previous concessions to Russia, including offering Belarusian territory for the invasion of Ukraine, despite his people’s opposition, or stationing Wagner Group troops in Belarus.

Amid these high-stakes negotiations, the plight of Belarusian political prisoners is often overlooked. Although eighteen political prisoners were released last month, an estimated 1,400 remain imprisoned, many urgently needing medical assistance.

—Hanna Liubakova is a nonresident fellow with the Eurasia Center and a Belarusian journalist.

This wasn’t a Cold War prisoner swap, but rather a negotiation with a crime syndicate

The sweeping prisoner exchange that freed Kurmasheva, Gershkovich, Whelan, and others from Russian captivity was a remarkable diplomatic achievement, and the Biden administration deserves enormous credit for working with the United States’ allies to make it happen. And full disclosure, this one is personal. Two of the released hostages—Kurmasheva, a journalist with whom I worked for more than a decade at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Kara-Murza, a Russian dissident whom I have known for years—are close personal friends. The fact that sixteen hostages of Putin’s regime—including Americans, Germans, British nationals, and Russian political prisoners—are now free is cause for celebration.

That said, we should all use this occasion to reflect on what this prisoner exchange illustrates about the nature of Putin’s Russia. In order to get these hostages released, the United States and its allies needed to free actual criminals who were convicted after receiving the benefit of due process and fair trials in Western courts of law. Among these were a hitman, Krasikov, convicted of an assassination in Germany, and a cybercriminal, Roman Seleznev, who was convicted of bank fraud and identity theft in the United States. This is reminiscent of the United States securing the release of WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner in exchange for convicted Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout and swapping US Marine Corps veteran Trevor Reed for Russian drug trafficker Konstantin Yaroshenko back in 2022.

One has to wonder, why does Putin want all these hitmen, cybercriminals, arms traffickers, and drug dealers released? And why is he willing to take Western hostages to do so? The answer is simple: The line between the government and the criminal underworld in Putin’s Russia is so thin that it is nonexistent. As I have argued in the past, the Putin regime is effectively a crime syndicate masquerading as a state. The correct metaphor for this prisoner exchange is not the storied Cold War-era swapping of Western and Soviet spies. Instead, it is the result of an unfortunately necessary hostage negotiation with a criminal and terrorist regime.

—Brian Whitmore is a nonresident senior fellow at the Eurasia Center, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Texas-Arlington, and host of the Power Vertical podcast.

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Access to justice is a crucial component of the rule of law and the defense of democracy. A robust judicial system ensures that laws are applied fairly and equitably, strengthens confidence in institutions, protects rights, and promotes transparency and accountability, which are essential for democratic stability and economic development.¹ In a global context where threats to democracy are increasing, strengthening access to justice and the rule of law becomes even more critical. An accessible judicial system acts as a safeguard against those threats.² Access to justice for businesses and the general Colombian population is vital to ensure both fairness and economic efficiency. When businesses can resolve disputes quickly and fairly, uncertainty is reduced, fostering a favorable investment climate and sustainable economic development.

This research, based on a holistic and integrated approach, involves two key elements: a thorough understanding of access to justice and a comprehensive view of the justice system. The first element implies that effective access to justice extends beyond the initial approach to legal systems; it encompasses both the entry point and the ongoing journey within the system. The right to access justice is fully realized when it results in a prompt, comprehensive, and enforceable solution. This understanding of access to justice is essential for addressing the multifaceted challenges faced by individuals and corporations in Colombia.

Building on this thorough understanding of access to justice, this research sheds light on the problems faced by actors within the system, which affect companies of all sizes and citizens alike, regardless of their socioeconomic status. It explores the procedural journey, revealing systemic issues and managerial barriers embedded in the justice system. Forty-four percent of respondents expressed medium to high concerns about judicial corruption and threats to judicial independence and impartiality.

The second element is the comprehensive view of the Colombian justice system. Such a view requires data collection regarding the three routes of access to justice in Colombia, all different in nature: the judicial branch; administrative officials with jurisdictional functions; and individual entities that have the right to administer justice, such as conciliators and arbitrators.

The Colombian constitutional system allows the congress to delegate certain judicial powers to specific administrative authorities including superintendencies (regulatory agencies) of industry and commerce, finance, corporations, and health; police inspectors; and family commissariats, among others. However, it is worth noting that administrative authorities’ judicial power excludes criminal prosecutions and proceedings.³ When administrative authorities exercise jurisdictional functions through resolutions, they act as judges rather than as administrative entities. Individuals can choose, preventively, whether to approach judicial-branch judges or superintendencies judges with jurisdictional functions to resolve their disputes.

This report seeks to identify public policy recommendations that can enhance the efficiency and equity of the justice system through a holistic and integrated approach. Tackling access to justice during the process is crucial not only for the private sector, which relies on the justice system to protect its interests, but also for the broader Colombian society. This will ensure that justice is accessible and equitable for all.

“This timely and deeply researched report exposes another one of Colombia’s many paradoxes: although it has perhaps the most legalistic society in the hemisphere, the justice system is widely seen as incapable of delivering consistent and reliable results. The report’s authors suggest specific, concrete, and practical policy recommendations to improve justice delivery. As the report notes, a credible and efficient justice system is key to a thriving democracy, and this report will be a key resource for those committed to justice reform.”

Kevin Whitaker, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, Atlantic Council; Former US Ambassador to Colombia, US Department of State

For all jurisdictions and types of disputes included in this study (both judicial and administrative proceedings), fewer than half of the companies surveyed fully or partially agreed that the duration of proceedings is reasonable. This finding is consistent with the study’s qualitative research component and existing cross-country data on unreasonable civil-justice delays from the World Justice Project (WJP). Colombian scores on timeliness of civil-justice delivery in the WJP Rule of Law Index are lower than those of both best-in-class nations (e.g., Germany or the Netherlands) and regional and income peers in Latin America (See Graph 1).

Delays permeate the system, affecting small, medium, and large companies. When companies were asked about the obstacles limiting effective access to justice when dealing with judicial authorities, the number of legal processes that never concluded scored as the highest obstacle, with 51 percent of companies ranking it as their top obstacle and 15 percent ranking it as a medium level obstacle (See Figure 1).

Similarly, when asked about the obstacles limiting effective access to justice when resorting to administrative authorities, interviewees ranked unjustified delays as the biggest obstacle. Forty-one percent of companies ranked it as the top obstacle and 20 percent ranked it as a medium-level obstacle (See Figure 2).

In terms of judicial independence from hierarchical superiors and other sources, superintendencies perform worse than all other paths to justice, and considerably below all judges (44 percent of companies either totally or mostly disagree that this path is free from this pressure). Critically, in terms of access to justice, it is the second-worst mechanism (34 percent of companies find it difficult to access this mechanism), (See Figure 4).

Report Nov 30, 2023

Advancing US-Colombia cooperation on drug policy and law enforcement

By Atlantic Council US-Colombia Advisory Group

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US-Colombia Advisory Group

The Atlantic Council’s US-Colombia Advisory Council, with Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN), as honorary Co-Chairs, is a nonpartisan, binational, and multi-sectoral group committed to advancing a whole-of-society approach to addressing the most vital policy issues facing the US-Colombia relationship—with a recognition of the broader implications for bilateral interests across the region more broadly.

The Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center broadens understanding of regional transformations and delivers constructive, results-oriented solutions to inform how the public and private sectors can advance hemispheric prosperity.

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This is the first international investigative report presenting factual findings and legal conclusions on violations during the conflict. The COI found that Hamas and other Palestinian militants committed war crimes and violated international humanitarian and human rights law in their October 7, 2023, attack, and Israeli authorities and security forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and violated international humanitarian and human rights law, in their military campaign in the Gaza Strip. These findings and the robust evidence backing them may support future accountability proceedings.

About the COI

The UN Human Rights Council established the COI in May 2021, mandating it to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Palestinian territories and Israel leading up to and since April 13, 2021—a date marking an increase in protests and violence in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza sparked by disruptions at the al-Aqsa Mosque and the anticipated eviction of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem.

The COI is led by three independent and impartial experts, supported by a team of investigators and analysts. The standard of proof is “reasonable grounds,” following most other UN human rights investigative bodies, including those on Myanmar, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela. Facts are reported “where, based on a body of verified information, an objective and ordinary prudent observer would have reasonable grounds to conclude that the facts took place as described,” and legal conclusions are reported where “facts meet all the elements of a violation or abuse.”

The COI based its June report on thousands of forensically verified open-source items, more than 350 items received from public calls for submissions, and witness and survivor interviews in Turkey and Egypt, where individuals had fled, as well as remotely. The COI sent one request for information to the state of Palestine (represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization), which provided “extensive comments.” Israel did not respond to the COI’s six requests for information and access to the territory. However, officials denounced the COI, alleging prejudice and antisemitism—echoing allegations from prior UN investigative mandates concerning Israel—and reportedly restricted witness communication.

October 7, 2023, attack

The COI found that members of Hamas’s military wing, other Palestinian armed groups, and Palestinian civilians committed war crimes and violated international humanitarian and human rights law in their October 7, 2023, attack.

The COI detailed the war crimes of murder and intentionally directing attacks on civilians, committed by shooting and killing eight hundred civilians at twenty-four kibbutzim and civilian locations on October 7, 2023. The report details the horrific methods by which militants killed—systematically moving from house to house, shooting at hiding and fleeing civilians, setting homes on fire, and killing civilians at a music festival, in public toilets, in public shelters, and at bus stops and along roads. Among the dead were forty children, including a nine-month-old shot and killed while hiding with her mother, and 130 people aged sixty-five and older. Through these acts, militants also committed the war crimes of torture and cruel or inhuman treatment and destroying or seizing the property of an adversary. The COI also described unlawful attacks at military outposts, including killings of soldiers who were hors de combat.

Palestinian militants’ indiscriminate rocket fire toward populated places in Israel—killing eighteen civilians on October 7, 2023, and in following weeks—also constitutes the war crimes of murder and intentionally directing attacks on civilians.

Palestinian fighters also committed the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity by desecrating corpses, including burning, mutilating, lacerating, decapitating, and undressing and subsequently exhibiting bodies.

The COI confirmed acts of sexual violence against women and men at the Nova music festival, Route 232, Nahal Oz military base, and kibbutzim Re’im, Nir Oz, and Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023. Evidence included restraints placed on women, positions of and signs of violence on victims’ bodies, and disseminated imagery of undressed bodies. The COI also found that gender-based violence was “perpetrated in similar ways in several locations and by multiple Palestinian perpetrators,” with patterns including abducting women with force or threats, coerced close physical proximity to abductors, treatment of women’s bodies as “victory trophies,” and gendered slurs. The COI could not verify reports of rape, sexualized torture, and genital mutilation due to lack of access to victims, witnesses, and crime sites, nor did it find evidence that militants were ordered to commit sexual violence.

Finally, the COI found that militants committed the war crime of taking hostages—often combined with outrages upon personal dignity and inhumane treatment, including sexual and gender-based violence, assault, harassment, and intimidation—by abducting 252 people from Israel (approximately twenty security forces and the remainder civilians, including thirty-six children) and brought them to Gaza. As of May 21, half of the hostages were released or rescued, with the remainder in captivity, whether alive or dead.

Military response in Gaza

The COI found that Israeli authorities and members of the security forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and violated international humanitarian and human rights law, in their military campaign in Gaza.

Israeli authorities and forces perpetrated the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, evidenced by the imposition of a total siege for two weeks, from approximately October 9 to 20—with water shut off and no aid allowed in—followed by meager aid deliveries, with measures hampering entry of aid and restricting or blocking specific items. The COI concluded that authorities imposed the siege as retribution for militants’ October 7, 2023, attack and that aid restrictions were intended “to instrumentalize and weaponize the provision of necessities” and hold hostage the Gazan population “to achieve political and military objectives,” constituting collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli forces also attacked humanitarian convoys, further limiting aid availability and distribution.

Israeli authorities and forces also committed “[e]xtermination, as a crime against humanity”—”the killing one or more persons, including by inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population, … [as] part of a mass killing of members of a civilian population”—based on attacks on civilians and humanitarian aid restrictions.

Israeli authorities and forces also committed the war crimes of murder and intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, as well as the crime against humanity of murder. Israeli officials’ statements evidence permissive changes in targeting practices—launching more strikes than in prior conflicts, targeting locations with “an inkling of intelligence,” and using more intense weaponry with wider impact areas—resulting in significantly higher casualties than in prior Israel-Hamas conflicts and a higher proportion of women and children killed. The report detailed instances in which Israeli forces targeted civilians who were clearly unarmed, including civilians sheltering at a church, a child holding a white flag, and three unarmed Israeli hostages. The COI also found Israel’s military campaign consistent with the Dahya doctrine, a military strategy to use “overwhelming and disproportionate force against civilian areas and infrastructure” to defeat the enemy.

The COI noted it continues to investigate reports that Hamas and other militants operate from civilian locations, but it could not verify evidence Israeli authorities publicly presented. The COI made no finding regarding Hamas’s use of human shields.

The COI found that Israeli evacuation orders constituted the war crime and crime against humanity of forcible transfer. From October 7, 2023, to December 30, 2023, more than eighty orders instructed civilians to leave their neighborhoods and go to areas that effectively constituted safe zones with legal protections. However, many evacuation orders were unclear and confusing, had insufficient or unstated time frames, and/or were difficult or impossible to comply with due to chaos along evacuation routes—including Israeli checkpoints where individuals were forced at gunpoint to strip and “walk for prolonged periods without clothes,” a lack of transport, inadequate support for vulnerable persons, and Israeli and Hamas attacks on and harassment of evacuees. Moreover, evacuation orders were issued alongside or in the context of authorities’ statements dehumanizing Palestinians, labeling all Gazans as Hamas, referring to the second Nakba, and calling for the removal of Gazan civilians and the establishment of Israeli settlements. Accordingly, the evacuation orders did not constitute an advance effective warning to civilians, but instead amounted to forcible transfer. Israeli forces also attacked safe zones and destroyed entire communities and residential areas that were evacuated, leaving nothing for families to return to.

The COI also documented Israeli forces’ commission of the war crimes of sexual violence, outrages upon personal dignity, and sexual and gender-based violence amounting to torture or inhuman and cruel treatment, as well as the crimes against humanity of gender persecution and torture and inhuman and cruel treatment. Israeli forces compelled public stripping and nudity “in many locations,” with victims “blindfolded, kneeling, and/or with their hands tied” while subject to interrogation, verbal or psychological abuse, and/or coerced physical acts. “[M]en and boys were targeted in particular ways,” including Israeli forces repeatedly filming and photographing them with images disseminated online and family and community members forced to watch. Women were also targeted with specific forms of psychological violence and sexual harassment, including online shaming and doxing, sexualized graffiti, and invasion of personal privacy, including by soldiers rifling through lingerie. These acts were aggravated by violating Gazans’ modest and private social practices and disseminating humiliating content online that would be almost impossible to remove. The COI concluded that the sexual and gender-based violence “was intended to humiliate and degrade the Palestinian population as a whole.” The pattern of forced public stripping and nudity indicated it was either ordered or condoned, and the prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes suggest they are part of Israeli operating procedures.

Impact of the report

The COI is not a court or a tribunal, and it cannot prosecute or ensure legal accountability. However, it can issue recommendations to promote accountability and support accountability mechanisms, including by sharing evidence with domestic, regional, and international courts. Thus, while the report itself will not result in trials, its documentation can advance investigations and contribute to future prosecutions of Palestinian and Israeli forces and authorities. These cases may proceed at the International Criminal Court (ICC)—where the prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants for Hamas and Israeli officials—or in domestic courts. The COI is also recommending these accountability steps—that ICC member states support and cooperate fully with the Office of the Prosecutor’s investigation and that states parties to the Geneva Conventions, Convention against Torture, and the Genocide Convention investigate core international crimes under domestic or universal jurisdiction.

While investigations and prosecutions may take years, legal accountability is essential to recovering and healing from a conflict that has resulted in “months of losses and despair, retribution and atrocities.” As the COI concluded: “The only way to stop the recurring cycles of violence…is to ensure strict adherence to international law.”

Elise Baker is a staff lawyer with the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project. Previously, she worked at the United Nations International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism on Syria and led Physicians for Human Rights’ Syria Mapping Project, which documented attacks on Syria’s health care system.

The post Unpacking the UN findings of war crimes by Hamas and Israel since October 7 appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The visa-free policy seems to be a strategic propaganda effort from Minsk to ease these tensions. Following new European Union (EU) sanctions in late June, Poland has significantly restricted the import of goods into Belarus by Belarusian individuals, while Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have banned cars with Belarusian license plates from entering their countries. These measures impact the people of Belarus, and against this backdrop, the visa decision is an attempt by Lukashenka and his regime to “demonstrate the openness and peacefulness of our country.”

In reality, Lukashenka is continuing his campaign of domestic repression, targeting Belarusians in exile (including the author of this article), and weaponizing allegations that neighboring countries are setting up camps to train militants intent on overthrowing his regime. On July 19, for example, the Minsk regional court sentenced German national Rico Krieger to death in Belarus on charges including an “act of terrorism” and the “creation of an extremist formation.” The regime is using Krieger as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Germany, showcasing its manipulative tactics. According to the human rights organization Viasna, at least thirty foreigners remain imprisoned in Belarus, and a Lithuanian citizen died in a Belarusian prison in March after being arrested at the border.

Even so, expect more rhetorical shifts as the 2025 Belarusian presidential election approaches and as Belarus tries to alleviate the economic pressures it faces from Poland and the Baltic states for Minsk’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. For example, newly appointed Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhankou has expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue with Poland, stating earlier this month that “the ball is on the Polish side.” This came after a slowdown in truck traffic at the Kazlovichy checkpoint on the Polish-Belarusian border on July 10.

Minsk accused Warsaw of halting the acceptance of Belarusian cargo. Poland has hinted at potentially closing its remaining border crossings with Belarus to counter Lukashenka’s hybrid tactics, the migration crisis that the regime helped engineer on the Polish border, and the imprisonment of journalist and Polish minority activist Andrzej Poczobut. The stabbing death of a Polish soldier by a migrant on the border in June prompted Polish President Andrzej Duda to discuss migration and economic cooperation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in late June, hoping that Beijing would exert its increasing influence on Minsk.

Recent developments may have influenced Lukashenka’s shift in rhetoric. These developments include threats from Poland and the Baltic states to close border crossings with Belarus, efforts to involve China in political pressure on Minsk, and new EU sanctions. Lukashenka now calls for “reciprocity” in diplomatic relations with Poland and Lithuania, a stark contrast to his comments in March. At that time, accompanied by his white Pomeranian, Lukashenka had inquired about the width of the Suwałki Corridor and told a commander, “You will have to confront the Baltic republics . . . And you will grab part of Poland.”

Lukashenka has also softened his rhetoric on Ukraine in recent days. June was a month of major rhetorical escalation between Belarus and Ukraine, as the Belarusian national intelligence agency accused Ukraine of amassing troops near the Belarusian border. This led to a sudden military readiness check in Brest and Homiel, including troop deployments to Belarus’s southern border and the establishment of new checkpoints. For weeks, Belarus’s Ministry of Defense warned of a Ukrainian threat, citing a drone interception and an explosives cache.

However, this escalation ended abruptly on July 13 when Lukashenka visited an air defense unit in Luninets, announced the resolution of border tensions, and ordered troop withdrawals. He appeared to resolve a crisis he had fabricated, saying that “we are not enemies for Ukrainians,” calling for urgent negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.

Some hoped for a real shift when, in early July, the regime freed eighteen political prisoners in a rare amnesty, nearly four years after Lukashenka’s crackdown on the opposition, following his announcements to release “seriously ill” prisoners. One of those released, Ryhor Kastusiou, who ran for president against Lukashenka in 2010, had been diagnosed with cancer. The names of the other released prisoners have not been disclosed. Both the United States and the EU welcomed these releases but urged the regime to free all remaining political prisoners.

While the release of some political prisoners is positive, many more are still incarcerated. An estimated 1,400 political prisoners are still being held in Belarus, hundreds of them in urgent need of medical assistance.

Belarus may continue to make gestures of goodwill to Ukraine and the West, but it’s crucial to differentiate between rhetoric and reality. Repression in Belarus continues. As recently as July 1, twenty Belarusian analysts were convicted and sentenced in absentia to between ten and eleven-and-a-half years by a Minsk court. The author of this article is among those convicted.

The regime accused me of four criminal charges, including an attempt to seize power, joining an extremist formation, harming national security, and inciting social discord. The regime-appointed lawyer never responded to my messages and emails. I was denied the right to a fair trial and refused legal assistance.

The regime is engaged in repression against Belarusians in exile, targeting their families abroad. In Belarusian jails, many prominent political prisoners are held incommunicado, and even their families don’t know whether they are alive. If the Belarusian regime wants to show Ukraine and the West that it is interested in real change, then it must take real actions to stop its brutal campaign of terror and repression at home.

Hanna Liubakova is a nonresident fellow with the Eurasia Center and a Belarusian journalist.

The post Lukashenka’s rhetoric toward Ukraine and the West has softened. His repression of Belarusians has not. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Gershkovich is the first US journalist to be convicted in Russia on charges of espionage since the Cold War. So far, the Russian authorities have not provided any credible evidence to support their accusations. Kurmasheva was convicted on a charge frequently used by the Kremlin to suppress unfavorable reporting on the realities of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The imprisonment of two US journalists marks a new escalation in the Kremlin’s confrontation with the West. Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and editor Emma Tucker released a statement calling Gershkovich’s sentence “a disgraceful, sham conviction.” RFE/RL President and CEO Steve Capus deemed Kurmasheva’s conviction “a mockery of justice.”

US citizens Gershkovich and Kurmasheva are now facing the prospect of long prison sentences in extremely harsh conditions. An AP series published earlier this year described the “physical and psychological pressure, sleep deprivation, insufficient food, heath care that is poor or simply denied” and “dizzying set of arbitrary rules” that the pair are likely to encounter in Russian jails. Both journalists have already spent an extended period in pretrial detention.

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The Russian authorities have a long record of targeting journalists. These efforts have gained further momentum since February 2022 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the Kremlin using draconian new legislation to silence anti-war voices and shut down any remaining independent Russian media outlets. In May 2024, the United Nations human rights office reported that the number of journalists imprisoned in Russia had reached an all-time high.

While the Putin regime is notorious for seeking to censor the media, that may not actually be the main motive in this case. Instead, there has been widespread speculation that the Kremlin ultimately aims to use Gershkovich and Kurmasheva as bargaining chips in negotiations with the US to secure the release of Russian citizens currently serving prison sentences in the West.

Putin is no doubt well aware that the United States will go to considerable lengths to free the two American journalists. Following Gershkovich’s conviction, the White House issued a statement that the US government has “no higher priority” than seeking the release and safe return of Gershkovich “and all Americans wrongly detained and held hostage abroad.”

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Speculation about a potential prisoner swap has swirled ever since Gershkovich was first detained in 2023. Typically, Russia only engages in prisoner exchanges once suspects have been convicted and sentenced. This has led some analysts to suggest that the relative speed of the two recent trials could indicate the Kremlin’s desire to proceed with an exchange in the near future.

Moscow will likely demand a high price for the release of Gershkovich and Kurmasheva. This may include handing over Vadim Krasikov, a Russian secret service colonel who is currently serving a life sentence in Germany for gunning down a Chechen dissident in a Berlin park in 2019. Sentencing Krasikov in 2021, a Berlin court called the killing “a state-ordered murder.”

US Senate Foreign Relations Chair Ben Cardin said Gershkovich’s trial and conviction were “stark reminders of the lengths to which tyrants like Putin will leverage innocent people as bargaining chips, stifle free speech, and suppress the truth.” While many now expect a prisoner swap to take place sooner rather than later, the targeting of US journalists in this manner highlights the Kremlin’s retreat from international norms and underlines the potential dangers facing any Western nationals who choose to visit Putin’s Russia.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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The post Putin accused of jailing US journalists as ‘bargaining chips’ for prisoner swap appeared first on Atlantic Council.

News of my ten-year sentence provoked very conflicting emotions. While many colleagues congratulated me on what they saw as tacit recognition of my efforts in support of a democratic Belarus, I have struggled to find the right words when explaining to my Belarusian relatives that we may never meet again.

The charges against me and my co-defendants did not come as a complete surprise, of course. Nevertheless, at a time when the struggle for Belarusian democracy is no longer in the international spotlight, it is important to reflect on how we arrived at this point.

Back in the summer of 2020, there were unmistakable signs of growing political engagement throughout Belarusian society. More and more ordinary people were volunteering to join the campaigns of opposition candidates in the country’s upcoming presidential election, or simply expressing their political opinions. Although I was studying outside the country at the time, I also made a conscious decision to continue writing about the political situation in my homeland.

When Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka was then proclaimed the winner of a deeply flawed presidential ballot in August 2020, I was among the thousands of journalists, activists, and academics to speak up against election fraud and condemn the violent Kremlin-backed crackdown that followed. Like me, some had already left Belarus to advance their careers abroad. Others were forced to flee as the regime sought to silence domestic dissent. This large community of exiled Belarusians has continued its open criticism of the Lukashenka regime.

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Lukashenka was able to suppress the 2020 protest movement in Belarus thanks to Russian support. Ever since, he has remained heavily dependent on Moscow for his political survival. In exchange for this backing, he has allowed the Kremlin to expand its influence over Belarus in a process that some have likened to a creeping annexation. Lukashenka has also agreed to play the role of junior partner in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s hybrid war against the West.

In February 2022, Lukashenka allowed Putin to use Belarus as a base for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. During the first month of the invasion, the country served as a gateway for the Russian march on Kyiv, which the Kremlin hoped would be the decisive offensive of the war. Russia has since used Belarus as a training ground for troops and as a launch pad to bomb targets across Ukraine.

In 2023, Putin announced the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus, further involving the country in the confrontation between Russia and the West. Moscow is also accused of funneling migrants through Belarus to the border with the EU as part of its efforts to weaponize illegal immigration.

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While tensions with the West have escalated, the domestic situation in Belarus has continued to deteriorate. Approximately one thousand four hundred people remain in prison on politically motivated charges, while up to six hundred thousand Belarusians are believed to have fled the country, representing more than five percent of the overall population.

In recent years, the Lukashenka regime has signaled its intention to target critics who have left the country. In January 2023, five administrators of a Telegram channel run by exiled Belarusians were each sentenced in absentia to twelve years. Since then, several more opposition politicians and activists have been convicted in the same fashion on charges of attempting to seize power, threatening national security, and organizing extremist groups.

On January 24, 2024, I woke up to news that I also faced similar charges along with nineteen colleagues. While we were arbitrarily grouped together as analysts of Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, many of us had never actually met each other. Our trial started in May. None of us were able to get in touch with assigned lawyers, receive court materials, or join the hearings online. Instead, the case proceeded amid an almost complete information blackout until we learned of our guilty verdicts and prison sentences on July 1.

When I received confirmation of my sentence, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of anger at the injustice and absurdity of the entire process. At the same time, I have also been filled with gratitude for the solidarity expressed by international organizations and colleagues.

Our trial is the latest indication of the increasingly authoritarian political climate in today’s Belarus. In my opinion, this attempt to punish critical voices located outside the country and beyond the reach of the Belarusian authorities reflects the insecurities of a man who knows he has long since lost any remaining legitimacy as ruler of the country. Lukashenka’s growing desperation makes him an even greater threat to Belarusians, and means that he is also significantly more dangerous internationally as an ally of the Kremlin.

Those inside Belarus are well aware of the Orwellian reality they must deal with on a daily basis. They know that any public opposition to the regime will likely have grave consequences. In contrast, Belarusians living abroad still have the opportunity to voice our political opinions and share information about the horrors unfolding in our homeland. It is vital we continue to do so. The fact that Lukashenka is now attempting to intimidate us confirms that our efforts are not in vain.

Alesia Rudnik is a PhD Fellow at Karlstad University in Sweden and director of Belarusian think tank The Center for New Ideas.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post I was sentenced to ten years in absentia for highlighting Belarus’s descent into dictatorship appeared first on Atlantic Council.

At the core of the charges against Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are allegations that the two were part of a “common plan” to use “the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” in Gaza—a war crime. In addition, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) is seeking charges for various crimes against humanity associated with the crime of starvation, including extermination and/or murder, persecution, and “other inhumane acts.”

This moment is especially significant for the ICC because—despite evidence indicating its commission in past and ongoing conflicts—the war crime of starvation has never before been prosecuted at the international level. The lack of precedent has until now made prosecutors hesitant to venture into untrodden legal territory, thus rendering the crime “an issue that floats at the periphery of [war crimes] prosecutions.” Given the prevalence of civilian starvation in armed conflict—particularly as a result of urban siege warfare—the decision by the ICC’s pretrial chamber in this matter could help shape international practice for identifying the war crime of starvation and associated starvation crimes, and create a clearer pathway to accountability for victims.

The recently alleged crimes, however, are not the first accusations that Israeli leaders have employed starvation tactics in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Since Gallant’s order for a “complete siege” of Gaza on October 9, the United Nations (UN), human rights organizations, and Khan himself have warned that the closure of border crossings, restriction of essential supply transfers, severing of water and electricity, attacks on humanitarian aid convoys, and the killing of Gazans gathering to receive aid could constitute starvation crimes. Just last month, the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Palestine released a report finding that through the siege of Gaza, Israeli officials have “weaponized the withholding of life-sustaining necessities” including food, water, electricity, fuel, and humanitarian assistance.

Israeli officials have consistently denied allegations that they are restricting aid deliveries to Gaza, instead citing diversion and black-market resale of aid by Hamas as primary causes of the hunger crisis. Hamas did recently manage to divert and temporarily seize a shipment of aid delivered through Jordan—the “first widespread case of diversion that we have seen” in Gaza, according to US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller. Officials have also accused UN agencies, including the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and the World Food Programme, of bottlenecking aid distribution and exacerbating the conflict. Israel has further claimed that UNRWA is complicit in aid diversion and maintains the agency’s alleged links to Hamas.

What happens next?

The OTP’s requests now lie with a pretrial chamber of the ICC, which will review the applications and determine whether there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that the parties “committed crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.”

To meet the “reasonable grounds” standard, the application should outline the crimes alleged, a “concise statement of the facts which are alleged to constitute those crimes,” and a summary of the evidence supporting the belief that an individual is responsible for those crimes. However, Khan has said that the OTP’s investigation and applications regarding Gaza have sought to exceed an even higher standard of proof—in his words, a standard of “realistic prospect of conviction.” It is probable that the prosecutor imposed a higher standard than what is required to ward off criticisms of bias from Israel and its allies, who have previously threatened the court and questioned its legitimacy.

Although Israel is not a member of the ICC, the Palestinian Authority’s 2015 accession to the Rome Statute allows the court to exercise jurisdiction over crimes perpetrated by Palestinian nationals—including Hamas fighters—and those crimes occurring at least partly on Palestinian territory, including those committed or ordered by Israeli officials. The decision of a pretrial chamber in February 2021 further affirmed ICC jurisdiction over Palestinian territory, including Gaza. This same principle enables the ICC to investigate and prosecute crimes committed in Ukraine despite Russia not accepting the jurisdiction of the ICC.

It also bears noting that the war crime of starvation initially only applied when committed in the context of an international armed conflict (IAC), and Palestine has not ratified the Rome Statute’s 2019 amendment extending the crime to encompass non-international armed conflicts. Khan, with the support of a report by a panel of international law experts, reasons that the war is an IAC due to Israel’s use of force or status as an occupying power in Gaza. The pretrial chamber may only opt to issue arrest warrants for the war crime if it determines that there is in fact an IAC underway between Israel and Palestine.

Should arrest warrants be issued against Netanyahu and Gallant, all states party to the ICC will be obligated to arrest and surrender them to the court. While it remains to be seen if states will actually comply with the order, statements from France, Belgium, Germany, and Slovenia have affirmed their support for the ICC since the requests were submitted.

What does the law say, and how does it apply to Gaza?

The weaponization of hunger is considered one of the oldest methods of warfare, but its recognition as a war crime within the ICC’s jurisdiction is relatively new.

More than twenty years after its prohibition in two additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions, the crime of starvation was codified under the Rome Statute of the ICC in 1998. Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) renders “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” a war crime, so long as perpetrators intentionally deprive civilians of “objects indispensable to their survival,” or OIS.

To prove the war crime of starvation, it must be shown that a perpetrator indeed deprived civilians of OIS—such as “foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works”—a non-exhaustive list defined in the Geneva Conventions. Directives by Israeli officials to impede aid delivery, and the razing of agricultural areas and cutting off fuel or water sources could suffice in this regard. Although recent reports have spurred debate over whether the situation in Gaza technically qualifies as a famine, such a determination is not required for the war crime to attach. It is not necessary to prove that the conduct in question resulted in civilians’ deaths or suffering—solely demonstrating that a perpetrator took action to deprive civilians of indispensable objects is enough.

However, it is required to prove two elements of intent: that the perpetrator intended (1) to deprive civilians of OIS and (2) “to starve civilians as a method of warfare.” Without the aid of prior case law, the threshold for satisfying the second element is uncertain. Must perpetrators aim to weaponize starvation specifically, or are acts that would foreseeably starve civilians sufficient?

In favor of the latter interpretation, the so-called default intent standard in the ICC Statute likely indicates that this second element may be established if a perpetrator took actions knowing that civilian starvation could result or was aware it would occur “in the ordinary course of events.” Under this understanding of intent, proving that Netanyahu and Gallant were virtually certain that civilians would starve without humanitarian aid deliveries, along with the severing of water and electricity to Gaza, could help establish intent.

What is the wider significance?

Already, the ICC has made a pivotal move in recognizing the need for accountability for starvation crimes. As UN-backed documentation from recent and ongoing conflicts in Yemen, South Sudan, and Myanmar has shown, the weaponization of food remains a pervasive feature of armed conflict. Notably, actions taken in the laying of sieges—as seen in Aleppo, Madaya, Eastern Ghouta in Syria, the Tigray region of Ethiopia, and Mariupol—exhibit increasing overlap with starvation tactics.

Khan’s application for arrest warrants here opens the door for further efforts to investigate and charge the war crime of starvation, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity associated with starvation. Regardless of whether a trial ultimately results, a potential issuance of charges alone could help clarify the contours of the crime and create a clearer pathway to accountability for victims from other contexts.

Alana Mitias is the assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project.

Yousuf Syed Khan is a nonresident senior fellow with the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council. Several of his most visible legal contributions have centered on starvation-related crimes, including leading the drafting of the first ever report by a UN-mandated mechanism on starvation as a method of warfare.

The post Israeli officials are accused of weaponizing starvation in Gaza. Here’s what you need to know. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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Ever since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion almost two and a half years ago, the Kremlin has faced repeated accusations of deliberately targeting Ukrainian medical facilities. On the first anniversary of the invasion, CNN reported that “nearly one in ten” Ukrainian hospitals had been damaged as a result of Russian military actions. Underlining the frequency of such incidents, Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital was one of three separate Ukrainian medical facilities to be struck by Russian missiles on July 8.

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The Russian military has killed a large number of Ukrainian healthcare professionals over the past two and a half years. Monday’s bombings resulted in the deaths of an least six Ukrainian medics. They joined hundreds of colleagues from the healthcare industry who have been killed since the invasion began. Russian military actions have also resulted in billions of dollars worth of damage to Ukrainian healthcare facilities. In many cases, this has made it impossible to continue providing essential medical support, leading to significant further human costs.

The campaign against Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure is in no way exceptional and appears to align with Russian military doctrine. Similar patterns of attacks on clinics and hospitals have been identified during Russian military campaigns in Syria, Georgia, Chechnya, and beyond. Unless Russia can be held accountable for the targeting of healthcare infrastructure, it potentially opens the door for other countries to adopt similar military tactics in future conflicts.

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According to international humanitarian law, healthcare institutions and medical personnel are afforded specific and enhanced protection in conflict zones. Despite this status, Russia is accused of systematically targeting medical facilities across Ukraine. These attacks have been documented by the “Attacks on Health Care in Ukraine” project, which is run by a coalition of Ukrainian and international civil society organizations.

In addition to direct military attacks on healthcare infrastructure, research carried out by this civil society initiative has also identified a clear pattern of Russian behavior in occupied areas involving restricted access to essential healthcare services. Throughout regions of Ukraine that are currently under Kremlin control, the occupation authorities reportedly withhold medical care unless Ukrainians accept Russian citizenship and are otherwise cooperative.

It is also crucial to acknowledge the indirect impact of the Russian invasion on Ukrainian healthcare. The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 has created a range of long-term challenges including unprecedented demographic changes and a dramatic increase in mental health disorders. The healthcare ramifications of Russian aggression extend beyond Ukraine’s borders, including the burden placed on foreign healthcare systems by millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.

Prosecuting Russia for war crimes related to the targeting of Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure is likely to be an extremely challenging and time-consuming process. Potential obstacles include slow judicial systems, difficulties in identifying individuals responsible for deliberate attacks, and problems establishing clear links between the perpetrators and the crime. Collecting evidence that meets international prosecution standards is also a complex task during ongoing combat operations.

In order to break the cycle of impunity, the international community must prioritize the investigation and prosecution of those who deliberately target healthcare infrastructure and medical personnel. This process should involve international and domestic legal systems along with the relevant UN investigative bodies.

Russia is clearly targeting the Ukrainian healthcare system and weaponizing the provision of medical services as part of a campaign aimed at breaking Ukrainian resistance and strengthening Moscow’s grip on occupied regions of the country. Unless there is accountability for these crimes, Russia’s actions will set a dangerous precedent that will lead to similar offenses in other conflict zones.

Olha Fokaf is a healthcare specialist currently serving as a consultant to the World Bank in Kyiv.

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Since 2022, Western policies of escalation management have failed to appease Putin and have only emboldened the Kremlin. If the West wants peace, it must help Ukraine win, write Hanna Hopko and Andrius Kubilius.

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UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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On June 15, Hamid Noury, an Iranian national who Swedish courts sentenced to life in prison for war crimes and murder, was released and returned to Iran. This marked the first and only universal jurisdiction case related to atrocity crimes in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Noury was arrested in November 2019 at Arlanda Airport in Sweden, and was subsequently tried by the Stockholm District Court over ninety sessions held in 2021–2022. He was found guilty for his role in the massacre of thousands of political prisoners in Iran in the summer of 1988, in what became known as the 1988 massacre, and the appeals court confirmed his sentence in December 2023. Noury’s release was arranged as part of a prisoner swap, during which Iranian authorities freed two Swedish nationals who had been held hostage, according to the unofficial admission of Iranian authorities.

There have been other incidents in which the foreign accused were returned to where they committed crimes for trial purposes.

Rwanda’s requests to European governments for the return of genocide suspects so they can be brought to justice are an example. There have also been numerous cases of foreign hostages being used as pawns to free individuals detained for or convicted of terrorism, narcotics, or other offenses. However, this was the first time someone convicted of core international crimes—genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression—in a case of universal jurisdiction was transferred back to the same country where they previously enjoyed absolute impunity, only to enjoy it again.

This troubling move was a reaction by the Swedish government to the Islamic Republic’s policy of detaining foreign or Iranian dual nationals and using them as pawns to gain leverage in its dealings with Western countries. Not only was it a slap in the face to the victims, but it also created dangerous precedents that will have a long-lasting, damaging impact on the core purpose of the universal jurisdiction principle—and, more importantly, on the expansion and frequency of its application.

Rooted in the post-World War II trials and recognized by multiple treaties—including the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1984 Convention against Torture—the principle of universal jurisdiction is increasingly codified in national legislation. Given the horrific nature of these crimes, humanity as a whole cannot tolerate their remaining unadjudicated. The principle of universal jurisdiction enables national courts in third countries to address atrocity crimes committed abroad, holding perpetrators criminally liable and helping to prevent impunity. One of the most essential purposes of applying the principle of universal jurisdiction is to prosecute those who enjoy impunity in countries where the crimes occurred.

It should be noted that international crimes are often committed by state actors under state policies or plans, meaning that victims cannot expect proper accountability as long as the state in question remains in power. In other words, if the state where the crimes were committed is able or willing to exercise its jurisdiction, other countries generally do not invoke universal jurisdiction to prosecute perpetrators. Similarly, if a person is convicted under universal jurisdiction, and the country where the crime occurred later undergoes a democratic transition, that person can be extradited to the country where the crime was committed to continue serving their sentence. Noury’s return to Tehran was met with a warm welcome by officials, featuring a red carpet, numerous flowers, and a press conference—nothing similar to the reception typically given to a convicted individual who is supposed to serve life in prison.

Setting aside the question of why Sweden pursued universal jurisdiction in the first place if there was no confidence that it would not retreat after facing backlash, it appears Sweden utilized an article (Chapter 12, Article 9) in its constitution that allows the government, “by exercising clemency, to remit or reduce a penal sanction.” Many other countries have similar laws or legislation permitting the transfer of foreign convicted criminals to serve their sentences in their home countries. The Swedish authorities’ decision to use this legislation after a long and costly criminal proceeding, which resulted in a conviction for atrocity crimes, could set a precedent for future cases concerning crimes committed not only in Iran, but in other countries. This approach could jeopardize the very essence of universal jurisdiction and significantly demotivate prosecutors from investigating crimes committed in countries such as Iran, Russia, and China, which have active hostage policies. What would be the point of initiating criminal proceedings and investing millions of taxpayer money if the outcome could potentially leave citizens in dreadful custody situations for months or even years, result in a diplomatic catastrophe, and ultimately deliver an international criminal back to a state that welcomes them warmly?

The international community has correctly identified immunity as a significant obstacle in the fight against impunity, and has moved toward prohibiting or limiting its application in cases involving atrocity crimes. In the same vein, amnesty provisions are considered to “be interpreted as contrary to states’ commitments under international law” in relation to core international crimes. The practice of transferring foreign convicted criminals who have committed atrocity crimes to their home countries, knowing they will be granted some form of clemency or otherwise released from the remainder of their sentences, should also be recognized as a major barrier to accountability.

There is a significant risk that the transfer of convicted war criminal Hamid Noury could lead to similar cases unless the international community addresses its detonating effects on the universal jurisdiction project. The only way to prevent such a paralyzing, contagious impact is to prohibit the transfer of those convicted of atrocity crimes to governments that have previously failed to prosecute them and are unlikely to enforce the sentences properly.

Shadi Sadr is a human rights lawyer and a member of the panel of judges at the International People’s Tribunals on Indonesia, Myanmar, and China. She co-founded and directed Justice for Iran, one of the organizers of the Iran Atrocities’ (Aban) Tribunal. Follow her on X: @shadisadr.

The post An Iranian war criminal’s freedom has a detonating impact on the universal jurisdiction project appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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• Introduction
• I. The freedom landscape: Authoritarianism on the back foot?
• II. Democracy agenda 2025-2029: Core priorities
• III. A policy framework for advancing democracy
• Conclusion

Introduction

The next president of the United States, whether a Democrat or Republican, will enter office in January 2025 confronted by a world where freedom is under threat. This is a central challenge to the United States because American citizens benefit most when the world is free and open. Supporting democracy must therefore feature in the foreign policy agenda of any administration. How should the presidential campaigns think about this challenge, and what should they do about it once in office? What does the data tell us about the nature of today’s challenges and the most cost-effective ways to address them? 

This paper examines the main challenges to democracy and offers nonpartisan policy solutions to them. It starts by surveying the state of democracy globally and articulates why underwriting the expansion of freedom (understood using the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index definition) is vital to US interests.¹ The second section outlines priority challenges and opportunities, from the need to supercharge countering China’s malign influence to shoring up the core institutions of democracy in strategically important countries. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations that the president and US Congress can action to address challenges to US interests.²

I. The freedom landscape: authoritarianism on the back foot?

The security of the United States, democratic partners and allies, and humanity’s future depends significantly on the state of democracy worldwide. Yet, over the past seventeen years, if we look at indices like those published by the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center, authoritarianism has risen globally, while democracy shows alarming decline in regions of importance to the United States. 

After a nearly two-decade recession, democracy is showing promising signs but faces continued headwinds. Many democracies are experiencing legitimacy crises due to a long-standing failure to deliver adequately for their constituents. This core weakness has made them more vulnerable to authoritarians, disruptive information technologies, external malign attacks, and internal demagogues who now use a proven playbook to weaken democratic governance from the inside out. 

Political freedom, in particular, has witnessed a pervasive decline across all regions without exception.³ Africa, often in the spotlight due to dramatic military coups, has experienced the most recent decline, spanning from 2014 to the present. This decline is primarily attributed to mounting pressures from authoritarian regimes on electoral systems and the erosion of legislative controls over executive powers. 

Europe has been grappling with a decline in political freedom since 2012, regressing to levels akin to those observed in 1996. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the decline started in 2003, exacerbated by diminishing political rights and a collapse of civil liberties beginning in 2016. 

The global trajectory of the rule of law has been on a downward trend since 2012, as authoritarians co-opted and undermined institutions. Nearly every region has faced mounting pressure on the rule of law. Notably, the Middle East and North Africa region has witnessed the most significant decline across most indicators, including security and judicial independence, and a rise in corruption. 

These declines not only challenge US interests abroad but also directly impede prosperity and sustainable development. The global turning point of 2012 has directly impacted prosperity levels. Between 1995 and 2012, prosperity exhibited an average annual increase of 0.4 points. From 2012 onward, this progress has significantly slowed, dwindling to 0.1 points per year. 

But all is not bleak. Despite significant odds, Bernardo Arevalo was inaugurated as president in Guatemala. Elections in Taiwan ushered in a decidedly pro-democratic candidate committed to maintaining the island’s independence from China. Political freedoms have also expanded in Zambia following the electoral defeat of President Edgar Lungu. And Senegal, after a series of democratic setbacks, just elected its youngest president, forty-four-year-old Bassirou Diomaye Faye. 

Citizens are also not standing by. Instead, they are mounting broad-based civil resistance movements to demand change, as in Belarus, or to root out endemic corruption, as in Iraq. Since 2017, roughly one hundred significant civil resistance movements have led to substantial reforms or the removal of thirty governments and leaders.⁴ Moreover, the number of new civil resistance movements seeking political transitions has grown over the last three decades. 

1. Freedom abroad is essential to US national security at home

Supporting democracy—particularly in strategic locations—is not an altruistic enterprise. We can and should support freedom fighters and strong political institutions because doing so aligns with American values. But the main reason we promote democracy through a combination of diplomacy, investment, and foreign aid is because it is good for the United States.⁵ The United States is more secure with a world that is free and open. Democracies are more reliable trading partners, less likely to go to war with one another, and less apt to incubate and export transnational crime and terrorism.⁶

By contrast, authoritarians are unpredictable and can generate instability. Some of the least free states produce the most instability.⁷ From the Sahel to the Middle East, weak states characterized by predatory elites governing unresponsive institutions have consistently been breeding grounds for terrorist cells that attack American interests, service members, and allies.

Democracy abroad is also better for US businesses. Autocrats often oversee regulatory regimes that are unfavorable (if not hostile) to US businesses. By contrast, countries with trans-parent regulations and processes are more reliable markets for American companies.⁸ According to the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index, which ranks countries on a composite score of economic, political, and legal freedom, four of the five top emerging markets for US companies are free (South Korea) or mostly free (Brazil, Mexico, and India).

A foreign policy with democracy support as a key component also positions the United States to compete with China, Russia, and Iran. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Kremlin understand that other countries’ political systems affect their national security and have therefore been widely promoting an authoritarian development and governance model.⁹ The CCP is working to create a world safe for the communist party—one composed of authoritarian regimes—by exporting surveillance technology, autocratic governance practices, and other repression modalities. The CCP provides training to political parties in the Global South to promote authoritarian solutions to governance challenges. To curry favor with local elites and foster an environment favorable to China’s interests, Beijing co-opts journalists and invests in the media sector to shape reporting.¹⁰

The weak regulatory environment and minimal transparency around foreign financing and investments in fragile democracies create conditions for countries to become dependent on China, whether due to unsustainable debt to Chinese state-governed banks or reliance on information communication technologies from Chinese government-linked companies. The consequence of this dependence is an expanding set of countries that will choose China as their primary economic and political partner and side with Beijing against US interests in multilateral institutions.

It is no coincidence that countries that already host—or have reportedly considered welcoming—a Chinese military base on their territory are non-democracies and usually indebted to or otherwise dependent on China. Supporting democratic actors and institutions can help ensure that fewer countries find themselves in situations like Djibouti, Cambodia, and Equatorial Guinea, among others, limiting the number of countries eager to help the People’s Liberation Army expand its global presence.

Russia’s campaigns to undermine free societies also threaten US interests. The Kremlin, while destroying all domestic opposition and independent media, is interfering in elections across the globe and deploying Wagner mercenaries from Syria to the Sahel. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, if successful, risks incentivizing the Kremlin to attack a NATO ally. A Russian victory could also incentivize China to attack Taiwan.

Beijing and other autocracies are unabashedly trying to create a world safe for autocrats. Authoritarian regimes across the globe are learning from one another and actively cooperating to crush democratic movements at home and rewrite international norms to advance their interests. Their actions present clear, consequential threats to American security interests.

2. Democracy assistance in practice: Tools and proven return on investment

A world made up of a constellation of autocratic regimes is bad for America and good for Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. To advance US economic and security interests, American foreign policy must have supporting democratic governance as a central component.

Like deploying warships, employing sanctions, or transferring defensive weapons, using diplomacy and foreign assistance to help allied nations guard themselves against authoritarian incursions are tools the United States uses to advance US national security.¹¹ Democracy assistance can help achieve both security and prosperity. This argument is instrumental, not ideological or normative.

What does American support for democracy look like in practice? It is not nation building or forcing democracy at the tip of a gun, as pundits like to suggest.

Democracy support is assistance the United States provides to protect and strengthen democratic governance abroad. The two main tools are complementary: foreign assistance programs that strengthen the capacity of democratic institutions or actors within and outside government; and US diplomatic engagement that champions local democracy advocates and holds despotic regimes accountable for their actions.¹²

In addition to coordinated diplomacy and development assistance, the United States enforces human rights criteria for export controls; deploys visa restrictions or financial sanctions to punish and change the behavior of kleptocrats and autocrats; restricts military aid based on human rights standards; and offers economic support for allied countries targeted by China, Russia, and other malign actors.

Democracy assistance can help strengthen institutions to make them more effective and accountable; bolster democracy advocates working to hold corrupt leaders accountable; and advance more transparent regulatory regimes, among other benefits. These changes that democracy promotion can help bring about deter malign states from exerting their influence in a target country or, at a minimum, make it more difficult for them to do so. Robust electoral processes defend against interference in elections and help maintain public confidence in democracy. An independent civil society and media help hold leaders accountable and mitigate against external actors corrupting and ultimately co-opting them. Democracy support helps bolster transparency and counter CCP and Kremlin efforts to capture political and economic elites that, if unchecked, can result not only in reduced political accountability but in policy and commercial decisions in line with China’s or Russia’s interests and contrary to those of Washington and US businesses.

Democracy assistance is effective and shows a strong return on investment for US taxpayer money to advance US interests overseas. Studies show that this investment delivers real results. A study of US democracy promotion programs conducted between the critical post-Cold War period of 1990 and 2003 found that democracy assistance had “clear and consistent impacts” on overall democratization, including civil society, judicial and electoral processes, and media independence.¹³ And despite the recent global democratic recession from 2012 to 2022, eight countries that were veering toward autocracy bounced back to democracy in 2023. International democracy support and protection was an important factor in securing these gains.¹⁴

II. Democracy agenda 2025-2029: Core priorities

The next president’s democracy agenda should focus on four priorities, centered on the main threats to US interests and evidence-based approaches to addressing them.

• Shore up countries’ resilience to Chinese and Russian malign influence and co-optation. If the United States wins, China loses.¹⁵ Plain and simple. This confrontation with China and Russia, of course, has a military component but is more fundamentally ideological. We therefore need to center the democracy agenda on ensuring China fails in the battle of ideas and narratives about the superiority of its system. This stream of work should have two core pillars. First, we need to make sure that China cannot co-opt or otherwise influence local politicians to pass policies/laws or agree to opaque deals that together or apart benefit CCP interests at the expense of that country’s citizens and the United States. This involves strengthening institutions and policies in countries the CCP or Kremlin targets to make these states and political systems more resilient to outside aggression. Second, we need to scale up messaging, internationally and to target countries, on why democracy is superior—based on facts—to the authoritarian model on offer from Beijing and Moscow. This stream of work, as with all democracy promotion, should not center on forcing any model on another country.
• Focus US democracy assistance on bolstering the core political and institutional elements of democracy and governance (namely, political parties, legislatures, electoral commissions, and other related ministries) and empowering newly elected, reform-minded leaders to deliver. Strong institutions and political party systems promote resilience to Chinese and Russian malign influence. These institutions are also the best bet for ensuring democracy delivers for citizens. Strong institutions set the playing field for robust competition of policy ideas and offer better return on investment than approaches rooted in a specific social agenda. The United States, in deciding which types of democracy support to focus on, has in recent years drifted too far toward helping grow civil society in target countries so these actors can push elected leaders for specific policy solutions. Absent capable officials and institutions to advocate to, however, such groups will be screaming into a void. The United States, in deciding how to allocate finite resources, needs to focus on shoring up political institutions and political parties (the key link between citizens and their government) first and civil society second.
• Advance a vision for technology advancement grounded in democratic principles and thwart “digital authoritarianism.” Couple this offensive agenda with one that helps partners push back against digital authoritarianism. A proliferation of new technologies has affected nearly every aspect of human existence. The way countries govern is no exception. The United States, first during the Trump administration and to a lesser extent during the Biden White House, worked with other democracies to ensure this proliferation of technologies leads to a “technological ecosystem” globally that is based in “openness, trust and security, and that reinforces democratic principles and human rights.”¹⁶ This vision is in stark contrast to the CCP’s vision for technology, one rooted in censorship and centralized control. The next president needs to further advance this vision for technological use (from rules governing the internet to those shaping the rollout of AI) based on freedom and openness. They also need to forcefully push back against Chinese and Russian attempts to the contrary.
• Revamp how the United States uses diplomacy to advance democracy and recommit to encouraging burden-sharing among allies to support democracy globally. The extant US diplomatic playbook for supporting democracy overseas is shopworn and largely ineffective. Successive administrations resort to the same set of public messages condemning human rights abuses or a fraudulent election, yet with few, if any, consequences attached to these words. The repressive regime targeted by US rhetoric yawns. We need a new template. The same applies for how we use multilateral diplomacy to advance democracy interests. The United States cannot and should not foot the bill for democracy support everywhere. We must ramp up not only coordination with allies—through groupings like the G7—but also agree to a division of labor in select countries.

III. A policy framework for advancing democracy

The sections above establish that expanding freedom is vital to US national security and articulate the four areas our next president should focus on to advance democracy abroad. This section outlines a roadmap for realizing this aim. It includes two sets of recommendations: one centered on changes to the US government bureaucracy necessary to maximize the probability that America can advance democracy overseas; and the second focused on actions to advance the four priorities outlined above.

1. Reforms to the US government

Delivering on priorities requires having the bureaucratic structures in place to carry out policy, develop a strategy to execute said policy, and then deliver the associated goals and objectives through coordinated action overseas. The extant structure of the executive branch has several deficiencies that must be changed to realize the priorities listed above. These recommendations are divided into adjustments necessary to maximize the impact of US democracy promotion efforts specifically and US foreign aid more broadly.

Structural changes specific to democracy promotion

• Prioritize supporting democracy in foreign policy deliberations. The state of democracy directly influences America’s ability to advance key US foreign policy objectives, whether to enable our companies to invest overseas or to prevent the CCP from co-opting strategically important countries. The United States must therefore place democracy protection and promotion on par with—or close to—other factors key decision-makers consider. Democracy promotion will not, and should not, trump many purely security considerations. Nor will prioritizing democracy promotion mean cutting off collaboration or engagement with less democratic states. The United States will need to engage non-democracies to address pressing security challenges, in particular those that imperil US citizens and American territory.
• However, if the United States is to succeed in shoring up democracy to compete with our adversaries, then the American government must actively consider implications for democracy in its foreign policy deliberations. Failing to do so, and blindly prioritizing short-term security gains, will feed the vicious cycle we see globally—from the recent string of coups in the Sahel to people seeking to overthrow governments in the Middle East. This approach has fueled grievances undermining democratic governance and produced instability that hurts our interests, rather than sustainably advance our objectives. At a practical level, this should involve elevating the functional offices and bureaus at the State Department and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that work on democracy issues to ensure they have an influential seat at the policy decision-making table.
• Draft a US democracy strategy that outlines clear goals and metrics for success. Given how central democracy promotion is to US interests, each administration should be required to develop and deliver to Congress a strategy for doing it effectively. The next president should direct their national security advisor (NSA) to draft a democracy strategy and an executive action that cements this strategy as US policy. The strategy should encompass all relevant agencies and departments, and articulate short- and long-term goals as well as theories of success for realizing these objectives.
• The strategy should include as its stated end goal a world where democracy is the predominant form of governance because this is the model that best delivers for US interests as well as global prosperity and security. The strategy for realizing this overarching goal should convey regional and country-specific priorities and a theory of the case for achieving these priorities. The president should task their deputy national security advisor with overseeing execution of the strategy and holding involved departments and agencies accountable for results. The strategy should have metrics for success to gauge change in target countries as well as changes, internal to the US government, required to be effective. The strategy must affirm that political change in target countries can take years—not months—and structure its components and objectives accordingly.
• The president should formalize the strategy in a national security directive (NSD) because doing so codifies the strategy as US policy and therefore carries with it the expectation that relevant components of the federal government will execute the strategy. Every president since Harry Truman has used NSDs to articulate their policies and vision for achieving them. The Trump administration, for instance, issued eighteen directives while the Obama team issued forty-three. Accountability is the key advantage of codifying policy in a national security directive—federal departments and agencies must deliver on the president’s vision.¹⁷

Structural changes related to US foreign assistance

• Fully empower the US Department of State’s Office of Foreign Assistance to fulfill its mandate of aligning foreign aid with policy goals and maximizing impact. The Office of Foreign Assistance is charged with ensuring foreign aid allocations and spending is aligned with US foreign policy objectives. In practice, however, USAID and other aid-providing departments exercise too much independence and spend funds on priorities tangentially related to American priorities. The secretary of state should empower the Office of Foreign Assistance to fulfill its mission by mandating oversight of planning and allocation back to its director. This will help make sure that aid generally—and democracy assistance in particular—is used to advance specific foreign policy objectives. Some have called to eliminate this office, in the spirit of streamlining the US government bureaucracy to more efficiently advance US national security. Doing so would be counterproductive to that very aim. We need an empowered central body to coordinate and guide spending, in line with policy aims, not more decentralized decision-making on where and how to use US foreign aid monies.
• Instead of prioritizing “localization” of US foreign aid—the policy which mandates sending a predetermined amount of foreign assistance to local organizations—focus on maximizing the impact of democracy assistance to achieve results that advance US national security. Foreign aid benefits American citizens by leading to changes in a recipient country—stronger electoral commission or laws, for example. American citizens do not benefit if a specific amount of aid, say 30 percent, goes to local organizations. The next president should pursue increasing host government “self-reliance,” a key element of the Trump administration’s foreign aid agenda, where feasible—for example, in the areas of health or education—but jettison arbitrary requirements for a specific portion of funding to go to local organizations, and instead focus staff time on crafting foreign assistance interventions that deliver. Said interventions can and should include components to increase the capacity of local entities to execute specific types of work. The interventions should also include direct support to movements or organizations that can—through financial and managerial controls—ensure proper use of taxpayer funds. The United States should call for this as part of program design, provided it helps achieve the government’s goal, instead of using a percentage of aid to local organizations as a goal in and of itself. If the next administration wants to retain some focus on “localization,” the United States could leverage philanthropy to meet its percentage targets. Prominent philanthropic entities can use funds as they see fit, as they are not responsible for delivering to the US taxpayer, and therefore can and should aid organizations directly as they see fit.¹⁸ By contrast, foreign aid is a statecraft tool used to advance American interests. It is not charity.
• To maximize return on investment of taxpayer dollars, reduce the US government’s use of contracts (for profit) to fund democracy assistance work overseas and shift this spending to grants (nonprofit). This is another straightforward step the United States can take to reduce waste and maximize the return on every dollar invested. During the Biden administration, USAID has drastically expanded its use of contracts over grants. The result has been more money going to for-profit firms as a fee, and fewer resources being spent overseas to help realize changes that benefit American citizens. Why should the US taxpayer foot the bill for contractor profits instead of having these monies go to advancing American security and economic interests overseas? Contracts can be a useful vehicle for foreign aid spending in very specific instances—for example, to procure a set number of textbooks or building materials. Ordering and delivering these items is straightforward. However, the rigid and costly nature of contracts makes them ill-purposed for implementing democracy and rights programs in highly complex environments that require adaptation and flexibility. The White House should direct USAID to increase its use of grants/cooperative agreements—created with the explicit purpose of offering flexibility that enables results in highly complex and fluid environments—and scale down monies flowing via for-profit contract mechanisms.

2. Advancing the democracy agenda priorities

With the above bureaucratic and policy recommendations in place, the United States should implement the following steps for each of the four priorities comprising our democracy agenda framework. These recommendations and those above are meant to serve as a broad framework to guide decision-making and transition team ideas and policies and are not meant to represent a comprehensive set of solutions.

Shore up countries’ resilience to Chinese and Russian malign influence and co-optation.

Policy recommendations

• Expand initiatives focused specifically on detecting, preventing, and countering CCP and Kremlin interference. Strong institutions, addressed in priority two below, are an effective source of resilience to foreign malign influence. They are necessary, but unfortunately not sufficient, to guarantee mitigating attempts by Beijing or Moscow to influence political systems of other countries and undermine democracy, and US interests, in the process. The United States must therefore pair institution-strengthening with diplomacy and foreign assistance-supported programming in areas that have proven effective in building democratic resilience to foreign authoritarian influence: (1) supporting independent media that can produce independent reporting on Chinese and Russian influence efforts; (2) people-to-people exchanges where citizens abroad, and in particular those countries in PRC or Kremlin crosshairs, visit the United States to witness first-hand the efficacy of our institutions and benefits of our model; and (3) dialogues between elected officials, from the United States and other nations, to share understanding of foreign influence operations and solutions to address them.
• Ensure the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is adequately funded to combat or address the plethora of democracy-related challenges. The NED and its four core institutes are the preeminent US democracy assistance organizations. All are nonprofit entities with low overhead budgets that focus resources on addressing threats to democracy—and US interests—rather than turning a profit. The NED is a mission-oriented enterprise with one goal: to defend freedom and spread democracy. These organizations are the logical partners for on-the-ground work because they have long-standing relationships with local partners and individuals, rooted in trust, and can therefore better deliver results. The current NED budget ($315 million) is not sufficient. Congress should increase or at least maintain NED’s budget, so its leadership can expand work specifically on countering China. Congress can offset this increase to NED’s budget with a commensurate decrease in the budget for humanitarian assistance. The next president will need to prioritize spending, and helping our partners gird themselves against Chinese and Russian incursions to their political systems is more important than distributing aid in the wake of a natural disaster.
• Congress should pass new legislation (the “Non-Kinetic Competition Act”) to require the White House to submit multiyear plans outlining the US approach—harnessing all nonmilitary statecraft tools, including foreign aid and diplomacy—to compete with China in select priority countries. Congress, through other legislation, has mandated that the executive branch develop and submit plans for addressing fragility and instability in specified countries. It should do the same for competition with China and Russia. Congress should require that strategies feature support for democracy as a centerpiece.¹⁹

Focus US democracy assistance on bolstering the core political and institutional elements of democracy and governance (namely political parties, legislatures, electoral commissions, and other related ministries) and empowering newly elected, reform-minded leaders to deliver.

Policy recommendations

• In priority countries, assess the state and capacity of political parties, electoral commissions, legislatures, and related institutions, and focus democracy assistance on shoring up gaps. Country teams can assess these needs and advise on how best to use foreign aid to address them. Diplomats can focus their engagement on pushing host government officials to make good on existing—or start new—reform agendas.
• In countries experiencing a democratic opening, surge support to the newly elected and reform-minded leader to ensure they can deliver on campaign promises and therefore head off disenchantment with democracy not delivering. The Biden administration has rightfully attempted to address this critical need through its Democracy Delivers Initiative (DDI), which involves the US government mobilizing resources from across US agencies to help selected “countries cement early democratic gains, create space for further reforms, and promote the global progress of democracy.” Moving forward, a key part of DDI or its successor should be to surge support to newly elected leaders to ensure they have the resources to deliver. The county and regional strategies, to be required in the democracy strategy referenced above, should have a focus on supporting countries showing signs of democratization and having experienced a recent opening. US support cannot and should not just mean procurement of resources or material goods. It should include surge support of staff to support on key technical and policy areas for specific ministries. It should also mean changing key US policies— for example, lifting sanctions where warranted—that make it easier for the new government to deliver.
• Support pro-democracy movements in authoritarian/ closed societies to continue a push for reform and ensure actors are in place to lead once the autocratic government falls. In some contexts, institutions are captured by the ruling authoritarian regime and therefore do not warrant support. In these closed spaces, the United States should focus on supporting nonviolent civil resistance movements that have proven to be vital to advancing democracy and reversing authoritarianism. In closed societies, these movements offer the best bet, and return on US investment, for enabling a democratic opening—and ensuring there are pro-democracy actors present to lead once the authoritarian regime falls or reforms begin. Popular civil resistance movements—using tactics such as strikes, boycotts, protests, and other tactics of noncooperation—are historically one of the most powerful drivers of democracy worldwide. The United States should follow a well-researched playbook for supporting these movements, which includes providing support to movements earlier, particularly in the early organizing phase, and using convening power to bring together movement activists and potential external supporters to discuss coordination of external support. In countries where movements succeed in removing an authoritarian government, we often see movement leaders outmaneuvered by the former regime actors. They lack political skills, not just technical ones, and we can help them succeed through both programming (technical assistance) and policy (public support where it’s helpful, connections with international business, etc.). In countries where kleptocratic capture is the defining feature of governance, efforts to assist democratic activists should prioritize integrity champions.²⁰ Anti-corruption campaigns can galvanize broader collective action oriented toward openness, helping create a window of opportunity for meaningful reform.

Win the race to leverage technology by articulating and then supporting enacting a positive vision for how technology can deliver on democratic principles. Couple this offensive agenda with one that helps partners push back against digital authoritarianism.

Policy recommendations

• Invest in efforts to foster and sustain a global movement to embrace technology as an advantage rather than a harm for democratic societies. Digitally native democracies empower citizen engagement, improve transparency, strengthen citizen trust, and position democracies to be resilient, responsive, and effective even as new geopolitical threats emerge. Investing in democratic stakeholders that effectively use technology can demonstrate democracy’s ability to evolve, be effective, and better deliver for citizens than authoritarian models of governance. With the rise of AI, this emerging technology can be a positive enabler of democracy, if used with the appropriate safety and regulatory measures in place. Democracies should leverage AI to improve citizen engagement, enhance information accessibility and provision, and service delivery—especially during important political processes— while establishing guardrails to encourage democratic uses of the tool, facilitate prosocial design by AI developers, and ensure no one gets left behind.
• Boost the support surveillance/censorship circumvention technologies and mainstream these internet freedom technologies into democracy assistance. The values embedded in internet freedom—an open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure internet—are essential infrastructure for democracy, human rights, and governance. Unfortunately, authoritarians are effectively using technology to further their values, principles, and goals. The United States and its partners need to do the same. Funding for the critical technologies and programs that keep democratic actors safe, facilitate access to information, and make democratic organization possible needs to keep up with the threat environment. Internet freedom funding also needs to be mainstreamed into broader democracy assistance.
• Work with partner nations to strengthen their domestic laws and regulations to improve cybersecurity. Such interventions could support executive branch institutions, judicial institutions, and legislatures, as well as bolster awareness and training within political parties and civil society.²¹ Subsequent support could be provided to ensure implementation across national and subnational governments. The US House Democracy Partnership, a congressional diplomacy initiative, could leverage its global platform to spotlight and share comparative examples of quality cybersecurity frameworks with allied governments for consideration and adoption.²² The United States should require that the data/information management systems of all partners and implementers meet or exceed minimum standards and requirements for best practices. That might mean, for example, accelerating movement to secure cloud services, and ensuring investment in technology and personnel to match these goals. This could involve an executive order that applies to foreign aid comparable to that on improving the cybersecurity of the United States.²³ To address resource and capacity constraints, partners should adopt a risk-based approach which prioritizes the most critical assets and systems.

Revamp how the United States uses diplomacy to advance democracy and recommit to burden-sharing with allies to support democracy overseas.

Policy recommendations

• Recalibrate the US approach to engaging “hybrid regimes” to stop giving them a pass on repressing freedoms because they might be relevant to other American interests, and start holding them accountable because doing so better advances American objectives. Hybrid regimes are countries like El Salvador and the Philippines that want to be seen as democracies but lack the fundamentals of a democracy. They hold elections, but the playing field is uneven, and the electoral management body often compromised. They have governance institutions, but said bodies often serve the regime’s interests first and those of citizens second. Unfortunately, since these governments hold elections and display other trappings of democracy, some policymakers give them a pass on their democratic track record—especially if the country is tied to other American interests. Giving these regimes a pass is a policy mistake. Hybrid regimes vote less frequently with the United States at the UN and are more prone to instability. The United States must balance collaborating with hybrid regimes, when it is necessary at all, with pushing their rulers to reform and advance democratic progress. To do so, the United States and G7 allies should: (a) make clear they will not welcome leaders chosen through dubious, substandard elections; (b) increase the use of public sanctions, including asset freezes and visa bans, on regimes proven to engage in election fraud/malfeasance; and (c) improve the use of high-level diplomatic engagement, including Cabinet-level delegations and the legitimacy they confer to the recipient country, to incentivize governments to reform and adhere to international democratic best practices.²⁴
• Establish and make public a framework of consequences the United States will impose on regimes should they repress their people/movements. US statements condemning, for example, a fraudulent election or a government repressing its citizens are necessary and welcome. However, such talk is cheap and rarely (if ever) changes the target regime’s behavior. To make repressive leaders stop abusing their power, the United States and its allies need to pair messages with consequences—and make sure autocrats understand the consequences of their actions in advance, so they mitigate against action in the first place. To further deter authoritarian repression, the United States with G7 allies should develop a tiered framework for imposing costs in response to escalating domestic (and at times international) repression of civil resistance movements. This tiered approach, which the author and colleagues have advanced in a separate publication, would indicate proportional US and allied responses to repression and abuse of power—with lower costs for shutting down a small section of the internet or jailing a single opposition leader (although, to some extent, this depends on who the leader is), and more robust consequences for a regime that authorizes lethal military force against nonviolent demonstrators (e.g., the Syrian government in 2011) or incarcerates and tortures movement participants. For the fully elaborated tiered framework, see Merriman, Quirk, and Jain, Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave.²⁵ At the highest “tier” of this framework, a regime engaged in widespread jailing or killing of activists—as is occurring now in Nicaragua—would be met, for instance, with deep and broad sanctions; removal from SWIFT, the network banks use to send information; cyberattacks to disrupt the regime’s coercive apparatus; and taking steps, with allies abroad, to apprehend and jail regime authorities should they travel. While undoubtedly difficult to implement such a framework, if followed, it would add bite to America’s diplomatic bark.
• Work with G7 partners to identity shared democracy advancement priorities and develop plans to pool funding to address them. The G7 offers an already established and proven mechanism for strong democracies to collaborate. Its members command more than 50 percent of global GDP and associated government resources, diplomacy, and foreign aid for advancing democracy and combatting authoritarian aggression. This group, or an expanded version of it (e.g., the D-10), can also work with NATO to ensure its strategic concept conveys the importance of protecting and promoting democracy.
• Leverage our strongest bilateral partnerships—with the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and others—by identifying shared priorities and devising plans to advance them. This can include supporting key regional allies to do more to advance democracy in their respective regions. The United States could, for example, help South Korea—which can finance foreign assistance work but does not yet have the infrastructure to execute projects—to identify priorities, ways to fund them, and mechanisms for advancing them.

Conclusion

Strengthening democracy will never trump immediate security concerns. However, failing to strengthen governance, even over the medium term, will lead to a repeat of many security challenges, from coups across Africa leading to unpredictable partnerships to terrorists launching attacks from semi-governed spaces. This paper outlines a measured proposal for supporting democracy in the places that matter most for US interests and in a manner that maximizes return on investment.

Fellow

Patrick Quirk

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Freedom and Prosperity Center Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Civil Society Conflict

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The post Advancing freedom, defeating authoritarianism: A democracy agenda for 2025-2029 appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The ICC first opened proceedings into Russia’s invasion in March 2022. One year later, arrest warrants were issued for Putin himself and the Russian President’s human rights ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. Ukrainian officials say thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion, with many adopted into Russian families or sent to camps where they are subjected to ideological indoctrination designed to erase their Ukrainian identity. This may qualify as an act of genocide, according to the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute. 

In March 2024, the ICC announced new arrest warrants for Russian Air Force long range aviation chief Sergei Kobylash and Russian Black Sea Fleet commander Viktor Sokolov in connection with the bombing of Ukraine’s power grid. ICC prosecutors aim to charge the Russian commanders with the alleged commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity because they say the bombing campaign was part of a state policy of widespread attacks on the civilian population.

This week’s warrants represent a significant step forward in efforts to hold Russia legally accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine. The latest suspects are top Russian military officials and key figures alongside Putin in the leadership of the invasion. Both Gerasimov and Shoigu would be potential suspects in a future prosecution for the crime of aggression. However, the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this crime, while plans to establish a special tribunal remain at the early stages. 

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

News of the arrest warrants for Shoigu and Gerasimov was welcomed in Ukraine, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling the ICC decision “a clear indication that justice for Russian crimes against Ukrainians is inevitable.” At the same time, there is little prospect of Russian leaders standing trial in The Hague any time soon.

All member countries of the ICC are expected to hand over suspects to the court, but Russia is not a member. Predictably, Russian officials have denounced the court’s latest warrants as part of a “hybrid war” being waged against the country. Ukraine is also not a member of the ICC but has granted the court jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes committed since the start of Russia’s invasion.

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While it remains unlikely that the ICC will be able to enforce its arrest warrants, the charges do have potential practical implications including restrictions on international travel. Indeed, concerns over possible arrest for war crimes are believed to have been instrumental in convincing Putin not to attend last summer’s annual BRICS summit in South Africa. If Shoigu and Gerasimov had any plans to travel internationally, they may now be forced to rethink.

It is also significant that the latest charges include allegations of crimes against humanity. While there is no such thing as an official hierarchy of international crimes, it is generally accepted that crimes against humanity are more serious offenses than war crimes and incur graver penalties. This may help Ukraine to consolidate support for Kyiv’s peace initiatives, while also strengthening international efforts to bring Russia to justice for crimes committed during the invasion. 

Russia’s bombardment of the Ukrainian electricity grid has been a particular focus for ICC investigators. This year’s arrest warrants address the period from October 2022 to March 2023, which saw the first campaign of intensified attacks. However, the bombing has continued, with Russian missile and drone strikes during the first half of 2024 damaging or destroying around half of Ukraine’s remaining power-generating capacity. 

This destruction has left Ukraine facing a possible humanitarian catastrophe during the coming winter months. Officials are currently warning that the civilian population may be restricted to six hours of electricity per day at a time when temperatures typically fall well below freezing for extended periods. This underlines the urgency of challenging Russian impunity and demonstrating that senior Russian officials will be held responsible for crimes committed in Ukraine.

Andrii Mikheiev is a lawyer at the International Centre for Ukrainian Victory.

Further reading

UkraineAlert May 30, 2024

If the West wants a sustainable peace it must commit to Ukrainian victory

By Hanna Hopko, Andrius Kubilius

Since 2022, Western policies of escalation management have failed to appease Putin and have only emboldened the Kremlin. If the West wants peace, it must help Ukraine win, write Hanna Hopko and Andrius Kubilius.

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Conflict Disinformation

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post More senior Russian officials join Putin on war crimes wanted list appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This exchange has been an agonizing personal blow. Since 1981, when my brother Bijan Bazargan, a college student, was arrested, my family fought tirelessly for his release, clinging to the belief that supporting a political group or distributing pamphlets should not merit a ten-year sentence. In the summer of 1988, my brother was secretly executed, and his body was never returned—making him one of the countless forcibly disappeared.

After years of activism, conferences, and gatherings to expose the horrors of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, Noury’s arrest felt like the hard work of those decades had finally paid off. It was the first time a perpetrator had been held accountable, and this opened a small window of hope. But when the Swedish government pardoned Noury, I was overwhelmed by a sense of betrayal and fury.

Although this decision saved two innocent people from Iranian jails, it was a mockery of justice. It emboldened a terrorist regime that uses hostage diplomacy to achieve its goals. Noury returned to a hero’s welcome in Iran, with flowers and a red carpet, surrounded by dozens of reporters. He mocked the families of the victims on television, laughing at our pain and the entire justice system. This prisoner swap deeply undermines trust in the international justice system, promotes the desire for revenge and vengeance, and breeds chaos and despair.

While Noury committed war crimes and murder, Floderus had merely traveled to Iran to visit friends and sightsee, and Azizi had gone to Iran to take care of his property’s water leakage. The gross imbalance in this exchange is alarming. How can a state justify swapping individuals detained under dubious circumstances for a man convicted of heinous crimes against humanity?

The case against Hamid Noury

Noury was convicted of war crimes and murder for his role in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners; he was assistant to the deputy prosecutor of Gohardasht prison in Karaj near Tehran. This event saw thousands extrajudicially executed on the orders of founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini’s fatwa ordered the executors to make decisions “based on prison records and [the] simple question, whether prisoners believed in the Islamic regime or not.” He also instructed them “not to hesitate or show any doubt or be concerned with details…and be most ferocious against infidels,” a reference to political prisoners who did not want to repent and accept the regime’s version of religion and ideology.

On November 9, 2019, during his visit to Sweden, Noury was arrested at Stockholm Airport under the principle of universal jurisdiction. His trial was significant because it was one of the first times someone was held accountable for the 1988 massacre.

Survivors and victims’ families endured an arduous legal battle, participating in ninety-three district court sessions and twenty-two appellate court sessions, while facing constant lies and ridicule from Noury. Throughout the trial, the former official frequently turned his back on the plaintiffs, mocked them, and used derogatory language to demean them. His family exacerbated the situation by filming the plaintiffs and labeling them terrorists who deserved to die.

In 2022, Noury was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1988 massacre. At the time, his trial and subsequent conviction in Sweden were celebrated as significant steps for international justice.

However, his return to Iran in a political exchange undermines these achievements, and potentially emboldens other rogue regimes globally.

Injustice is served

On May 29, the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson proposed a draft law to the Legislative Council to expedite the transfer of prison sentences to and from Sweden, aiming to increase the number of convicts serving sentences in their home countries. Plaintiffs were alarmed by this development and began strategizing ways to oppose the amendment, which is set to take effect on July 1, 2025. While preparing for that fight, they were blindsided by the sudden pardon and release of Noury, who was sent back to Iran.

Sweden’s decision to use an existing law to pardon Noury and send him back to Iran raises several legal and ethical questions. The law allows the government to pardon or mitigate a criminal penalty for “exceptional reasons.” However, the legality of applying this law to someone convicted of war crimes is highly dubious. International norms and laws suggest that individuals accused of war crimes should not be eligible for pardons. War crimes are generally considered so egregious that they fall outside the scope of typical criminal acts that might be mitigated or pardoned under domestic laws.

Additionally, as part of his conviction, the Swedish court had ordered Noury to pay reparations to the plaintiffs. Although the amount was symbolic, it represented a debt owed to the victims—some of whom are Swedish citizens. The government should have considered this obligation before deciding to release Noury. Ignoring this debt disregards the justice system’s recognition of the harm caused to the victims and their families.

The public reaction to Noury’s release has been overwhelmingly negative. His release has also created profound disappointment among Iranians and disbelief in international norms and human rights laws. It was already challenging to discuss justice, accountability, and transitional justice, given the Islamic Republic’s forty-six-year history of committing atrocities. These include the chain murders of intellectuals and writers inside Iran during the 1990s, the crushing of the 2009 post-election protests known as the Green Movement, the killing of a reported 1,500 protesters during November 2019 (known as “Bloody November”), the killing, blinding, arresting, and torturing of protesters during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, and continued transnational repression. The Swedish government’s decision adds to the demands of victims’ family members for retribution and revenge.

This decision—which undermines the principles of accountability and justice the international community has strived to uphold—sends a dangerous message that even those convicted of the most grave human rights abuses can evade justice through political maneuvering.

It also potentially encourages the hostage-taking policies of Russia, Venezuela, and terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, and leaves behind numerous foreigners and dual citizens, including at least three Swedish nationals. Hostage diplomacy gives brutal regimes political leverage, allowing them to extract concessions, sanctions relief, or the release of their own imprisoned nationals. Each successful negotiation sets a precedent, suggesting that detaining foreigners can lead to diplomatic engagement and tangible benefits, thereby encouraging the continuation and expansion of these tactics.

This release has left numerous foreigners and dual citizens in imminent danger of execution in Iran—including Swedish national Ahmadreza Jalali, whose death sentence has already been issued. Excluding them from these negotiations sent a clear message that they are not as important as a European diplomat. This decision underscores the need for a more comprehensive approach to international hostage negotiations that value all human lives equally.

Noury’s pardon despite his war crimes conviction risks further emboldening the Islamic Republic. It undermines the independent judiciary system, signaling to other regimes that such serious crimes might not face significant consequences. The Swedish government must be transparent and explain why it made such a decision.

The fight for justice is far from over, and the families of the victims of the Islamic Republic’s atrocities, along with human rights advocates worldwide, continue to call for accountability and the end of impunity for crimes against humanity. The global community must stand firm in this endeavor, ensuring that justice prevails and that the security and dignity of all individuals are upheld.

Lawdan Bazargan is a former political prisoner, human rights activist, and family member of one of the victims of the 1988 prison massacre in Iran. As a member of Victims’ Families for Transitional Justice, she advocates for justice and explores the profound grief of those seeking accountability for the atrocities committed.

The post The pardoning and release of a convicted Iranian war criminal is a crime appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The talks, which took place within the framework of an intergovernmental conference in Luxembourg, marked the launch of a process that could still take years to complete. While much work lies ahead, Ukrainian officials were keen to emphasize the symbolic importance of this latest milestone in the country’s long journey toward European integration.

“Today is an historic day,” commented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a celebratory social media post. “We will never be derailed from our path to a united Europe, to our common home of all European nations. A home that must be peaceful!”

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishyna, who headed the country’s delegation in Luxembourg, called the talks “a truly historical moment for my country.” Stefanishyna noted that Tuesday’s breakthrough would give Ukrainians “the moral power to continue withstanding” Russia’s invasion.  

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

While the official start of accession talks was widely toasted in Kyiv, formal negotiations are unlikely to get underway for several more months. Ukraine must then implement a wide range of reforms in thirty-five separate policy areas in order to bring the country’s laws and regulations into line with EU standards. Ukrainian officials have spoken tentatively of aiming to join the EU by 2030, but even this timeline might be overly optimistic.  

Nor does the start of negotiations represent any guarantee of future Ukrainian EU membership. A host of other European countries including Türkiye, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Albania are all also bidding to join the bloc. The experience of the Western Balkans in particular illustrates the challenges of transitioning from EU candidate to member status, with numerous countries still struggling to advance despite in some cases more than a decade of talks.  

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Ukraine’s progress on the road to EU membership has been remarkably rapid since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Days after the outbreak of hostilities, President Zelenskyy announced the country’s application to join the European Union in a video address delivered from Kyiv as columns of Russian troops advanced on the city. Four months later, EU leaders granted Ukraine official candidate country status. The decision to begin talks then followed amid much fanfare in December 2023. Rarely has Brussels bureaucracy seemed so dramatic.

For millions of Ukrainians, the quest for EU membership represents the country’s civilizational choice of a European future and the decisive rejection of Russian authoritarianism. This historic shift began in 1991, when more than ninety percent of Ukrainians backed the country’s declaration of independence and voted to leave the Soviet Union.

The next major milestone in Ukraine’s geopolitical divorce from Russia was the 2004 Orange Revolution, which saw Ukrainians from across the country flood into Kyiv to protest a rigged presidential vote and prevent the election of a Kremlin-backed candidate. This was to prove a watershed moment in post-Soviet history; the Orange Revolution established Ukraine’s European integration aspirations and sparked a rift with Russia that would only grow more pronounced over the coming decades.     

Nine years after the Orange Revolution, Ukrainians once more took to the streets to oppose a renewed Russian bid to force the country back into the Kremlin orbit. The 2013-14 Euromaidan Revolution further cemented Ukraine’s pivot toward the West, while deepening the divide separating the country from Russia. Days after Ukraine’s ousted pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych fled across the border to Russia, Vladimir Putin began the invasion of Ukraine with the seizure of Crimea, sparking a war that continues to this day.

The past decade of Russian aggression has had a profound impact on Ukraine’s commitment to European integration. Prior to the start of Russia’s invasion in 2014, many Ukrainians still favored close ties with Moscow and other former Soviet republics. However, the war unleashed by Putin has transformed Ukrainian public opinion, with the vast majority in today’s Ukraine now backing EU membership.    

Ukrainians understand that joining the European Union will not protect them from further Russian aggression. They are also realistic enough to recognize that huge challenges remain before they can finally achieve the goal of member status. Nevertheless, the start of official EU membership talks sends a strong signal that the country is moving in the right direction toward a future that is worth fighting for.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert May 30, 2024

If the West wants a sustainable peace it must commit to Ukrainian victory

By Hanna Hopko, Andrius Kubilius

Since 2022, Western policies of escalation management have failed to appease Putin and have only emboldened the Kremlin. If the West wants peace, it must help Ukraine win, write Hanna Hopko and Andrius Kubilius.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Jun 4, 2024

Vladimir Putin just tacitly admitted Crimea is not really part of Russia

By Peter Dickinson

Russia claims to have annexed five Ukrainian provinces but refuses to extend security red lines to these regions. This highlights the pragmatic political realities behind Putin’s talk of historic conquests, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Historic day for Ukraine as EU launches official membership talks appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Putin’s uncompromising vision for a future peace in Ukraine was widely condemned, with Kyiv officials and world leaders rejecting it as an “ultimatum.” Crucially, the terms outlined by the Kremlin leader would leave around twenty percent of Ukraine under Russian control, including significant portions of the country that Putin’s army has so far been unable to capture.

This new peace proposal is the latest example of the growing territorial demands that have accompanied Russia’s ten-year invasion of Ukraine. Time after time over the past decade, Putin has rejected accusations of an expansionist agenda, only to then escalate his invasion of Ukraine further.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

When Russia first attacked Ukraine in February 2014, Putin insisted Moscow had no territorial ambitions beyond the seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. “We do not want to divide Ukraine,” he assured the watching world. Within weeks, however, Kremlin forces posing as locals had sparked a separatist war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

For the following eight years, Putin steadily strengthened his grip on the so-called “separatist republics” of eastern Ukraine, while consistently denying any direct involvement. The failure of the international community to hold Putin accountable for this shameless duplicity fuelled a sense of impunity in Moscow that set the stage for the largest European invasion since World War II.

In his February 2022 address announcing the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin once again denied harboring any ambitions to annex additional Ukrainian lands. “It is not our plan to occupy Ukrainian territory,” he stated. “We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force.” Just six months later, Putin demonstrated the true value of his word by solemnly announcing the annexation of four more Ukrainian provinces.

Significantly, the invading Russian army did not fully control any of the Ukrainian provinces claimed by Putin in September 2022. This created a degree of ambiguity regarding the exact geographical extent of Russia’s goals, with Kremlin officials typically limiting themselves to vague calls for Ukraine to recognize the “new territorial realities” created by the front lines of the invasion.

Putin’s new peace plan has now removed all doubt. Indeed, he took special care to clarify that he expects the Ukrainian military to withdraw completely from the four Ukrainian provinces in question, including unoccupied areas. Among other things, this would mean handing over the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, with a prewar population of more than seven hundred thousand, along with Kherson, which was the only Ukrainian regional capital captured by the Russians before being liberated in November 2022.

Ukraine would also have to voluntarily demilitarize, accept geopolitical neutrality, and submit to “denazification,” Kremlin code for the suppression of Ukrainian national identity and the imposition of a Russian imperial ideology. In other words, Putin is insisting Ukraine admit defeat and surrender.  

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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The terms offered by Putin confirm that he has no intention of reaching a sustainable peace with Ukraine. On the contrary, the Russian dictator evidently remains as committed as ever to his overriding war aim of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood and erasing the Ukrainian nation. As if to underline the point, Putin accompanied his latest demands with a chilling warning that “the existence of Ukraine” depends on Kyiv’s readiness to accept his conditions.  

In fact, there is even more at stake than the continued existence of the Ukrainian state. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of global security is currently being determined on the battlefields of Ukraine. If Putin’s invasion succeeds, it will signal the dawning of a new era marked by rising international insecurity, ballooning defense budgets, and increasingly frequent wars of aggression.

A victorious Russia would almost certainly remain at the forefront of this descent into lawlessness for many years to come. Throughout the past decade, Putin has steadily escalated his invasion of Ukraine while shifting his entire country onto a war footing. By this point, it should be painfully clear to all objective observers that he will not stop until he is stopped. Indeed, Putin has openly compared today’s war to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Peter the Great, and frequently speaks in terms of a sacred mission to “return historically Russian lands.”

As anyone with a passing knowledge of Russian history will confirm, there are at least fifteen other countries beyond Ukraine that were once part of the Russian Empire and therefore meet Putin’s definition of “historically Russian.” All are now potential targets. While it is impossible to know exactly what Putin will do next if he defeats Ukraine, the idea that he will simply choose to stop is perhaps the most far-fetched scenario of all.

Nor will Putin be the only authoritarian ruler looking to embrace a new age of imperial aggression. China, Iran, and North Korea are all already providing the Russian war effort with varying degrees of support, and make no secret of their eagerness to overturn the existing world order. If Moscow achieves an historic victory in Ukraine, Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang will also be emboldened, along with a whole host of fellow autocrats throughout the Global South.

The only way to avoid a geopolitical future shaped by rising insecurity and resurgent imperialism is by ensuring Russia loses in Ukraine. Putin’s recent bogus peace proposal is essentially a call for Kyiv’s capitulation and the absorption of Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. This is entirely in line with the policies of escalation he has pursued throughout the past decade, and reflects an imperial agenda that leaves no room for meaningful compromise.

The Russian dictator still clearly believes he can overwhelm Ukraine with brute force while intimidating the wider Western world into inaction. If he succeeds, the consequences for international security will be devastating. Ukraine’s leaders have already responded to Putin’s latest demands with characteristic defiance. Kyiv’s international partners must now go further and provide the military support to secure Ukrainian victory.   

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.  

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jun 4, 2024

Vladimir Putin just tacitly admitted Crimea is not really part of Russia

By Peter Dickinson

Russia claims to have annexed five Ukrainian provinces but refuses to extend security red lines to these regions. This highlights the pragmatic political realities behind Putin’s talk of historic conquests, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert May 30, 2024

If the West wants a sustainable peace it must commit to Ukrainian victory

By Hanna Hopko, Andrius Kubilius

Since 2022, Western policies of escalation management have failed to appease Putin and have only emboldened the Kremlin. If the West wants peace, it must help Ukraine win, write Hanna Hopko and Andrius Kubilius.

Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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In early June, new developments in The Hague served as a reminder to key Russian propagandists, including one of Russia’s former presidents, that they may one day face similar charges. As allowed by Article 15 of the Rome Statute, a coalition of non-government organizations jointly submitted a formal Communication to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting an investigation into six Russian nationals involved in state propaganda. Notably, this coalition included international and Ukrainian groups, as well as one Russian NGO.

The Communication urged the ICC to investigate the Russians for criminal hate speech. The accused include Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and current Security Council Deputy Chairman; Vladimir Solovyov, a popular host on Russian state-owned television channel Rossiya-1; Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russia Today; Dmitry Kiselyov, head of the state-owned media consortium Rossiya Segodnya; and Sergey Mardan, a popular television and radio host. The Communication also named Alexey Gromov, First Deputy to the Presidential Executive Office’s Chief of Staff, stating his role in ordering or failing to prevent over 300 examples of criminal incitement to violence from February 24, 2022 to February 24, 2024. 

This initiative is arguably long overdue. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began more than two years ago, Russian state and state-aligned actors are accused of committing a daily litany of horrific atrocities against Ukrainians. In such a context, it is tempting to overlook the rhetoric behind these actions, but the Russia-Ukraine War illustrates the dangers of ignoring the threats made by powerful Russian media figures. Many in the Russian media have openly telegraphed eliminationist rhetoric against Ukrainians for years, setting the stage for the largest military attack in Europe since World War II. Their continuing threats against the existence of Ukraine, and against other Western countries, pose a direct threat to international security.  

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Since 2022, it has become increasingly apparent that Russia’s highly sophisticated propaganda machine requires novel legal and policy responses. New dangerous and diffuse platforms for Russia’s inciting language and other disinformation continue to emerge. In addition to the kind of conventional propaganda most are familiar with, Russian actors now spread public incitement and more subtle disinformation through social media, bot farms, video games, movies, and manipulated content (including deepfakes). International law does not yet cover each of these categories, as older legal frameworks concentrate on historical understandings of propaganda in legacy media formats.

These realities pose serious challenges for anyone seeking to protect victimized groups from atrocity crimes. International law, including the United Nations Genocide Convention, prohibits all means of disseminating direct and public incitement. Still, Russia’s sophisticated networks of propaganda platforms make upholding these provisions difficult. As these challenges increase, Russian techniques of shaping subconscious dehumanization continue to evolve. This fostering of cascading radicalization within Russian society may prove even more impactful than one-time calls for violence, while being more difficult to trace and prosecute.

Some Russian efforts to stay ahead of judicial accountability are clear. Even the Russian authorities felt compelled to respond to Russian journalist Anton Kravosky’s call to drown Ukrainian children in a river (he was suspended from RT for these comments, although an investigative committee later stated he had committed no crime). After these events, some Russian propagandists became noticeably more careful, cloaking their rhetoric through allusions and metaphors. Still, even this “hidden rhetoric” often meets legal requirements for incitement and other criminal propaganda. 

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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The gravity of alleged Russian atrocities against Ukrainians compels international urgency to disrupt Moscow’s escalation in direct violence and associated inciting propaganda to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians. Days after posting a profanity-filled acknowledgement of the NGO-led Communication to the ICC, Dmitry Medvedev followed up with a video showing all of Ukraine as “belonging” to Russia. This complete obliteration of Ukraine from world maps was the first time a top Kremlin official had overtly claimed the entirety of Ukraine as a stated goal, showing a link between words and projected actions.

The international community now faces a critical moment. It also has a unique chance to create a legal framework and enforcement mechanism capable of implementation through international cooperation. Beginning at home, Ukraine’s legal system requires amendments to systematize prosecutions in absentia for genocidal incitement. International partners must support these efforts by surging law enforcement resources to monitor the flood of calls for violence emanating from Russian media and from more shadowy Kremlin-backed propaganda platforms.

For Russian propagandists to face the criminal consequences of their conduct, international arrest warrants are indispensable. Bolstering political will for judicial accountability and opening criminal proceedings should be the two major areas of focus. To ensure accountability, Ukraine and its partners must now plan for realistic enforcement mechanisms that implement trial verdicts and deny safe havens of non-extradition. The words and actions of Kremlin propagandists have combined to fuel unimaginable atrocities in Ukraine. To protect Ukrainians and other victims, and to prevent further armed conflicts fuelled by propaganda, the international community must break the cycle of Russia’s real or imagined impunity.

Kristina Hook is assistant professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Anna Vyshniakova is a war crimes lawyer and a legal consultant, head of legal NGO LingvaLexa, and author of the book “Incitement to Genocide: How to Bring Propagandists to Justice.”

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Egypt and Saudi Arabia are weaponizing vaguely written domestic media, cybercrime, and counterterrorism laws to target and suppress dissent, opposition, and vulnerable groups. Political leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia often claim that their countries’ judicial systems enjoy independence and a lack of interference, a narrative intended to distance the states from the real and overzealous targeting and prosecution of critics. Such claims can be debunked and dismissed, as the Egyptian and Saudi governments have had direct involvement in establishing and implementing laws that are utilized to target journalists and human rights defenders.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia were selected as case studies for this report because of their status as among the most frequently documented offenders in the region when it comes to exploiting ambiguously written laws to target and prosecute journalists, critics, activists, human rights defenders, and even apolitical citizens. The two countries have consolidated power domestically, permitting them to utilize and bend their domestic legal systems to exert control over the online information space. Punishments for those targeted can involve draconian prison sentences, travel bans, and fines, which result in a chilling effect that consequently stifles online speech and activities, preventing citizens from discussing political, social, and economic issues.

Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia enacted media, cybercrime, and counterterrorism laws with ambiguous language and unclear definitions of legal terms, allowing for flexible interpretations of phrases such as “false information,” “morality,” or “family values and principles.” The laws in both countries also loosely define critical terms like “terrorism,” thereby facilitating expansive interpretations of what constitutes a terrorist crime. Further, anti-terror laws now include articles that connect the “dissemination of false information” with terrorist acts. This vague and elastic legal language has enabled the Egyptian and Saudi regimes to prosecute peaceful citizens on arbitrary grounds, sometimes handing out long prison sentences or even death sentences, undermining respect for the rule of law in the two countries.

This report explores the development of media, cybercrime, and counterterrorism laws in both countries, and demonstrates through case studies how Saudi Arabia and Egypt weaponize the laws to prosecute opposition figures and control narratives online. This report examines the relationship between criminal charges tied to one’s professional activities or online speech and how those charges can trigger online smear campaigns and harassment. In cases that involve women, gender-based violence is often used to harm a woman’s reputation. Though a direct correlation between judicial charges and online harassment cannot be ascertained, these case studies suggest that dissidents are likely to face online harm following legal persecution, even after they are released.

Case study Fri, December 22, 2023

Pro-Saudi X accounts repeatedly harassed activist and fiancée of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi

Turkish activist Hatice Cengiz, fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, targeted with death threats and insults on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Case study Thu, March 23, 2023

Egyptian Twitter network amplifies pro-government hashtags, attacks fact-checkers

Twitter network targeted the fact-checking organization Saheeh Masr while also promoting the Egyptian government and military.

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) has operationalized the study of disinformation by exposing falsehoods and fake news, documenting human rights abuses, and building digital resilience worldwide.

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The details of the Bishimbayev trial enthralled and outraged the public. In November 2023, Bishimbayev recorded himself beating and humiliating Saltanat over the course of eight hours. Some of the assault was caught on a restaurant’s CCTV cameras. Nobody alerted the police about the beating, and the restaurant’s staff were threatened into silence. Bishimbayev’s cousin helped him cover up the murder and failed to call an ambulance, for which he was sentenced to four years in prison. Bishimbayev was previously convicted in March 2018 and sentenced to ten years in prison for corruption, but he was later pardoned. His murder trial, which began in late March, was a watershed moment for the country, in which a member of the once untouchable elite was subjected to the scrutiny of an increasingly active civil society and the discipline of a stronger rule of law.

The closely followed case has helped mobilize women’s rights groups, invigorate civil society, and reenergize the managed modernization and reforms promulgated under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Human rights groups have welcomed the progress but said more needs to be done to address the serious problem of domestic violence in the country. According to a United Nations (UN) study, more than four hundred women are killed every year by domestic partners in Kazakhstan. And according to MediaNet International Center for Journalism, a Kazakh nongovernmental organization, 60.2 percent of women aged fifteen to forty-nine report having been physically abused by their partner at least once in their lifetime.

A reinvigorated movement

Saltanat’s murder triggered an unprecedented mobilization of Kazakhstan’s women and civil society groups and sparked a movement similar to #MeToo and #BonoboSisterhood. Saltanat’s tragic death transformed her into a symbol, birthing a social media campaign featuring numerous videos of her laughing and dancing. These videos put a face and a name on the type of crime that often leaves the victim anonymous, with the hashtag #ЗаСалтанат (#ForSaltanat) exploding on social media.

This reinvigorated movement for women’s rights comes as the government has taken a series of important actions to combat domestic abuse. In December 2023, Tokayev signed a decree outlining Kazakhstan’s Action Plan on Human Rights and the Rule of Law, the first such initiative in more than thirty years of independence. “This action plan aims to promote gender equality, combat any forms of domestic violence, enhance the performance of the criminal justice system, and prevent torture and ill-treatment,” wrote Tokayev on the social media website X. The document expanded on the 2021 National Action Plan for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which promotes human rights, gender equality, and a life free from discrimination for women and girls, but also included measures to address rule of law problems.

On April 15, a month before the verdict in Bishimbayev’s trial, Tokayev signed a bill into law adopted by Kazakhstan’s parliament earlier that month, dubbed “Saltanat’s Law.” The law aims to enhance legal protections against domestic violence by criminalizing battery and the intentional infliction of light bodily harm committed “against an individual in a helpless condition or financially or otherwise dependent on the perpetrator.” These forms of abuse had been decriminalized and reclassified as administrative offenses in 2017 under then President Nursultan Nazarbayev, limiting the sanctions to fines and community service. Now, criminal penalties have been reinstated: Causing minor harm to health can carry up to two years of imprisonment, while battery can result in fifty days of incarceration. The law also made it mandatory for the police to investigate abuse against women and children, while the Ministry of Internal Affairs was directed to establish a specialized unit to combat domestic violence. The US State Department commended Kazakhstan for recriminalizing domestic violence, calling the law a “very important step in protecting survivors.”

The long road ahead

Nevertheless, the problem of domestic violence and gender discrimination remains widespread in Kazakhstan and throughout Central Asia. The criminalization of domestic violence has been on the agenda of all five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan) for several years, especially since cases of partner abuse increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, gender discrimination is prevalent in the region, with more than 90 percent of women facing gender bias as defined by the UN’s Gender Social Norms Index—encompassing politics, education, economics, and physical integrity. Kazakhstan fares somewhat better than its neighbors in that, according to the UN, it has the highest proportion of women in Central Asia who do not face gender bias. But this percentage is still in the single digits.

Central Asia’s progress is more noteworthy when compared with its neighbors. Afghanistan’s Taliban resurgence has been horrific for women, while the Iranian women’s movement has been violently suppressed by clerics in Tehran. Russia, Kazakhstan’s northern neighbor, decriminalized domestic abuse in 2017 and subsequently stopped publishing reliable statistics about it. In fact, official statistics on domestic abuse in Russia vastly underestimate the number of cases compared to independent investigations, as the Russian police can now turn down women who seek help restraining their violent husbands and refuse to record and investigate these cases.

In contrast, Kazakhstan has taken decisive steps to build on its 2009 Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and criminalize acts of domestic abuse. The Kazakh police are now mandated to investigate reports of domestic violence, even if the victim has not contacted the authorities, based on witness testimony and video recordings. They are also obligated to investigate cases of violence against women and children reported in the media, including on social media.  

But there is still much work to be done to combat gender discrimination and domestic abuse in Kazakhstan. The next step should be to explicitly make domestic violence a stand-alone offense in the criminal code. This law should encompass physical, sexual, and economic violence, as well as psychological abuse and stalking. And once this law is on the books, it will be important to ensure its effective implementation and enforcement. This will also require work on changing public attitudes, particularly among men, on the right of every woman to feel safe in her home and among her relatives.

The recent progress in the fight against gender discrimination and domestic abuse in Kazakhstan has been difficult to achieve and was long overdue, but the country is moving in the right direction. Outrage over Bishimbayev’s murder case helped lead to a new law and a greater public awareness of domestic abuse that could lay the groundwork for further reforms to ensure the safety of women in Kazakhstan. Hopefully, this will be Saltanat’s greatest legacy.

Margarita Assenova is a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, DC, and co-author with Janusz Bugajski of Eurasian Disunion: Russia’s Vulnerable Flanks. 

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Below, Joumana Seif, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project, answers five pressing questions about the legal proceedings and their implications far away in Damascus. Seif is a Syrian lawyer and legal advisor for the International Crimes and Accountability program at the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights.

1. Why is this trial happening in Paris?

The trial focuses on crimes committed against two French-Syrian nationals, a father and son who were disappeared by Syrian authorities in 2013, detained and tortured at the Mezzeh military airport detention facility, and ultimately killed by Syrian authorities. Three suspects are on trial—Ali Mamlouk, who was the head of Syria’s National Security Bureau; Jamil Hassan, the former director of Syrian air force intelligence; and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, who previously led investigations at the Mezzeh military airport detention center. 

The charges brought against the officials are for numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, and enforced disappearance. These represent crimes that Syrian authorities systematically carry out in detention facilities across Syria. In particular, the trial will focus on violations by Syrian air force intelligence and its detention center at the Mezzeh military airport, which is where some of the most grave crimes have been committed in Syria, including murder, severe torture, and sexual violence.

The trial is happening in Paris because the victims are French nationals, and France is one of the few countries that allows trials in absentia. These types of trials are very important because they help combat impunity. In a situation like Syria, where senior officials won’t leave the country as long as Assad and his regime remain in power, there is no opportunity to arrest the highest-level perpetrators. Holding a trial for their crimes, even if they are not present, can provide a sense of justice to the victims of their crimes. Some officials will never be tried in person, and in absentia trials provide the only way to ensure legal accountability for their crimes. Without in absentia trials, many victims would be prevented from seeking justice.

2. Have similar trials taken place?

This is the first trial of senior Syrian regime officials. Trials for crimes in Syria have occurred in Germany and other countries under the principle of universal jurisdiction. However, these countries all require the perpetrator to be present in the country in order for the trial to take place. As a result, the trials that have taken place so far have focused on low- or mid-level officials. These cases are important for accountability. However, the responsibility of these lower-level officials is very different from the responsibility of senior officials. 

We know that from the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011, the three suspects on trial in Paris were responsible for giving orders and giving a green light for other officers under them to commit crimes in detention facilities and elsewhere. This trial is examining the role of the highest-level perpetrators who are directly connected to Assad and are among his small inner circle. This trial will establish the systematic method of the crimes and the responsibility of Syrian leaders and institutions, who were representing the Syrian state and Assad regime in carrying out their crimes.

3. How does this trial fit into the broader attempts to hold Assad’s regime accountable?

This trial is the result of years of Syrian and international civil society organizations supporting witnesses and survivors, collecting documentation and evidence, and advocating for accountability. Syrians have been working for justice and accountability for more than thirteen years now, since the revolution in 2011. In this time, Syrian and international civil society have gathered a lot of evidence and established the truth on violations throughout the conflict. Some of the evidence includes the Caesar photos, regime documents collected by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, reports by the United Nations (UN) Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, and the work of the UN International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism on Syria. There have been around eighty trials for crimes in Syria held in European and other countries, against suspects linked to the Syrian regime and nonstate actors, including the Islamic State. This is a lot of trials, but it is not sufficient or satisfactory given the crimes that have been committed.

After thirteen years, Assad is still in power, and results from accountability processes are not so tangible. Compared to the crimes that have been committed—atrocities and massacres, resulting in millions of victims who are still suffering—there has been very little accountability. 

This trial of senior officials, highlighting systematic crimes, will help close some of the gaps and will be a big step on the path to accountability. We know the path will be long. But this trial will give a big push toward accountability. It will remind the international community of the gravity and scale of crimes that have been committed in Syria, and the need for accountability for victims and survivors, and for the future of Syria. 

During the four days of trial, the court will review the evidence openly, in front of the public and the media. It will provide an opportunity to remind the world of what has happened in Syria and what is still going on. It will also be a reminder of why accountability and a political solution are important for Syrians and why these steps are a precondition for peace. The accountability work being done now will help prepare for the future and transitional justice.

4. What is the potential impact of this trial if the defendants aren’t present? 

This trial is so important for victims and survivors, and for Syrians in general, the majority of whom have been impacted in one way or another by the conflict. The trial will help establish the truth. It will provide a legal record, with evidence that has been examined and proven, of crimes that have been committed and people who are responsible. The trial will help establish which people—which perpetrators—should not and cannot be acceptable leaders for the future of Syria. 

The trial will also help raise the Syria cause on the international agenda and remind countries that are supporting normalization with the Assad regime of the nature and cruelty of his regime. It will help remind the international community that his regime is not accepted by many Syrian people and show why a political transition is so important for Syrians. The trial will help remind everyone of the demand for a political transition, and why it must happen.

5. What are the next steps for accountability for Syria?

There should be more arrest warrants for suspects. Even if it’s not possible to try perpetrators in their presence, there should be arrest warrants and trials held in absentia. Even the issuance of arrest warrants is an important step, as this only happens after the conclusion of a long investigation, supported by significant evidence and lengthy examinations. Arrest warrants can offer some preliminary proof that these individuals are responsible for grave international crimes. They can help for the future of Syria by making clear to Syrians and the international community who cannot be a part of Syria’s future.

I hope that this trial and other accountability proceedings can help convince democratic countries that the Assad regime will never change, that it cannot change and be transformed to a democratic state, that those in the Assad regime are criminals, and that they should not be a part of any future government in Syria.

The United States, European countries, and the UN can do a lot more to support a democratic future for Syria. Right now, they are supporting the Assad regime indirectly by contracting with individuals and entities linked to the regime, including sending millions of dollars to the Syria Trust for Development, which is run by Bashar al-Assad’s wife, and other organizations linked to human rights violators. I hope this will change and that donors will implement better practices for vetting contractors to ensure this money does not end up funding the regime. On top of that, democratic countries must put a real strategy in place to support the Syrian people and push for a democratic transition in government. Trials like this one in Paris—the evidence they present and the violations they highlight—help demonstrate why this is necessary and hopefully encourage further action.

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Click to jump to an expert analysis:

Gissou Nia: The historic warrant application raises difficult diplomatic questions for Israel and its supporters

Jonathan Panikoff: The prosecutor made a strategic and moral mistake

Elise Baker: Israel’s expected challenges to the warrant applications are likely to fail

Haydee Dijkstal: Here’s what to expect with the court’s timeline and Israel’s challenge

Thomas S. Warrick: The ICC is about to change the future of the Palestinian movement—unpredictably

The historic warrant application raises difficult diplomatic questions for Israel and its supporters

Today’s public announcement that the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) has applied for arrest warrants against Israeli officials and Hamas leaders followed through on expectations but also carried some surprises.

As to be expected, the chief prosecutor did not confine himself to charges against only one party to the conflict. The ICC’s territorial jurisdiction over what it recognizes as the State of Palestine means that both Palestinian and Israeli actors are fair game for indictment. Given the political sensitivities of the issues and the scope of the violations committed by all parties, there was little chance that the prosecutor would limit charges to any one “side.”

Also as expected, neither genocide nor apartheid are among the charges. Despite reference to these crimes featuring heavily in global solidarity chants and in advocacy for the rights of Palestinians, both crimes require distinct elements that go beyond the showing needed for other crimes under Articles 7 and 8 of the ICC’s Rome Statute. The prosecutor charged Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant with crimes including the war crime of starvation, which investigators do not need physical access to the Gaza Strip to prove given the extensive cross-border activity and accounts of international organizations operating on the ground that signal this crime. The charges against Sinwar, as well as other Hamas leaders Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, also follow an uncontroversial reading of Hamas atrocities that were brutally captured on video for the world to see.

The application for warrants is historic in that it is the first time the OTP has brought charges against a head of state who is supported by Western nations. This move comes even after overt threats to the chief prosecutor, including by twelve US senators, to not press ahead with indictments against Israeli officials. Should the arrest warrants be approved, some tricky diplomatic questions may ensue. European countries are among some of the staunchest supporters of the court, and they are also countries to which Netanyahu and Gallant are likely to travel in the future. As ICC member states, those countries in Europe would have an obligation to turn Netanyahu and Gallant over to the court, should either of the two come within their borders. To avoid that quandary, the more likely outcome will be severe restrictions on the ability of Netanyahu and Gallant to travel. 

At a time when Israel is seeking to shore up support among allies for its ongoing military actions, the arrest warrants, if they are issued, may further isolate Israel globally and accelerate the growing push for Netanyahu to leave office.

—Gissou Nia is the director of the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council. She previously worked on crimes against humanity cases before the International Criminal Court and is counsel on submissions to the ICC Office of the Prosecutor.

The prosecutor made a strategic and moral mistake

The decision by the ICC prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant is both a strategic mistake and a moral one.

The decision to seek the warrant elevates Netanyahu and may aid his domestic position as Israelis, who have long been critical of the ICC across the political spectrum and are even more so now, will rally around the flag. Netanyahu is likely to use this announcement to claim that he is being persecuted for defending Israel, an argument likely to resonate with the broader Israeli public. This domestic reaction might even provide him greater freedom of action in his decision making, including to engage in additional military operations in Gaza, ultimately extending the conflict.

The decision by Khan—who was clearly seeking to demonstrate balance in requesting arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders—actually serves to erode the moral authority of the ICC by equating Israel, a flawed democracy, with Hamas, a terrorist group whose singular overriding aim is to obliterate the state of Israel. The implied false symmetry, as the Federal Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer wrote on X on Monday, is “non comprehensible.”

Netanyahu has made countless mistakes related to his prosecution of the war, led by his lack of a meaningful strategy for the day after—something Gallant ironically just called Natanyahu out for last week. The mass humanitarian tragedy that continues to unfold in Gaza is not debatable. But there is a critical and meaningful difference between poor execution of strategy and tactics, on one hand, and “causing extermination . . . starvation . . . denial of humanitarian relief . . . and deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” on the other.

This has never been the Israeli strategy or goal. And while it’s understandable that some observers might be confused by Israeli ultranationalists who are part of the coalition government, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, making remarks that would seemingly support some of the crimes Khan alleges, their views are not the government’s views, let alone Netanyahu and Gallant’s. While seeking to charge Netanyahu and Gallant may garner the support of certain countries and activists, it risks leading to the ICC’s own erosion of moral authority.

—Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He is a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the US National Intelligence Council.

Israel’s expected challenges to the warrant applications are likely to fail

Today’s applications for arrest warrants are the first step for the ICC to hold accountable both the Hamas and Israeli leaders who have perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity since October 7. The next step is for a pretrial chamber to approve the arrest warrants. With a mountain of evidence backing the charges against leaders on both sides of the conflict, there is no reason to suspect the applications will fail.

Israel may challenge the charges against its officials, but the two most likely challenges will probably fail.

First, any arguments that the ICC lacks jurisdiction over Israeli leaders are simply wrong. The pretrial chamber has already settled that the court has jurisdiction over crimes committed either by Palestinian nationals or on the territory of the ICC-recognized State of Palestine—including crimes committed by Israelis in Gaza. The fact that Israel is not a member state of the ICC poses no issue. Just as the United States and other countries supported the ICC’s arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin—a national and head of a non-ICC member state—they too should support any arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. 

Second, any claims that the principle of complementarity bars arrest warrants for Israeli leaders are similarly unfounded. There is no indication of any Israeli effort to investigate or prosecute Netanyahu and Gallant for their roles in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Without any domestic accountability efforts for the same individuals and criminal charges, the ICC can proceed with its case.

If and when arrest warrants are issued, all ICC member states must comply with an order to arrest and surrender to the court any wanted person who is found on their territory. Failure to do so will undermine accountability and international justice globally.

—Elise Baker is a senior staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project.

Here’s what to expect with the court’s timeline and Israel’s judicial challenge

Today’s news of the ICC prosecution’s application for arrest warrants represents a significant step for many victims who view the ICC as a court of last resort and who have held hope for justice before the ICC—starting as far back as 2009, when the minister of justice for the Government of Palestine attempted to lodge an Article 12(3) declaration and refer the situation to the Court. With news of mounting external pressure on the ICC’s OTP and threats against prosecution staff and their families if warrants were to be pursued, it is of the utmost importance that the rule of law and the independence of the ICC is respected and all parties and organs of the court can work free of influence or pressure. This is especially important now that the decision on whether to issue the requested warrants is with the pretrial chamber.

There is no set time frame in which the pretrial chamber must make its decision on the prosecution’s application. The pretrial chamber will need to review the evidence submitted by the prosecution against the charges sought, but the chamber has previously acted with expediency to issue decisions granting arrest warrants within about a month. For example, the warrants against Putin and Russian official Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova were issued in about a month’s time. So, too, were warrants against Russian military commanders Sergei Kobylash and Viktor Sokolov. Warrants against other heads of state were also issued in a similar time frame, including against Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi and Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo.

If the pretrial chamber decides to grant the prosecution’s request for arrest warrants, focus will shift to the principle of complementarity and the process for challenging the admissibility of the cases before the ICC. As mentioned by the prosecutor in his statement today, the principle of complementarity allows the ICC to defer a case to the national authorities only if there is an independent and impartial judicial process in place to show that the state is “willing and able” to conduct the case instead of the ICC.

However, attention should also be paid to the ICC’s prior case law on this standard and particularly to the high threshold imposed when Kenya attempted to challenge the admissibility of the post-election violation cases against six Kenyan officials. Here, the ICC found that a state must demonstrate that it is not only “willing and able” to conduct the case, but that there are active steps being taken by the state to investigate the same persons named by the ICC and for the same conduct as reflected in the crimes within the ICC warrant. This would mean that, for example, should Israel decide to challenge the warrants’ admissibility (if issued), it would need to submit tangible proof that there is an open and active investigation in Israel against Netanyahu and Gallant for the same underlying conduct of the crimes charged by the ICC.

—Haydee Dijkstal is a nonresident senior fellow with the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council and a practicing attorney in international criminal law and international human rights law. She is currently representing victims at the ICC in the situation in Afghanistan and the situation in Ukraine.

The ICC is about to change the future of the Palestinian movement—unpredictably

One prediction I am confident in making: The ICC prosecutor’s efforts to get arrest warrants for three Hamas and two Israeli officials are not going to go the way most people expect.

Consider the arrest warrants sought for Hamas’s two top military commanders, Sinwar and Deif, and its political leader, Haniyeh. Because the ICC considers Palestine a state party, this obligates the Palestinian Authority to arrange the three Hamas leaders’ appearance in The Hague. No one expects this to happen anytime soon, if ever. More importantly, an arrest warrant will make it hard for those Palestinians and others who think that one key to lasting peace and a two-state solution is to bring Hamas together with Fatah into a reunited Palestinian movement. The prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants is likely to highlight the fact that everything that Hamas did on October 7, and every day that Hamas holds hostages, is a war crime and part of a campaign of crimes against humanity.

Hamas’s backers are likely to say that Israel’s refusal to recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction excuses Palestinians from turning Hamas officials over to The Hague. But such a claim quickly falls apart. International law is based on the principle of state consent. Israel is not a party to the ICC treaty and does not recognize the ICC as having any authority over Israeli officials. Palestinian officials cannot claim this. The basis for the ICC’s jurisdiction is that Palestine is a state party—without that, the case goes away.

If arrest warrants are issued, they will have an uncertain effect on whether, if, and how (or how not) Hamas and its supporters, who are determined to destroy the state of Israel, become integrated into the Palestinian movement. This is but one reason why this case is not going to go the way most people expect.

—Thomas S. Warrick is a nonresident senior fellow and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. He previously served in the US State Department as deputy in the Office of the Secretary/Office of War Crimes Issues, among other roles.

The post Experts react: The ICC prosecutor wants Netanyahu and Hamas leaders arrested for war crimes. What’s next? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The emir’s move certainly did not evoke a strong public reaction from Kuwaitis themselves. They are not known for manning the barricades in political protest, and some of them are likely just as frustrated as their emir with the lack of progress in the country—a country that is simultaneously wonderfully rich and utterly unable to diversify its economy away from producing oil and managing the cash that oil sales produce. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that Kuwait’s real gross domestic product will actually decline by 1.4 percent in 2024, lagging behind its Gulf partners. Partly because of opposition in parliament, Kuwait has not been a welcoming destination for foreign investment. Kuwaitis and foreign investors still recall the 2008 cancellation of a $17-billion Dow Chemical investment in petrochemicals as emblematic of the difficult environment for major foreign investment.

Other Kuwaitis are likely waiting to see how strong the repression will be. A well-known Islamist and former member of parliament, Walid al-Tabtabaie, was arrested a day after the suspension on May 11, reportedly for a tweet suggesting foreign interference in Kuwaiti affairs—in other words, Gulf state support for the emir’s actions. Although Tabtabaie will likely consider his arrest a badge of honor, it will also serve as a warning to others who might consider publicly opining on their leadership’s actions. However, Kuwaitis will not abandon their tradition of having a say in their politics. They can be expected to find ways over time to express themselves and demand accountability from the ruling Sabah family.

Regional reaction has also been muted. Uniquely, Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed quickly called his Kuwaiti counterpart to offer his support, noting the utmost value of stability. The sultan of Oman, Haithan bin Tariq, was in Kuwait for a previously scheduled state visit ending May 14. He did not comment on internal Kuwaiti matters, but there was some press spin that the visit was a show of support for Sabah’s moves. Other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and regional leaders have been silent, perhaps quietly pleased that Kuwait’s longtime experience with a parliament with some genuine power has been quashed for the moment.

And what about the United States’ reaction to the backsliding of democratic norms in Kuwait? No public statements emerged from the White House or the US Department of State. An anonymous State Department official told me, “We are aware of the developments regarding the Kuwaiti parliament suspension and are monitoring the situation closely.”

In other words, this is not a fight the United States will pick. The reasons for this reticence could range from a simple lack of bandwidth to deal with what is considered a relatively minor matter in the Middle East to a more serious weighing of current priorities. Sabah is known as a reliable security partner, and Kuwait has been a generous and flexible host for US military installations. Thousands of US Army personnel have served at or passed through Camp Arifjan, and Ali al-Salem Air Base has provided a key hub for US aircraft.

Although Kuwait and Bahrain reportedly asked the United States not to use bases located on their soil for any attacks on Iran in reaction to its April 13 retaliation against Israel—which came in response to the killing of senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at  Iran’s embassy compound in Syria—these bases remain extremely useful.

But it is not impossible to balance concerns for security and stability with support for political liberalization. On April 15, Kuwait celebrated the nineteenth anniversary of Kuwaiti women achieving the right to vote, prompted by the George W. Bush administration’s “freedom agenda” in the Middle East. That very year, the United States was also pursuing a major war in Iraq, with Kuwait as the critical entry point for US forces. At the time, President Bush was instrumental in convincing Emir Sheikh Sabah to push this measure through the Kuwait parliament. Liz Cheney, a State Department official at that time, came to Kuwait to celebrate the granting of female suffrage.

Democracy mattered then. It still matters now. 

Ambassador (ret) Richard LeBaron is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He served as US Ambassador to Kuwait and in a number of other senior diplomatic positions in the Middle East and Washington. He is a member of the Advisory Council of Global Ties US. Follow him on X: @RBLeBaron.

The post Parliament was dissolved in Kuwait and hardly anyone noticed appeared first on Atlantic Council.

But even so, Raisi’s death does leave a power vacuum in Iran. Section 131 of the Iranian constitution calls for First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber to assume power next. But Mokhber is unlikely to have any meaningful influence or seek to succeed Raisi. He will instead, as long as the constitution is followed, be replaced by a successor following an election within fifty days from when Raisi’s death was declared.

For the regime, another round of presidential elections is a headache that it would almost certainly have preferred to avoid. The Guardian Council—the body that determines which candidates are sufficiently loyal enough to the Islamic Republic’s ideology to be permitted to run—thought it had in Raisi a leader who would be around to take Iran into the next generation, likely a post-Khamenei one.

With that plan now shattered, the Guardian Council will likely be even more strict about who it allows to campaign, determined to ensure the next president can defend and protect the revolution at a time of domestic and regional upheaval.

But the exclusion of more reformist candidates is likely to suppress enthusiasm and ensure that many Iranians view the election as neither open, nor fair, nor free. As a result, there’s good reason to be skeptical that the vote will engender a high turnout, especially given recent history. In the parliamentary elections in March of this year, officials reported a historic low turnout of under 41 percent, and some polling experts claim that the real turnout was far lower, closer to 15 or 16 percent.

At the same time, Raisi was not only widely expected to steer the succession of the supreme leader through the Assembly of Experts, but was also himself a top contender to succeed Khamenei. In the coming days there will be a lot of conjecture that without Raisi, Mojtaba Khamenei, the current supreme leader’s son, is more likely to accede to the supreme leader post.

Maybe. The reality is, it’s far too early for such a declaration. It’s likely that whoever succeeds Raisi as president will be someone who has a similar profile: regime insider, religious credentials, and ultra-conservative. The long-held criticism against Mojtaba is that he lacks the sufficient religious qualifications to serve in the position of supreme leader. The fact that his accession would produce a question of dynastic succession—which would fly in the face of the 1979 revolution in which the shah of Iran was overthrown in favor of a leader with impeccable religious credentials—also works against him. Mojtaba might find sufficient support, however, if the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is determined to play an even more prominent and influential role under the next supreme leader. If the IRGC was preparing to do so, it would be highly unlikely that anyone would be elevated to the position without the IRGC’s acquiescence. That could work in Mojtaba’s favor given his years-long close association with the IRGC and closeness to the broader Iranian security apparatus.

For some Iranians, Raisi will be mourned as a president and a devotee of the revolution. For a small, select group of the most influential Iranian leaders, he will be both mourned and appreciated for his unintentional sacrifice—since his death ensures an unexpected opportunity for someone to gain a level of power and influence far sooner than anyone expected.

But for many ordinary Iranians, his death is already being celebrated by those who view him first and foremost as the “Butcher of Tehran,” the man under whose authority thousands of political prisoners were sent to their deaths after essentially show trials.

Iranian leaders and political institutions are already under significant pressure stemming from the country-wide protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022. Iranian leaders and officials are almost certain to be concerned that Raisi’s death could prompt new protests and rounds of anger in Iran. That’s not because Raisi drew a disproportionate amount of protesters’ anger—rather the opposite. He largely was viewed as little more than Khamenei’s pawn. Given that, some Iranians may see this moment as an opportunity to reignite broader anger toward the regime as a reminder that it does not really matter who the president is, only that the regime itself remains in power and is unwilling to change.

But any such protests are likely to be crushed not only by the police but by the Basij, the voluntary militia that constitutes one branch of the IRGC and will be prepared for such a situation, eager to stamp it out as quickly as possible.

Raisi’s death is surely unexpected but unlikely to be particularly impactful. Meaningful change in Iran’s strategic direction can only come from the supreme leader, and his position is not yet vacant.

Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’ s Middle East Programs and a former US deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East.

The post What comes after Ebrahim Raisi appeared first on Atlantic Council.

So, it was a poignant moment at the PEN America Literary Gala, which I attended Thursday evening in New York, when Almar Latour, Dow Jones CEO and Wall Street Journal publisher, spoke about how the long-sought release of his reporter Evan Gershkovich from Russia’s dreaded Lefortovo Prison matters “on a macro level.”

“The grim reality is that there are Evans everywhere,” said Latour, who is also an Atlantic Council board member. “Journalists around the world face increasing resistance and hostility for just trying to do their jobs.”

More than a hundred journalists and photojournalists were killed in the past year, mostly in Gaza and Ukraine, and more than three hundred others were imprisoned for their work by one autocratic regime or another. Through our “Reporters at Risk” events, the Atlantic Council has worked to raise these issues for policymakers and the public. So too has Latour, who listed the names of many of the journalists behind bars, and he included Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate charged with endangering Chinese national security with his weapon of truth. One of the evening’s awardees sits in a Vietnamese prison for her critiques of state repression, the writer Pham Doan Trang.

It would have been easy in an evening that honored the music legend Paul Simon—who played his “American Tune” on acoustic guitar just a few feet away from me—to lose the singular and symbolic importance of one reporter’s imprisonment. 

With talk show host Seth Meyers as MC, with Malcolm Gladwell and other authors as presenters and speakers, and with PEN America at the center of controversies over whether Israeli and Palestinian free speech are created equal, one might, for a moment, forget Evan.

Amid the noise and glitter and controversy, however, there was a bigger story to be told. I scribbled down on my napkin Latour’s closing quote: “Russia may be an ocean and a continent away, but the distance between authoritarianism and a free society is measured by the strength of a free press.”

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points Today newsletter, a column of quick-hit insights on a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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1. What’s most important to know about Fico?

Fico is sometimes compared to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as a nationalist authoritarian politician, but he is less doctrinaire and more willing in practice to cut deals and stop short of confrontations with his European Union (EU) and NATO allies. “His bark is worse than his bite,” as a senior Slovak politician of liberal views (and no fan of Fico) put it to me recently. His bark could be awful (e.g., rhetoric hostile to Ukraine) and many of his initiatives have been questionable. Yet, I have known Fico since 2002 and, while I was in government, worked with him on a number of sensitive issues. We sometimes made handshake deals. He always kept his word.

—Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former US assistant secretary of state for Europe.

Fico is a skilled politician and controversial political figure. He is skilled because he had managed a political comeback from a seemingly impossible position. In 2018, he resigned as prime minister in a bid to rein in a political crisis sparked by the murder of an investigative journalist. 

Since then, multiple members of his cabinet and other affiliates have been investigated for (or charged with) serious criminal offenses, including organized crime. Several were prosecuted for corruption. 

He is skilled because he has managed to erase Slovaks’ memories of these events with pro-Russian rhetoric, which has appealed to many, with pleas for peace (at the expense of Ukraine’s territorial integrity) and various disinformation campaigns that Slovaks are quite prone to. These tactics have helped him garner new support in addition to his base of disillusioned rural voters.

Since taking the helm last October, his cabinet has been working relentlessly to concentrate power and take control of public media and the judiciary, often in fast-track legislative proceedings.

—Soňa Muzikárová is a political economist focused on Central and Eastern Europe and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

2. What’s most important to know about the political context in which this assassination attempt took place?

Slovak politics is polarized and heated, as is the case in a number of European countries and the United States. Slovakia’s liberal opposition has long regarded Fico as authoritarian and tolerant of corruption; he lost power in 2018 after the suspicious murder of a Slovak journalist. While both outgoing Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová and incoming President Peter Pellegrini have condemned the shooting and called for calm, the attempted assassination could inflame Slovak politics.

—Daniel Fried

Slovakia’s politics and society are unprecedentedly polarized, which to some extent is the result of a pervasively uncivil political culture, amplified by social media, as well as citizens’ digital and civic illiteracy. What happened is a testament to the worrisome state of Slovakia’s democracy.

—Soňa Muzikárová

3. Who is in charge if Fico is incapacitated, and what should we watch out for from the Slovak government?

Whoever serves as acting prime minister, the person to watch is Defense Minister Robert Kaliňák, a long-time ally of Fico and a former interior minister. As defense minister, he implemented Fico’s decision to terminate Slovak military donations to Ukraine but did not stand in the way of Slovak military sales or deliveries to Ukraine. Capable and comfortable with the United States (an avid biker, he used to lead motorcycle trips through the American West with Slovak fire and police chiefs), Kaliňák could emerge as a leader in future Slovak governments should Fico’s Smer-SD Party remain in power. 

—Daniel Fried

4. Based on what we know so far, what consequences could the shooting have for Slovakia’s politics?

Several members of Fico’s cabinet, including Deputy Prime Minister Tomáš Taraba and the minister of culture, Martina Šimkovičová, were quick to allege that the attack is a result of “the hate politics” spurred “by the opposition.”

Deputy Speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic Andrej Danko, in the initial hours after the attack, stated that the governing coalition would take a tougher stance on journalists, although he was not clear on how the media had—directly or indirectly—contributed to the attack.

These are signs that the attack might be weaponized by Fico’s cabinet against the opposition, painting liberals as the villain. The cabinet is likely to use this tragedy to further its political agenda by, for example, curbing media freedom. I expect the incident to help Fico and his affiliates capture more electoral support in the future.

—Soňa Muzikárová

5. Is there any disinformation or misinformation spreading following the shooting?

Even before news of the assassination attempt had broken in the West, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russian state-controlled propaganda outlet RT, had already taken to Telegram to declare that Fico had been targeted for his pro-Russian sympathies. Within hours, tens of thousands of social media users were blaming the violence on some combination of EU and Ukrainian operatives. By early evening Slovak time, the Slovak Police issued a statement on their official Facebook page urging that both media institutions and the general public refrain from using comment systems, in order to stem the tide of dangerous speculation and hate speech.

The disinformation will get worse before it gets better. There has not been an act of violence in Europe of this sort in more than twenty years, and early reporting has linked the alleged assassin to both pro-EU and hardline Russian interests. In less than a month, citizens of twenty-seven EU member states will cast their votes to decide the future of Europe. Whatever the EU elections may have been about before, this is now part of the debate.  

—Emerson T. Brooking is a resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council and coauthor of LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media.

The post Five questions (and expert answers) about the shooting of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On May 14, the ruling Georgian Dream party passed the controversial “foreign agents” bill, which will oblige organizations that receive more than 20 percent of funding from abroad to register with the government or face fines. Despite claims to the contrary, this law resembles Russia’s own foreign agents legislation far more than the US Foreign Agents Registration Act.

EU officials responded to the news from Tbilisi by suggesting adoption of the legislation could hamper Georgia’s bid to join the European Union. “The EU stands with the Georgian people and their choice in favor of democracy and of Georgia’s European future,” commented the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell. US officials have also voiced concern over the issue.

Georgian Dream officials appear unmoved by these appeals. Indeed, critics say the passage of the foreign agents law is part of intentional efforts to derail the country’s Western integration and bring Georgia back into the Kremlin orbit. They claim the legislation is intended to suppress civil society in the lead-up to parliamentary elections in October, and note that Georgian authorities are now adopting tactics that closely mirror Russia’s own efforts to stamp out domestic dissent and silence opponents.

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As unprecedented numbers have taken to the streets of Tbilisi to protest the country’s turn toward Moscow, the Georgian authorities have sought to crush protests with heavy-handed policing, including beatings, tear gas, and water cannons. Journalists and elected officials have been among those on the receiving end of violence.

In a further echo of tactics widely employed in Putin’s Russia, individual members of Georgia’s political opposition and activists have been assaulted in apparently targeted attacks that have taken place far from the protests. Others have been subjected to threatening phone calls and additional forms of harassment.

Meanwhile, the Georgian authorities are accused of copying the longstanding Russian practice of stage-managing pro-government rallies designed to distract attention from protests and create the illusion of popular support. One rally in late April featured thousands of public sector workers who had apparently been bussed into the Georgian capital from around the country and instructed to attend.

The rhetoric coming from Georgian Dream officials in recent weeks has increasingly resembled the anti-Western narratives and conspiracy theories favored by the Putin regime. In thinly veiled attacks on Georgia’s Western partners, Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, the unofficial leader of Georgian Dream, has decried civil society organizations as “pseudo-elites” controlled by patrons abroad, and has accused them of attempting to instigate revolution in Georgia. These allegations are virtually indistinguishable from Vladimir Putin’s complaints regarding so-called “color revolutions.”

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Officially, the Georgian authorities deny they are seeking to turn the country away from the path of European integration and reject claims of a pro-Kremlin agenda. Indeed, Ivanishvili continues to insist Georgia is currently closer than ever to joining the EU. The ruling party’s careful rhetoric around Georgia’s European choice is understandable given that 81% of Georgians support EU membership. However, the fact that Georgian Dream moved forward with the foreign agents law despite condemnation from the EU and large-scale public protests has severely undermined the credibility of the government’s claims.

Georgian Dream officials say the foreign agents law is intended to ensure transparency and prevent undue foreign influence in the country, but critics remain unconvinced. They argue that the legislation will be used as a tool to suppress civil society, and point to the chilling role similar legislation has played in Russia. If it comes into force, many fear the law will strengthen the ruling party’s grip on power ahead of Georgia’s coming elections and set the stage for a more authoritarian form of government.

If Georgian Dream is able to secure a convincing result in the October ballot, Ivanishvili has already outlined plans for a strict “political and legal condemnation” of his party’s domestic opponents. In light of the mounting violence against opposition figures and pro-democracy protesters in Tbilisi in recent days, such statements must be taken seriously.

Hundreds of thousands of Georgians have joined protests this spring in an emphatic display of support for the country’s European future, but the struggle looks likely to continue throughout the coming months. The Georgian government has already demonstrated its readiness to employ Kremlin tactics. The question now is how far they are willing to go.

Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland is a master’s student in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia at Harvard and a Research Assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Georgia’s contentious Foreign Agents Law, which was proposed but shelved in 2023 following an initial round of protests, was revived in spring 2024 by the ruling Georgian Dream party. Unsurprisingly, these efforts have sparked renewed protests on an even larger scale.

Critics say the bill is an attempt to crack down on the country’s political opposition and civil society, and have dubbed it “the Russian law” due to its striking similarity to legislation used by the Kremlin to muzzle domestic opponents of the Putin regime. The bill is also notable for positioning Georgia’s traditional Western allies as adversaries while refraining from mentioning Russia, which currently occupies around twenty percent of the country.

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The Georgian government’s bid to adopt legislation reminiscent of Putin’s Russia is all the more remarkable as polls show that around eighty percent of Georgians favor integration with NATO and the EU. This has provoked a major public backlash within Georgia and has led to harsh criticism from the country’s Western partners. In a recent statement, the US State Department warned that the contentious legislation along with accompanying anti-Western rhetoric from Georgian Dream representatives placed the country on a “precarious trajectory” that could “jeopardize Georgia’s path to Euro-Atlantic integration.”

None of these appears to have deterred the Georgian authorities. As the crisis escalated in late April, the founder and unofficial leader of the Georgian Dream party, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, doubled down on his party’s increasingly conspiratorial, anti-Western posturing in a rare public address that was reminiscent of Kremlin propaganda. Ivanishvili’s speech was widely viewed as a major milestone in his party’s attempts to turn Georgia away from the West and toward Russia.

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With Georgian society at a geopolitical crossroads and engulfed in increasing violence amid a draconian crackdown on mass protests, many observers are drawing parallels with Ukraine’s 2013-14 Euromaidan Revolution. Some are even asking whether the country is now experiencing its own “Yanukovych moment,” a reference to the pro-Kremlin Ukrainian president who fled to Russia following months of unrest.

The two situations certainly appear to have much in common. On both occasions, the country’s pro-Western political forces and civil society protested against an increasingly authoritarian and Kremlin-friendly government in order to defend their basic democratic rights. On both occasions, the brutality of the regime’s response fueled a surge in public support for the protests.

Georgia’s broader political trajectory may also provide some insights into Russia’s plans if its invasion of Ukraine proves successful. The Georgian Dream party first came to power in 2012 at a time when the wounds of Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia were still raw. Over the past 12 years, the party has been able to gradually consolidate its grip on power, becoming steadily bolder in its promotion of pro-Kremlin and anti-Western positions. This has been achieved despite the overwhelmingly pro-Western mood in the country.

This kind of scenario appears to be what Russia had in mind for Ukraine at the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Moscow’s initial plan was to decapitate the government in Kyiv and install a puppet regime that would end Ukraine’s Western integration and anchor the country firmly in the Kremlin orbit, despite strong Ukrainian public support for a European future.

While Russia’s initial blitzkrieg failed, the war continues and Moscow has clearly not abandoned its efforts to subjugate Ukraine. Indeed, recent reports of a foiled Russian plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials suggest the Kremlin still hopes to install a friendlier regime in Kyiv. As they look to address the realities of fierce public opposition to Russia throughout Ukrainian society, Russian policymakers will surely draw on their experience in Georgia over the past decade or so.

The current protests in Georgia are taking place as the country prepares for parliamentary elections in October. The fate of the Foreign Agents Law is expected to significantly impact the course of the coming vote, with Georgian Dream officials accused of planning to use the legislation to silence opponents. The outcome of the October election will tell us much about Georgia’s likely future geopolitical direction. It will also serve as a verdict of sorts on Moscow’s efforts to regain influence in the country despite the painful legacy of the 2008 invasion and the ongoing occupation of Georgian land. This will have huge implications for the wider southern Caucasus region, and may also help shape Russia’s approach to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Nicholas Chkhaidze is a Research Fellow at the Baku-based Topchubashov Center.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

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Historically, chemical weapons have been used to break a stalemate, weakening an enemy’s front line troops and providing an opening to push forward. Russia’s use of chemical weapons might suggest that strategists consider the invasion of Ukraine to be a stalemate, or are desperate to avoid one. As fears of a stalemate persist across Ukraine, Russia, and the West, it isn’t difficult to predict a scenario in which Russia could use chemical weapons more widely to achieve a breakthrough.

Chloropicrin, a chemical agent frequently used for riot control, is banned for use in a warfare setting under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Russia has been a signatory to since its inception. Over the past two years, Ukraine has reported some 1,400 cases of chemical weapons use, but these claims had not been confirmed by third parties until the May 1 statement released by the US State Department.

If Putin has no qualms about using banned weapons, why choose chloropicrin? As far as chemical weapons go, chloropicrin is less lethal than other weapons suspected to be in Russia’s arsenal. By using a weaker agent, Putin’s goal does not seem to be maximum death and destruction in this case. Rather, he may be testing the waters to gauge the international response and determine just how far he can go. A strong reaction from the international community is therefore vital to make clear that widespread use of chemical weapons is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Russia’s previous uses of chemical weapons outside of Ukraine have been met with a tepid response at best. For example, after Sergei Skripal was poisoned in the UK with a Novichok agent (a class of nerve agents developed in the Soviet Union) in 2018, the US and a handful of its European partners released a statement condemning the attack, expelled diplomats, and the US levied sanctions under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act. Did this rein in Russia’s chemical weapons tactics? Alexey Navalny’s subsequent poisoning with Novichok in 2020 would suggest not.

In response to the latest allegations, the United States has so far announced sanctions on seven Russian government programs and companies associated with the Kremlin’s chemical and biological weapons programs. These measures are an attempt to reduce Moscow’s ability to wage chemical warfare. More must now be done. Failing to curb the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine would have potentially catastrophic consequences, both for Ukrainians and for international security more broadly. The United States and its partners therefore cannot afford to wait and see whether current sanctions measures are effective.

In the early phases of Russia’s full-scale invasion, US President Joe Biden pledged that “Russia will pay a severe price if they use chemical weapons.” Do sanctions alone constitute a severe response? If such measures have not convinced Putin that he cannot use chemical weapons after recent assassination attempts, can we expect them to work when his back is against a wall trying to win a major war?

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Looking to the past provides little clarity on possible actions available to Ukraine’s partners. After the Bashar al-Assad regime used chemical weapons in Syria in 2013, the United States and Russia worked together to force Syria to join the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy its stockpiles. Without Russia’s participation and considering its veto on the United Nations Security Council, something similar on this occasion looks impossible. When Syria continued to use chemical weapons, the United States, United Kingdom, and France targeted chemical weapons facilities with missiles, another option Western leaders have seemingly taken off the table in relation to Russia.

The best option available to the United States and its allies might be to deny Russia the opportunity to use banned weapons. If Putin’s strategy would dictate using chemical weapons in the case of a stalemate, then Ukraine’s partners must ensure it gets the military aid needed to avoid such a situation. While the United States might be unable to strike inside Russia as it did in Syria, providing Ukraine long-range weapons and the intelligence support to carry out strikes against chemical weapons facilities could take away Russia’s chemical capabilities while sending a strong message against using banned weapons.

This is not to say the United States should not explore options for international cooperation. At the end of the day, Russia using chemical weapons endangers more than Ukraine. Galvanizing broader support from around the world can help preserve critical norms and is a necessary step to protect against chemical weapons proliferation globally. While the West has struggled to work with China or partners in the Global South on Ukraine, a coalition rejecting the use of chemical weapons presents an opportunity to protect Ukrainian lives while reinforcing international norms and building trust that chemical weapons are unacceptable in all contexts.

Emma Nix is an assistant director with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Apr 29, 2024

Bombs and disinformation: Russia’s campaign to depopulate Kharkiv

By Maria Avdeeva

Russia is deploying disinformation alongside bombs as it seeks to demoralize Kharkiv residents and depopulate Ukraine’s second city, writes Maria Avdeeva.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert May 3, 2024

UK gives Ukraine green light to use British weapons inside Russia

By Peter Dickinson

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has confirmed that Ukraine can use British weapons to attack Russia as Western leaders continue to overcome their fear of provoking Putin, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert May 2, 2024

Ukraine’s new mobilization law leaves demobilization issue unresolved

By Elena Davlikanova, Kateryna Odarchenko

Ukraine urgently needs to replenish the ranks of the country’s depleted military, but the recently adopted mobilization law fails to address the key issue of demobilization, write Elena Davlikanova and Kateryna Odarchenko.

Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Will the ICC indeed issue the arrest warrants? That question cannot be answered yet, but seven other important questions associated with this issue do have answers now.

1. Does the ICC have jurisdiction?

If the ICC exercises jurisdiction in relation to the Gaza war, then it would be based on the fact that the Palestinian authorities in Ramallah have accepted the court’s jurisdiction. The State of Palestine has been a member of the ICC since 2015. Importantly, this has consequences even for Israel, which has not signed onto the ICC statute. Pursuant to well-established legal rules and principles, the Palestinian Authority can exercise jurisdiction over crimes on its own territory and its nationals. Thus, the Palestinian Authority also can give the ICC the same powers, namely to exercise jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed by Israeli forces in Gaza or crimes committed by Palestinian groups such as Hamas.

This is the same principle that allows the ICC to investigate and prosecute crimes by Russia in Ukraine. It would be unfortunate if the United States and its allies would use the same arguments against the ICC as have been heard from Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the warrant issued for his arrest.

The US position is currently that “the Palestinians do not qualify as a sovereign state and therefore, are not qualified to obtain membership as a state in, participate as a state in, or delegate jurisdiction to the ICC.” It is worth looking more closely at this argument.

First, full United Nations (UN) membership is not a requirement to qualify as a state. Nevertheless, the status at the UN may be indicative, and in that context it is worth noting that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in Resolution 67/19 decided to “accord to Palestine nonmember observer State status” at the UN in November 2012. Second, some 139 out of 193 UN member states have recognized Palestinian statehood. Third, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber in 2021 concluded that “regardless of Palestine’s status under general international law, its accession to the [ICC] Statute followed the correct and ordinary procedure,” noting that no ICC party (except Canada) objected to its joining in 2015. Finally, the argument that Palestinian authorities do not have full control over the state’s purported territory would have prevented the United States and other like-minded states from recognizing Croatia (1992), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992), and Kosovo (2006) as states.

2. Who would the ICC charge and what would it charge them with?

Any charges from the ICC would be against individuals, most likely senior Israeli officials and military leaders, and not against the state of Israel itself. Some reports suggest that any issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli officials would also be accompanied by a set of separate arrest warrants against Hamas leaders. In such a scenario, it would be odd if the United States and its allies would try to subdue the ICC.

ICC Prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan’s speech on October 30, 2023, might offer some indications of the types of charges the ICC may bring. In that speech, he talked about the principles of distinction and proportionality, as well as Israeli settler violence and land grabs in the West Bank. He also mentioned denial of access to food and medicine to the civilian population of Gaza, Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, and attacks against civilians and hostage-taking on and since October 7, 2023.

3. Can Israel preempt the investigation?

Israel is much different from, for example, Russia in being a parliamentary democracy where the power of government may actually change after an election. Israel also has independent courts. Should this not be considered? The ICC statute does show deference to functioning legal systems by its principle of complementarity—the ICC is only meant to exercise its jurisdiction in circumstances when a national legal system cannot or will not carry out its own proceedings.

Both Palestinian authorities and Israel could preempt and make investigations and trials inadmissible at the ICC if they engage in genuine investigations and prosecution in their own domestic systems. While it is very unlikely to happen in Gaza under Hamas rule, this is a potentially feasible option for Israel as long as such proceedings are genuine. 

The efforts by Israeli authorities to improve practices after the strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1 are relevant in this context. Israel has taken steps to include nongovernmental organization liaisons in a joint situation room and raise the approval level for such strikes, and the Israeli military has punished several officers for their role in the strike. The measures taken after the April 1 strike do not mean that Israel in general is in the clear. Rather, it is an illustration of the type of action, taken on a broader front, that might persuade the ICC to abstain from investigations and prosecution.

4. What about Israel’s right to self-defense?

Following earlier statements by Israeli officials, Netanyahu on April 26 underscored the argument that Israel’s right to self-defense was at stake. Would the right to self-defense be undermined if the ICC proceeded? The answer is that the ICC does not have jurisdiction in the context of the Gaza war on the right to self-defense.

When the ICC prosecutor has indicated that his team is investigating both parties in the conflict, this has related to war crimes and to crimes against humanity. No mention has ever been made of the right to self-defense. While it is clear that Israel has the right to protect its population, there are also limits when exercising this right, something also acknowledged by Israeli officials. When there is a dispute as to whether these limits have been respected or not, the most reasonable arbitrator is arguably the ICC.

There have been several attempts to persuade the ICC prosecutor to bring charges in relation to Israeli acts in the past, including after the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010, the Israel-Gaza war in 2014, and Gaza-Israel clashes in 2018. But none of those investigations resulted in charges against Israeli government figures. Importantly, the ICC has investigated several conflicts and prosecuted crimes in other parts of the world, which should counter allegations that the prosecutors are only targeting Israel or seeking to undermine the country’s right and obligation to protect its people. 

5. What about a potential ceasefire?

There are valid concerns that ICC arrest warrants might interfere with negotiations with Hamas on a ceasefire and the release of hostages. The Biden administration argued in 2021, before the current war, that the ICC has a responsibility to act constructively and that by issuing arrest warrants it will make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict worse. 

Israel has in recent days told the United States that it will punish the Palestinian Authority if the ICC issues warrants. Such threats are misguided, since it is the ICC prosecutor, not the Palestinian Authority, who brings requests to a panel of three ICC judges to confirm any arrest warrants. Nevertheless, there is a legitimate argument that efforts to deescalate a war should take precedence over efforts to bring criminal justice.

At the present stage, however, the question of efforts to deescalate the war between Israel and Hamas is neither a matter for the ICC prosecutor nor the Palestinian Authority. The UN Security Council—where the United States and its allies have a significant voice—may under article sixteen of the ICC statute freeze any investigation or prosecution for one year, a term that is renewable, for the purpose of facilitating such negotiations. This would be clearly in line with US positions. China or Russia might see an interest in sabotaging US diplomacy; however, it would run counter to their previous positions if they would prioritize proceedings at a court they do not recognize over a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

6. How should the United States respond?

Several top US lawmakers have preemptively come out against the ICC issuing warrants. On April 29, House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “Such a lawless action by the ICC would directly undermine US national security interests.” The next day, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “The ICC has been biased against Israel for decades.” Republicans are threatening to sanction ICC officials, a step the Trump administration took in 2020 amid ICC investigations into potential US war crimes in Afghanistan.

However, the United States and its allies should respect the independence of the ICC and not interfere with the court’s proceedings. If necessary, they should provide support under the ICC statute cooperation regime. It is unrealistic, considering the close ties between the United States and Israel, to expect the United States to arrest Netanyahu should the ICC issue a warrant for his arrest, for example. But consider what happened in South Africa, where the ICC arrest warrant against Putin led to his cancelled in-person participation in the 2023 BRICS summit. There, South Africa’s obligations to the ICC were tested against loyalties to allies, resulting in Putin’s absence at the summit.

Even if one supports Israel’s right to defend its people, the countries seeking to promote international justice should apply the same standards regardless of who is being sought by the ICC. If the ICC does charge Israeli officials, the US government could let them know they are not welcome in the United States until the case is resolved. At the very least, proposals on sanctioning ICC officials should be put to rest.

The ICC prosecutor has responded to the overtures from US congressmen by stating that his office welcomes comments and engagement in its activities from state and elected officials, nongovernmental organizations, scholars, and activists. However, his office has insisted all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence its officials should cease immediately. This appears unlikely to sway all of the members of Congress.

7. What risks does this case present for the legitimacy of the ICC?

The ICC, still a relatively new organization, has been losing legitimacy among many African countries, which say that they have been disproportionately targeted by ICC investigations. Elsewhere, the Philippines withdrew from the ICC in 2019 after the court said that it would investigate Manila’s war on drugs.

While an arrest warrant for Netanyahu or other top Israeli officials might be cheered in many places, it may also create challenges for the ICC in the sense that some of its strongest backers among European states also are committed to the safety of Israel. This dilemma is most obvious in relation to Germany, which has taken upon itself the dual heritage from World War II: both to promote international criminal justice in the spirit of the Nuremberg tribunal and safeguard the existence and safety of the state of Israel.

Those are obvious concerns for some states that they need to deal with. However, the court operates under a somewhat different logic. While the legitimacy of the ICC is of utmost importance, the court’s prosecutors and judges should be guided and constrained in their decision making by available facts in the specific situation and the ICC statute, not geopolitical interests. This is the only manner in which the court’s long-term legitimacy may be upheld and expanded. To the extent that geopolitical considerations are to be made, they are the responsibility of the UN Security Council.

Mark Klamberg is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project. He is a professor of international law at Stockholm University and currently residing in Washington, DC, where he is affiliated with American University’s School of International Service and Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University.

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The protests have spilled from the grounds of the Georgian Parliament into the streets, effectively paralyzing major roads and central spaces. Even drivers of both private and public transport seem unfazed by the disruptions, often parking their vehicles to join the crowds. Georgia has confounded prior assessments of division and polarization. Currently, the only significant division in the country is between the will of the majority of Georgians and Georgia’s ruling party.

This marks the first time in Georgia’s history that the governing political party has declared a shift in the nation’s Euro-Atlantic foreign policy alignment. Last month, the ruling Georgian Dream party revived efforts to pass a “foreign agent” law, mirroring the one Russia implemented in 2012. Due to its resemblance, many in Georgia have dubbed it the “Russian law.” The proposed legislation mandates that media and civil society organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from foreign sources must register as carriers of “the interests of a foreign power.” The current iteration of the bill includes fines for noncompliance. Many within and outside of Georgia fear that, akin to its Russian counterpart, this law could be used to quell dissent and hinder Georgia’s aspirations to join Euro-Atlantic institutions. Despite extensive domestic and international criticism, the bill recently passed its second reading in parliament with support from the Georgian Dream and its allies.

The bill encapsulates the broader ambitions of the Georgian Dream party. Before the second reading, the party’s founder and leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili, delivered a national address. Various reports document Ivanishvili’s connections with Russia. In his speech, he confirmed what many observers have suspected about the party’s intentions, beginning with its 2012 rise to power and increasing in recent years: It is pivoting Georgia’s foreign policy, potentially leading to the abandonment of the country’s NATO and EU aspirations.

Although Ivanishvili did not reveal any new information in his Monday speech, it signified a pivotal moment for Georgia, as he openly designated the West as an external adversary and described Georgia’s civil society as an internal one. “The funding of NGOs, which they often begrudge us and count as aid, is used almost exclusively to strengthen the agents,” he said. Labeling almost any dissenting voice as part of a Western spy network, Ivanishvili asserted that Western powers are plotting to overthrow the government and want to “turn Georgia into a second front” with Russia. Ivanishvili endorsed the need for a Russian-style foreign agents law aimed at political repression and curtailing free media—measures that will likely further alienate Georgia from the West.

This shift stands in stark contrast to the desires of more than 80 percent of Georgians who aspire to join the EU and more than 70 percent who wish to join NATO. Moreover, this shift breaches the Georgian constitution, particularly Article 78, which mandates that constitutional bodies undertake all necessary measures to ensure Georgia’s full integration into the EU and NATO.

Despite the increasing scale and duration of the protests compared to last year, Ivanishvili made a distinct point in his speech of differentiating himself from Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s former pro-Russian president. He issued a stern warning against any attempts to challenge him in the same manner as Ukrainians did with Yanukovych, when protesters successfully defended their European aspirations and ousted a pro-Russian government.

While Georgia’s Western partners have raised alarms about the developments in the country, Moscow defended Georgian Dream’s actions. On April 4, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that it’s “normal” that Georgia does not want to see “interference from other countries in domestic politics.” Later in April, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev labeled the protests as Western-staged and supported the bill in the name of “transparency.”

This backing did not come as a surprise amid Georgia’s gradual withdrawal from the West and rapprochement with Russia in the last few years. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Georgia has taken several foreign policy steps that indicated a significant opening toward Russia. Since Georgia opted not to participate in Western sanctions against Moscow, Russia has become one of its primary trading partners. Additionally, Georgia has facilitated the relocation of a considerable number of Russian businesses to its territory, with thousands of Russian companies registering in Georgia since the invasion. There are various reports suggesting that some elements within Georgia are helping Russia circumvent Western sanctions. The relationship further thawed as Moscow and Tbilisi resumed direct flights and Russia lifted visa restrictions for Georgian citizens that had been imposed since the early 2000s. Furthermore, in March 2022, Russia revised its list of “unfriendly countries,” removing Georgia from the list.

Over the past few years, both the Georgian and Russian governments have orchestrated various influence efforts aimed at paving the way for Georgia’s rapprochement with Russia and preparing Georgian society for this foreign policy shift. Kremlin and Georgian Dream officials have engaged in efforts to demonize the West and discredit Georgia’s pro-Western civil society. Both governments have utilized fear of Russia as a tool for blackmail; Russia has employed covert operations through state-controlled propaganda platforms to undermine Georgia’s political opposition and bolster support for Georgian Dream.

Despite various stage-setting influence efforts and policy moves, massive protests continue across Georgia, demonstrating the population’s strong commitment to defending their freedoms and democratic values. The stakes are now higher than ever. In his April 29 speech, Ivanishvili announced plans for a Soviet-style crackdown on critics, signaling a grave turn for those striving to build a liberal democracy and a Euro-Atlantic future in Georgia. They might soon face a stark choice: Either conform and remain silent or leave the country. Those who fail to comply with the new directives may face severe administrative and criminal charges, according to the long-time and well-tested authoritarian playbook.

Recent developments necessitate an immediate policy response from the West regarding Georgia. The growth of Russian influence and expected subsequent pull of Georgia into Moscow’s orbit could have significant repercussions, not only for Georgia but also for the broader region and the Euro-Atlantic alliance. The West has criticized Georgian Dream’s actions and expressed support for the Georgian people. Now, the West must take action to help defend democracy and the rule of law in Georgia.

The Georgian people, who have repeatedly received assurances of support from the West, are now awaiting a definitive indication that the West truly stands with them and for democracy. This desire for a clear signal reflects their expectations for tangible backing in their pursuit of freedom, democratic values, and Euro-Atlantic integration.

Eto Buziashvili is a research associate focusing on Eastern Europe and Russia at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).

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Recent economic data and projections by international institutions, including the World Bank, reveal that the country faces considerable headwinds. Several notable social indicators, too, raise concerns that the country’s success story may be unraveling. Not coincidently, these shifts are taking place under a government that is less and less accountable to its citizens.

The worsening economy: The big picture

Published on April 2, the World Bank’s Bangladesh Development Update forecasted that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth in fiscal year 2024 would be 5.6 percent. Within days of the World Bank’s forecast came a report from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) that GDP growth in the second quarter of the current fiscal year, between October and December 2023, was 3.78 percent. This is a dramatic decline compared to the previous quarter’s growth, which stood at 6.01 percent. The numbers were far higher in previous years’ second quarters; in fiscal year 2022 it was 9.3 percent and in fiscal year 2023 it was 7.08 percent. The overall GDP growth projection of the World Bank sharply contrasts with the government’s initial projection for fiscal year 2024, which the Bangladeshi government revised down in January from 7.5 percent to 6.5 percent.

Analysts have described the government’s growth target as unachievable. Those who have been following Bangladesh’s economy were not surprised that the World Bank projected a rate below last fiscal year’s growth of 5.8 percent and well below fiscal year 2022’s growth of 7.1 percent. The country’s average GDP growth over the past decade, according to government statistics, was around 6.6 percent. The World Bank forecast suggests that Bangladesh’s economic growth has been on a downward trend for two consecutive years and that the projection for next year is not much different from this year.

The economic crisis in Bangladesh, which has been evident since the middle of 2022, didn’t appear suddenly due to external shocks. It was in the making for quite some time. Two years ago, Bangladesh reached out to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international lenders to avert a meltdown. The government did secure new loans, but these have added to existing external loans. For the first time, external debt surpassed one hundred billion dollars in late 2023. As a result, the cost of servicing the debt is increasing at an unprecedented rate. In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, the country spent $2.03 billion making payments on this debt. The debt servicing, not only the foreign but domestic sources, is forcing the government to borrow to “repay a large part of its PPG [public and publicly guaranteed] debt obligations,” according to economist Mustafizur Rahman.

This is putting a serious dent in Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves, which have continued to slip. As of early April 2024, they stood below the IMF’s suggested $19.26 billion. Concurrently, nonperforming bank loans, which are about 10 percent of total outstanding loans, according to the central bank’s statement, are increasing. In the past fifteen years, the amount has increased six and a half fold. In a single year, it increased by more than 20 percent. Faced with pressure from the IMF to reduce the defaulting loans, the Bangladesh Bank has devised a stealthy way to do so—essentially, by cooking the books. The Bangladesh Bank has decided to relax the write-off policy that will wipe out a large amount of loans from the books but will hold nobody accountable—neither those banks which have allowed this to happen nor the businesses which have defaulted.

Instead, a recent amendment to the Bank Company Act will allow the sister companies of the defaulters to continue to borrow. In another controversial move, the Bangladesh Bank has decided to merge “weak banks” with “strong banks”  as part of its banking sector reform program. In April, the World Bank described this move as “counterproductive,” and experts have questioned its prudence. It will force the liabilities of weak banks onto the depositors of stronger banks. Many of the banks identified by the central bank as weak were approved in the past fifteen years for political considerations. The benefits enjoyed by those who established these banks and borrowed from various banks are now being paid by the public at large.

Economic woes of citizens

The broad economic crisis is having serious consequences for Bangladeshis, especially those in the middle class and poorer segments of society. While official statistics from February claim that inflation is below 10 percent, the prices of food and essentials in the market indicate a far greater number. Although food and fuel prices have fallen in the global market, Bangladeshis have not enjoyed the benefits of this. Instead, the government in March once again raised the price of electricity. In 2023 alone, the government raised the price of electricity and gas three times.

The plight of the common people can be gleaned from the data provided by a BBS survey conducted in the middle of 2023, “Food Security Statistics 2023.” The survey revealed that around 37.7 million people experienced moderate to severe food insecurity in the country. The report also noted that more than a quarter of families were taking out loans to cover the cost of daily necessities, including food. A survey by the South Asia Network on Economic Modeling, a think tank, shows that 28 percent of households resorted to borrowing money between April and November of 2023. The share of households borrowing money, largely from informal sources, has been on the rise for the past decade. According to a 2022 BBS survey, the average amount of loans per household in the country nearly doubled between 2016 to 2022, whereas the amount increased just 34 percent in the six-year period between 2010 and 2016. These numbers point to a difficult, perhaps even deteriorating, economic situation for many Bangladeshis.

Social indicators are showing strains

While the economic indicators alone are concerning, there are also disturbing developments in several social development indicators.

Bangladesh had been registering increases in life expectancy for decades. In 2020, it reached 72.8 years, the highest to date. But since then, the pattern of growth has been broken. In 2021, there was a decline, to 72.3 years. In 2022, a modest increase to 72.4 was reported by the BBS. But the Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics-2023 (BSVS-2023), published by the BBS in March 2024, shows a reversal, to 72.3 years. Combined with the information that food insecurity has increased in the past year, it is worth asking what might be causing this decline.

The decline in life expectancy is in part a result of the increase of the death rate in children. The BSVS-2023 shows that the mortality rate for children under five years of age, newborns, and children under one year has increased. Nor was the increase a one-off incident. Take, for example, the mortality rate for children under one year of age. The number was 21 per 1,000 five years ago, while in 2022 it increased to 25 and in 2023 it reached 27. The death of children below one month has reached 20 per 1,000 live births, up from 16 in 2022. Five years ago, the death rate of this age group was 15. The death rate of children under five years was 33 per 1,000 in the past year, an increase from 31 in 2022 and 28 five years ago. The BVS-2023 identified other troubling trends in social indicators as well. For instance, child marriage has increased significantly in recent years—from 31.3 percent in 2020 to 41.6 percent in 2023.

Two aspects of education and employment are noticeable in the statistics provided in the BSVS-2023 and a survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS). First, there has been a drop in students at the secondary-school level and an increase of NETT (not in employment, education, or training) among the youth population. Over the past four years, the number of students at the secondary school level in Bangladesh has decreased by one million, according to the BANBEIS.

According to the BSVS-2023, the share of children between five and twenty-four years not in educational institutions has risen since the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, 28.46 percent were out of educational institutions, while in 2023, the share reached 40.72 percent. On the other hand, BSVS reveals that 39.88 percent of youth between the age of fifteen and twenty-nine are neither in school nor in employment. The percentage was a little better than 2022, when it was 40.67 percent, but according to the labor force survey of 2016-2017, the NETT was around 30 percent. As such, this increase by almost ten percent in eight years reflects a pattern.

How did it happen?

These economic and societal shifts are happening neither abruptly nor in a vacuum of policy decisions. Instead, they are taking place incrementally and under a system of governance that has repeatedly claimed its legitimacy based on “development,” even at the expense of democracy and an inclusive political system.

The absence of accountable governance is allowing a crony system to flourish, even as it is holding back the economy. The government has created a clientelist network upon which it relies for survival and stability. Recent elections have been neither free nor fair, and they have resulted in an economy that is increasingly beholden to a small group of people who facilitate the victory of the incumbent.

This is not unexpected. The dire warnings that authoritarianism can burst the bubble of growth appear to be coming to pass. As the country’s system of governance has transformed from a hybrid regime to an autocratic system, especially after the 2018 election, social development has received less attention from the government, which relies less and less on a mandate from citizens. Regime survival is not contingent on public support, which tends to judge the incumbent based on performance. If these trends continue, then the optimism that accompanied the fiftieth anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence may soon seem like a distant memory.

Ali Riaz is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council South Asia Center and a distinguished professor at Illinois State University.

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According to recent studies, violence against women in Mexico has surged, with more than 70 percent of Mexico’s 50.5 million women and girls over the age of fifteen experiencing some form of violence. This brutal reality is heightened by the fact that many crimes in Mexico often go unreported, hindering governmental efforts to address the disproportionate impact of criminal violence on women in rural states such as Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas. It is a serious problem in Mexico, and it is also a concern for its northern neighbor. It’s in the United States’ best interest to take a closer look at the increased effect of organized crime on women in Mexico and the growing migration pressures it is generating.

It is no secret that Mexico stands as one of the most violent countries for women. For years, Mexico has struggled with inadequate resources and institutions to safeguard victims and prosecute offenders.

Even urban areas such as Mexico City, which have more access to resources and investment than rural areas, have struggled to create a holistic security agenda that can ensure women’s safety. However, between February 2020 and 2024, the incidence of femicide in the capital decreased by 20 percent, according to the Secretariat of Citizen Security in Mexico City. Although this value does not encompass the full dimension of the violence women face in Mexico, the decrease may be a result of certain components of the city’s security agenda. This agenda includes implementing gender-sensitive training for military and police personnel, bolstering female representation in law enforcement, improving access to mental-health and victim-support services, and streamlining abuse reporting mechanisms through preventative policing measures.  

The most severe violence against women predominantly occurs in remote Mexican states characterized by pervasive poverty and the presence of criminal organizations. States such as Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Chiapas, plagued by poverty and host to multiple cartels, pose significant threats to women’s safety. These states are notorious for their danger to women, even though they do not always report the highest number of femicides or other cases of gender-based violence given the fear of victims to come forward and lower law-enforcement presence. A 2021 United Nations Development Programme study in Mexico indicates that in areas controlled by drug cartels, violence against women intensifies, with relatives often refraining from reporting crimes out of fear of retribution. Such violence becomes a tool of intimidation and a display of dominance for these criminal groups, perpetuating a cycle of violence. These mostly rural states serve as hubs for organized crime due to weak state presence and proximity to key transit routes. As a result, the convergence of poverty, crime, and violence has prompted mass emigration to urban centers and the United States, particularly among vulnerable populations.

To address this dire situation, it is important for the administration that takes office later this year to pay closer attention to violence against women in these states. To start with, reliable data is needed. In Mexico, an estimated 93 percent of crimes go unreported. In 2023, 2,580 women were murdered but only 830 were categorized as femicides. Strengthening transparent and trustworthy institutions that collect accurate data in these areas is crucial to fostering an environment where victims feel safe to come forward.

Security plans that have shown some success in urban areas are often difficult to apply as a whole in more rural areas, due to the lack of infrastructure and resources. However, there are certain transferable steps that can help improve women’s safety. For instance, recruiting more and better female police officers to ensure greater representation in police forces can make women feel safer when coming forward about their experiences. Failure to address these urgent needs perpetuates inequality and undermines Mexico’s potential as an economic powerhouse.

Furthermore, the increase in gender-based violence in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas is greatly impacting migration dynamics, particularly toward those migrating to the United States. A 2021 report from the International Organization for Migration sheds light on the reasons behind this migration trend, revealing that 11 percent of respondents left Mexico due to gender violence. Moreover, 7 percent of those women interviewed mentioned encounters between criminal groups as a main reason for migrating. This migration pattern shows the immense need for addressing the root causes of gender-based violence in rural Mexican states, as it directly influences migration flows and exacerbates the ongoing migration crisis at the US-Mexico border.

The United States can help address gender-based violence in rural Mexican areas. For example, the US State Department’s Safe from the Start ReVisioned program is dedicated to eradicating all forms and threats of gender-based violence that women and girls encounter. Given adequate resources and attention, such collaborative efforts between the US and Mexican authorities can bolster capacities to prevent and respond to violence effectively. Other potential initiatives, such as skills transfer, training in conflict resolution, and trauma-informed care programs, can empower local communities to address violence comprehensively. By implementing innovative strategies and comprehensive support services, the incoming Mexican administration, along with its US counterpart, can make important progress in addressing the root causes of gender-based violence while cracking down on organized crime and undocumented migration.

As Mexico prepares for this year’s historic election, there is a unique opportunity to prioritize the issue of gender-based violence and enact meaningful change. Now more than ever, it is imperative for political leaders to recognize the urgency of this issue and commit to implementing policies and programs that prioritize the safety and empowerment of women, particularly in rural Mexican states.

Charlene Aguilera is a program assistant in the Caribbean Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Isabel Chiriboga is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

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On April 18, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Thomas S. Warrick was mentioned in a Cipher Brief article releasing an open letter to the Senate. Signed by a group of former senior national security officials, this letter urged the reform of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, adopting The Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act of 2024 (H.R. 7888 or RISA). The national security surveillance program allows the collection of communications of non-Americans abroad, without a warrant, by US government officials for foreign intelligence purposes.

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Thomas S. Warrick

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Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare delayed this election, initially scheduled for last year, under the justification that the administrative burden of hosting the 2023 Pacific Games was too great to carry out the election in the same year. But many saw the delay for what it was—Sogavare buying more time to consolidate power and boost his chances for reelection.

The contest is a competitive one, and the results will determine whether the country continues growing its relationship with the PRC or changes course in favor of a different approach.

Sogavare’s warm embrace of the PRC

Since withdrawing his country’s diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in favor of establishing formal ties with the PRC in 2019, Sogavare has aligned himself with Beijing on matters of foreign policy. This shift has drawn concern from countries such as Australia and the United States, which are competing with the PRC for influence in the country and the wider region.

Whether Sogavare’s embrace of the PRC is driven by transactionalism or ideology depends on who you ask. Some see him as playing larger powers off each other to extract maximum benefit, while others see him as driven by an anti-Australian worldview informed by his own nationalism and long-standing criticism of the Australian-led peacekeeping mission that extricated the country from state failure.

Others have astutely observed that these are not mutually exclusive motivations and that his motive may ultimately boil down to something that drives politicians the world over: securing, consolidating, and maintaining power. As Patricia O’Brien wrote, “Sogavare will continue to act in ways that serve his ultimate purpose, to remain in power. This unfortunately also serves China’s sweeping regional ambitions.”

Domestic backlash and electoral politics

Sogavare’s “look north” policy has drawn criticism domestically from prominent politicians such as opposition leader Matthew Wale, as well as former Malaita Province Premier Daniel Suidani, whose critiques of the PRC contributed to his removal from office last year by the provincial assembly. But this seemingly clear-cut divide is an “oversimplified understanding” of critics’ positions, which are intertwined with complex ethnic and social divisions rooted in the country’s colonial history.

On the campaign trail, Sogavare has touted his “look north” policy as bringing much-needed development aid and, on the heels of hosting a successful Pacific Games—for which the PRC provided much of the infrastructure—boosting his country’s prestige in the region. He has also praised the PRC’s political system while criticizing Western democracy.

Sogavare’s opponents have actively contested the issue, with Wale accusing the prime minister of “selling out the country to foreign interests” and slamming him for having “prioritized the Pacific Games over medicines.” If elected, Wale has floated holding a nationwide referendum on the country’s relationship with the PRC, but he has also left the door open to maintaining some degree of relations with Beijing.

Thus, the election presents an inflection point for the Solomon Islands’ relations with the PRC. As Sogavare seeks a fifth cumulative term in office, will voters award this gruff and wily political survivor for his embrace of Beijing or remove him in favor of politicians who are promising a different approach?

The political landscape and electoral system

Candidates from thirteen political parties are contesting the parliamentary election, and 120 of 334 eligible candidates are standing as independents. The country has a weak party system; as the Development Policy Centre’s Terence Wood explained, “voters rarely vote along party lines in Solomon Islands: they vote based on individual candidate attributes.” Candidates’ loyalty to their parties is fickle, with their allegiance often up for grabs after election day.

Any one party is unlikely to win an outright majority, so the victor will need to secure coalition partners to form a government. Thus, Sogavare and Wale aren’t the only players who merit observation; other figures, such as Peter Kenilorea Jr., will certainly factor into the formation of the government.

Voter motivations and key issues

While personality politics predominate, policy issues do register with voters. Domestic issues—reducing poverty, increasing physical and digital connectivity, creating employment opportunities, improving health and education systems, and more—are front of mind for voters. Foreign policy is typically discussed through the lens of domestic matters, and voters are unlikely to base their vote choice on foreign policy.

Public opinion and young voters

It is challenging to speculate about ground-level public opinion from afar due to the lack of publicly available polling. Seventy-four percent of the population lives in rural areas flung across the country’s 147 inhabited islands, making it a difficult place to poll. This is compounded by wide variations in turnout from election to election, a key data point to nail down in any survey seeking to gauge voter sentiment.

One wild card is young voters who have reached voting age since the 2019 election. Candidates and parties are seeking to capitalize on this by appealing to a seeming desire for change; for example, Kenilorea and his party have embraced a youth-centric campaign. But at this stage it is unknown whether young voters’ collective behavior will meaningfully differ from that of other age groups, or if they will fall into more traditional voting patterns.

Election day and the uncertain aftermath

All eyes are on Sogavare as April 17 approaches. At this stage, he seems to be favored to return for a fifth term, but this outcome is not certain. Moreover, his fate is unlikely to be known immediately; in 2019, it took three days for official results to be announced after the election. The “election after the election,” which lasted for three weeks in 2019, will quickly come to the fore as candidates and parties jockey for power.

During this opaque period, pre-election alliances and loyalties tend to be discarded in favor of fresh inducements that make it difficult to predict outcomes. As Wood wrote, “there will also be the post-election horse-trading amongst MPs hopping between Honiara hotels that leads to the selection of the prime minister, and the public reaction to this opaque and unaccountable process.”

Post-election civil unrest, which was seen after the 2019 elections, could transpire and potentially influence the formation of a government. Since gaining independence in 1978, the country has been bedeviled by ethnic and social tensions that have often resulted in violence, most recently in 2021 when riots rocked Honiara, particularly impacting its Chinatown district.

Geopolitics comes into play here, as quelling violence has often required the deployment of foreign security forces. Police from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea will be utilized to provide security around election day, and the 2021 riots were only extinguished upon the deployment of police from Australia, who may be called upon again if tensions flare.

The deployment of PRC police is also possible under a policing agreement signed in 2023, which was justified by Sogavare in the name of diversifying partnerships and “plugging security gaps” made evident by the 2021 riots. Apprehensions also linger about underhanded PRC efforts to influence post-election negotiations, and Beijing’s track record lends credence to these worries.

Cumulatively, these factors portend a tense and uncertain post-election period, but one in which Sogavare seems poised to have the upper hand. The “coconut wireless” of social media will surely be abuzz, and the results will reverberate well beyond the borders of the Happy Isles.

Parker Novak is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, where he specializes in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Indo-Pacific geopolitics, and US foreign policy.

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Yet, some argue, that election was widely boycotted. The two principal arguments underlying this claim are that the opposition parties boycotted the election and that Bangladeshis resoundingly rejected the poll in solidarity with the opposition’s call to boycott.

Participation or boycott?

While the major opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies did sit out the election, not all opposition parties followed suit. Out of forty-four registered parties, twenty-seven fielded candidates. Additionally, nearly 1,900 independent candidates threw their hats in the ring for three hundred parliamentary seats. So, while the BNP’s absence resounded, reasonable multiparty competition and voter choice still transpired across multiple constituencies.

The official voter turnout reached 41.8 percent—a lower figure than in Bangladesh’s last contested election, albeit not an unprecedented low. Some see this low turnout as one indication that the opposition’s boycott reflected popular sentiment. The opposition boycott undoubtedly dampened some voter turnout. However, low participation does not necessarily indicate a blanket public rejection of the polls owing to opposition exhortations. In the run-up to the vote, the BNP’s anti-election protests degenerated into a violent crusade. BNP loyalists were found to be complicit in torching hundreds of vehicles. The BNP called for forty-eight hours of nationwide strikes and blockades on the eve of voting day. Arsonists set fire to polling booths and a train, killing four. This prevailing climate of trepidation likely caused some voters to stay at home on election day. Expanding absentee balloting could be a solution, but barring some exceptions, average citizens cannot vote by mail. Crucially, expats, who account for 10 percent of all voters, were effectively disenfranchised.

More tellingly, in constituencies where robust, competing candidates vied for seats, voter turnout topped 60 percent, suggesting genuine electoral contests did mobilize voters. Conversely, anemic turnout in some constituencies seems to have stemmed from lack of competition, not voters boycotting the election outright in solidarity with the BNP.

Confusion persists, however, over the Election Commission’s reported voter turnout statistics. The Commission initially announced a 27 percent turnout rate at its afternoon press briefing, later announcing a 41.8 percent final turnout. The Election Commission said that the lower afternoon figure was not in real time; it did not yet reflect delayed updates from all polling centers. Since Bangladesh uses a manual paper ballot system, where votes are hand counted and tallied, there were a few hours of lag in transmitting results from rural areas. This lag could explain the gap between the afternoon number and the final announced turnout. In that case, it is not true that 14 percent of the total votes would have had to have been cast in the final hour for the final given turnout to be accurate, as some commentators have stated.

And perhaps the Election Commission is right. But with the seeds of doubt sown, the Election Commission could help resolve any lingering doubts by publishing a detailed breakdown of hourly vote counts from all polling stations. Such transparency would provide definitive clarity on the turnout question that confused some observers.

Is Bangladesh a one-party state?

As Bangladesh charts its course following another landslide election victory for the ruling Awami League (AL), some critics warn that the country is sliding toward effective one-party rule. With AL sweeping 223 seats and its loyalist independents winning 62 more—making 95 percent of elected members broadly aligned with the ruling party—they argue that no meaningful opposition exists in parliament.

But there are a couple of problems here. First, dismissing independent members of parliament simply as AL lapdogs overlooks intricacies within Bangladesh’s political landscape. All independents prevailed after intense electoral combat with AL candidates. They will enjoy unchecked freedom to wield their votes and voices in the parliament. Article 70 of Bangladesh’s constitution prohibits members of parliament from voting against their party. But as independent candidates lacking formal party affiliation, they are immune from this restriction. In this context, the AL merits praise for taking affirmative steps to foster electoral competition and pluralism, despite lacking a formidable challenger. The AL, by allowing senior party figures to compete as independents, certainly risked potential intraparty discord. Yet, it prioritized providing voters with genuine electoral alternatives and widening the diversity of voices in parliament.

Additionally, a party achieving an overwhelming parliamentary majority through an electoral process does not equate to a one-party state. In the past, the AL and the BNP have held similar supermajorities without making Bangladesh a one-party state. Similarly, India and Japan have experienced one-party dominance without losing multiparty democracy. The key question is whether the AL orchestrated this supermajority parliament or if it was an inevitable outcome given the BNP’s election boycott.

The BNP would argue the former—that there was never a level playing field and that the crackdown and mass arrest of BNP leaders after the October 28 rally precluded any chance of a fair election, deterring their participation. However, even by October 28, the BNP had already rendered itself irrelevant to the polls by refusing participation. The October 28 protest sought to obstruct an election to called by the Election Commission in mid-November. Thus, law enforcement—at that point under the Commission’s authority—used force to halt the turmoil and ensure the election proceeded. Therefore, the state’s response to the rally should not be construed as barring the BNP’s electoral participation. The disproportionate use of force merits separate evaluation, but it is better viewed through a law-and-order lens rather than an electoral one.

Accountability starts with showing up

Rather than making alarmist claims of creeping authoritarianism, observers should have asked why the primary opposition, the BNP, forfeited the field. Just as the government warrants scrutiny for proportionality of force, the BNP should be held accountable for executing its democratic duties.

As a major political party representing 170 million people, the BNP had a duty to give voice to voters in parliament. By boycotting the election over hypothetical unfairness, they severely undermined democratic processes and disregarded people’s right to meaningful electoral choice. Even if the BNP’s claims are taken at face value that elections under the AL have no precedent of being free and fair, the demand to reinstate a caretaker government still lacks foundation. Bangladesh’s supreme court ruled it unconstitutional in May 2011. Moreover, the previous caretaker system overstayed its mandate, invoked a national emergency, and imprisoned leaders across party lines.

The boycott only assisted the incumbent AL. This squandered the chance for punitive international actions and domestic resistance had the BNP participated and electoral fraud still demonstrably occurred. As such, one could conclude that the BNP pinned higher hopes on spurring a constitutional crisis amid caretaker rule than pursuing a public mandate through elections. Through this self-defeating gambit, the BNP catapulted the AL into power, even as questions linger over the ruling party’s commitment to democratic fairness.

Gautam Lahiri is the president of Press Club of India. He served as Bangladesh as an independent foreign observer of the 2024 general elections in Bangladesh.

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Gershkovich’s year in captivity is an important reminder of the Kremlin’s still-escalating disregard for humanitarian and political norms at home and beyond its borders. US Ambassador to Russia Lynne M. Tracy called the extension of Gershkovich’s detention this week “particularly painful,” no doubt referring to the double hit of the blatant falsehood of Russia’s accusations against him and the future this portends for a journalist described by his friends and colleagues as “a great person” and a “great journalist” with an undeniable and inspiring passion for his profession.

Gershkovich’s calling, his colleagues have explained, is ensuring that the world is informed of the realities of Russia under President Vladimir Putin. He felt a particular responsibility to tell the stories left unpublished by other journalists forcibly silenced by the Russian government through detention or exile. As conditions for reporting from Russia continued to deteriorate under the Kremlin’s years-long efforts to shroud reality under its own propaganda, Gershkovich persevered. He was motivated by an understanding of the importance of his work and his commitment to “get the story right,” as he would tell his friends and colleagues.

Gershkovich embodies what Putin apparently fears: He is a journalist working to uncover the truth, to show the world for what it really is.

In his countless acts to deform the Russian judiciary, legislature, security forces, and other instruments of the state to his will, Putin has made it clear that he has little regard for the truth or for the rules and strictures that create a free society. He continues to exercise unimaginable levels of violence against Ukraine in his ongoing war of aggression, murdering its people, targeting its critical infrastructure and cultural heritage, and forcibly deporting its children. Within Russia, he has honed tactics for silencing critics and amassing power, including his use of the foreign agents and “undesirable organizations” laws that have impaired countless independent media outlets and civil society organizations. These same laws have been used to throw activists and members of the free press behind bars.

Gershkovich exemplifies what has largely motivated the Kremlin’s use of restrictive legislation with impunity: He is a journalist who works to bring light to the truth, one with global connections and a passion for freedom and justice. Thus, without gaining something significant from the United States or its allies, Putin and his government will likely have little intention of setting Gershkovich free, despite his clear innocence and the absurd nature of the charges against him.

Gershkovich is also not alone as a foreign citizen suffering at the hands of the Kremlin. Others detained in Russia include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who has been in pre-trial detention since October 18, and Paul Whelan, who has been in Russian custody since 2018 serving a sixteen-year sentence. Los Angeles resident and dual US-Russian citizen Ksenia Karelina was detained in Yekaterinburg on January 28, and a Russian court denied her appeal on February 29.

The Wall Street Journal has done extraordinary work to bring attention to Gershkovich’s plight—and to his resilience. Other organizations, such as the Washington Post through its Press Freedom Partnership, have raised awareness both of Gershkovich’s detention and of other members of the press who remain in captivity. In advocating for Kurmasheva’s release, RFE/RL has also called attention to other journalists in prison in Russia, including Gershkovich.

Russia should release Gershkovich and others unjustly held without cause at once. While it is unlikely the Kremlin will do what is right any time soon, Gershkovich’s struggle for freedom reminds us that he and the free press have a remarkable ability to persevere. This in itself undermines the Kremlin’s intentions to silence the truth forever and gives us hope for the improbable. In the context of Russia’s war, it is also important to remember that, as Jeane Cavelier of Reporters without Borders has stated, “journalists must not be used as bargaining chips in Moscow’s war against Kyiv.” Journalism is not a crime, and Putin cannot be allowed to collect foreign citizens as blackmail to support his ongoing violence in Ukraine. Gershkovich’s tenacity and resilience should motivate the global community to act with urgency and intention to secure his release.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Follow her on Twitter @MKSapuppo.

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In the past three years, Senegalese President Macky Sall and his ruling party have engaged in some practices that have strained the rule of law and judicial independence. Since 2021, more than one thousand protesters and journalists associated with opposition parties have been jailed, with human rights groups reporting abuses such as arrests without warrants and unfair trials. Moreover, the excessive use of force during protests has led to at least sixteen deaths.

Yet arrests and detention have played just one part in the increasingly complex puzzle. In early 2024, Senegal’s election authority, the Constitutional Council, disqualified top opposition candidates Ousmane Sonko and Karim Wade from the presidential election, citing a defamation charge for Sonko and dual citizenship status for Wade. Critics, however, labeled these rulings to be politically motivated attempts to disqualify opposition candidates. Sonko faced challenges at every turn, from logistical forms to a denied defamation appeal, while Wade had renounced his French citizenship. Despite the legal justifications from the Council, the struggles opposition parties faced in getting candidates on the ballot ignited pushback.

In response to perceived bias in the candidacy process, the parliament voted on February 5 to delay elections until December 2024. While Sall and the ruling party claimed the decision was aimed at allowing the Constitutional Council and legislature the chance to agree on who to include on the ballot, opposition members viewed this as a tactic to keep Sall in power longer and ensure a better election outcome for his party. This sweeping decision—made after opposition parliament members were forcibly removed from the National Assembly—was met with widespread criticism. Scholars cited clear violations of Senegal’s constitution, and civil unrest erupted.    

Senegal’s legal issues come as a surprise considering the country’s history as a stable and promising democracy. In the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes, Senegal has scored above the global average in the overall Freedom Index as well as the political and legal subindexes. Senegal has been particularly strong in judicial independence and effectiveness. One of the five indicators in the legal subindex, judicial independence and effectiveness measures the degree to which laws are respected and whether violations are dealt with in a fair manner. Senegal has consistently scored highly in this metric, progressing toward the levels of the world’s freest countries. In 2021, however, the country’s score began decreasing, suffering the effects of the increasingly hostile practices toward political opposition.

The recent practices observed in Senegal, including election postponements, pretrial detentions, and disqualified opposition candidates, undermine the rule of law and erode public trust in the government. Indispensable for a flourishing and fair society, the rule of law shields citizens from government overreach and ensures an equitable process without favoritism. A lack of the rule of law leads to declining trust in government, which in turn may develop a vicious cycle of radicalization and create a disillusioned generation alienated from electoral politics.

Despite the concerns, there are signs of democratic resilience. On February 15, the Constitutional Council overturned the decree to postpone the election indefinitely. Shortly after, Sall and the parliament rescheduled the election for March 24. Moreover, more than three hundred prisoners arrested during demonstrations were released. A glimmer of hope is present for opposition politics as well. Though Sonko remains disqualified, his hand-picked alternative, the previously jailed Bassirou Diomaye Faye, was released from prison and will be permitted to run. With the date and candidates set, Senegalese citizens can now turn their attention toward the upcoming election.

But democracy requires more than just elections. It requires an independent judiciary and strong rule of law for its sustainment. As the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes show, Senegal has long scored high in democracy rankings. In a year with the highest election turnover in history, watchdogs and stakeholders may take solace in the fact that the democratic process in Senegal was eventually able to proceed. But the country’s underlying concerns on political violence and a leader reluctant to release power remain a challenge. For Senegal to truly cement its status as a haven of democracy, the country must prioritize judicial independence and the rule of law, ensuring that elections and transfers of power are fair and peaceful.

James Storen is the program assistant for the Freedom and Prosperity Center.

Annie (Yu-Lin) Lee is a young global professional in the Freedom and Prosperity Center.

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Targeted human rights sanctions are, in short, a tool governments use to freeze the assets of and deny visas to those complicit in human rights violations. While they are generally intended to prompt offenders to change their behavior, they have additional effects. For example, preventing perpetrators from obtaining the tools needed to continue abuses and showing support for victims. However, the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project (SLP) has heard from multiple sources that many people in affected communities—including the Iranian community—do not have sufficient information, especially in their native language, about these measures and what they mean.

Based on this feedback, this blog series was started to highlight important information about targeted human rights sanctions as they relate to the Islamic Republic of Iran; major updates on Iranian perpetrators who have been sanctioned for human rights abuses and why; and any other information that may be relevant to affected communities. Input is welcomed from readers, particularly in Iranian civil society, for questions and topics that should be addressed.

Since Mahsa Jina Amini’s death in 2022 and the resulting protests, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been one of the main perpetrators of human rights violations in Iran. The IRGC is a security force of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) headed by the commander-in-chief of the Iranian Armed Forces, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It has been responsible for countless violations across a variety of contexts and has significant influence over domestic matters in Iran. In addition to the various sanctions that have been issued against the IRGC for human rights violations, there have been repeated calls for governments across the world to list it as a terrorist organization. This post looks at how terrorist organization listings are decided, the consequences, and how these are related to targeted human rights sanctions.

Which countries have listed the IRGC as a terrorist organization?

Of the main jurisdictions featured in this series—Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US)—only the US has listed the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (April 15, 2019). The Canadian government recently announced it is “looking at ways to ‘responsibly’ designate” the IRGC but has so far only listed a subsidiary of the IRGC, the Quds Force (December 17, 2012). Other countries that have listed the IRGC as a terrorist organization include Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

What does a ‘terrorist organization’ listing mean and how does it compare to sanctions?

While each country has its definition, usually, this listing means the designated group is seen as being involved in terrorism in some way. A terrorist organization listing is similar to a targeted sanctions designation but involves different legal bases, processes, and consequences. As with targeted sanctions, these differ depending on the country making the listing and are detailed below for the main jurisdictions. Similarly, each of the main jurisdictions also has protections in place to uphold due process and other rights of the listed organizations and their members. In particular, each jurisdiction has policies mandating periodic reviews of listings and/or other de-listing or revocation processes. Unlike targeted sanctions, a terrorist organization listing opens the door for prosecutors to bring certain criminal charges for terrorism-related offenses against the organization’s members and associates, such as for the crime of membership in a terrorist organization.

What is the process for adding an organization?

As with targeted sanctions, the process for terrorist organization designations for all the main jurisdictions is mainly a discretionary decision by senior government officials. However, different criteria and different government agencies and officials are involved.

Australia: The minister for home affairs evaluates whether the criteria required in the Criminal Code Act 1995, Division 102 have been met and arranges a briefing for the leader of the opposition. The minister also seeks the agreement of the state/territory first ministers and advises the prime minister on the matter. Once this is complete, the governor-general “may make regulations to list” the organization.

Canada: Under the Anti-terrorism Act, once it has been established that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that an entity was sufficiently involved in the terrorist activity, reports are submitted to the minister for public safety, who, if they are satisfied the “reasonable grounds” standard is met, may recommend that the governor in council place the entity on the list.

European Union: The EU has the most complex process as a multilateral organization. For the EU, there must first be a “decision” by a “competent authority” concerning “a terrorist attack, an attempt to perpetrate, participate in or facilitate such an act based on serious and credible evidence or clues.” A “competent authority” could be “a judicial authority, or, where judicial authorities have no competence… an equivalent competent authority in that area.” Those identified by the United Nations Security Council “as being related to terrorism and against whom it has ordered sanctions” may also be included.

According to the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, administrative authorities could also be considered competent authorities so long as their decisions are subject to judicial review. This indicates that a sanctions designation by certain countries could be sufficient if adequate due process considerations are guaranteed.

Once a competent authority has made a decision, a member state of the EU or the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy (HR) can submit a proposal to be reviewed by the Working Party on restrictive measures to combat terrorism (COMET). After reviews and consultations, COMET then recommends the listing, or not, to the EU Council for adoption.

United Kingdom: The organization must first meet the proscription requirements in the Terrorism Act 2000. Then, the home secretary uses their discretion to determine if proscription would be “proportionate,” looking at factors including the “nature and scale of an organisation’s activities”; “the specific threat that it poses to the UK”; “the specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas”; “the extent of the organisation’s presence in the UK”; and “the need to support other members of the international community in the global fight against terrorism.” If the secretary believes the requirements are met and it would be proportional, they may add the organizations to the list of Proscribed Terrorist Groups or Organisations.

United States: Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) § 219, the US Department of State can designate groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO). This is based on three criteria: the group must be a foreign organization, must engage in “terrorist activity,” and that activity must threaten either the security of US nationals or US national security. To recommend a designation, the Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism prepares an “administrative record” of information about a proposed foreign terrorist organization. The secretary of state consults with the attorney general and the treasury secretary in deciding whether to make a designation. The secretary of state, and barring any action to block the designation over a seven-day waiting period, the designation takes effect.

In a similar process under Executive Order 13224, both the State and Treasury departments, in consultation with the Department of Justice, can list, as a targeted sanction, “specially designated global terrorists” (SDGT). These designations cover a wider range of individuals and entities than are allowed under the foreign terrorist organization listing. Still, its effects are limited to those of targeted sanctions (in this case, freezing assets and prohibiting transactions). Unlike a designation as an FTO under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a designation as an SDGT under Executive Order 13224 cannot, for example, give rise to certain civil and criminal offenses related to terrorism. However, an SDGT designation may have other benefits compared to an FTO designation, such as better allowing the US government to engage in diplomacy with the organization.

What are the consequences of being designated as a terrorist organization, and why should the IRGC be listed?

In addition to the symbolic gesture, one of the main consequences of a “terrorist organization” listing is the availability of terrorism-related prosecutions both against members of the organization and against those supporting it. The specific crimes that involve terrorist organizations vary by jurisdiction but often include membership and supplying resources.

This means that, for example, an IRGC official arrested in an EU country could be prosecuted not just for atrocities committed in Iran—for example, torture and crimes against humanity—but also for membership in a terrorist organization. While there are policy reasons why it is important for prosecutors to try to bring atrocity-related charges, it can be difficult to establish the link between high-level officials and the relevant offenses and so terrorism-related charges may be easier to prove.

Further, some jurisdictions also allow for cumulative charges, which means they can bring different charges for the same underlying act. For example, if someone provided weapons used in an attack by the IRGC, they could be charged both with indirect liability—such as aiding and abetting—for atrocity crimes and could be simultaneously charged with “supporting” a terrorist organization. This increases the likelihood of conviction on at least one charge and, if both result in convictions, of a longer overall sentence. Additionally, for some countries—such as the US—there may be “less inhibition on exercising universal jurisdiction” over those supporting terrorist organizations as opposed to those committing other crimes.

Finally, the US requires financial institutions to “retain possession of or control over” the funds of a foreign terrorist organization or its “agent” and report the funds to the US government. It also prohibits entry to “[r]epresentatives and members” of the organization “if they are aliens.” In the EU, “EU external terrorist” organizations have their funds and financial assets frozen, and funds, financial assets, and economic resources cannot be made available to them directly or indirectly. In Canada, a listed entity’s property “can be the subject of seizure/restraint and/or forfeiture.” Neither the UK nor Australia implements asset freezes for domestic terrorist organization listings.

What are the arguments against listing the IRGC?

First, as with sanctions—targeted and otherwise—an IRGC listing risks imposing a burden on civilians through over-compliance and negative impacts on the Iranian economy without guaranteeing constraints on the IRGC’s behavior or significant effects on the “political elite.”

In addition, even with the domestic pressure to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization, leaders have voiced hesitation in taking that step. The UK, for instance, appeared willing to list the IRGC in early 2023 but has since indicated that it will instead expand the criteria for targeted sanctions to include violations that occurred inside the UK. It was reported that the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office worried that a terrorist designation would trigger the expulsion of the UK ambassador to Iran and that it knew that the EU was unlikely to make a parallel terrorist designation. It was also reported in February 2023 that US diplomats were urging the UK not to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization, though the spokesperson for the US Department of State responded that such an approach by the US didn’t “ring true” to him and by October 2023 there were reports indicating the Joe Biden administration was urging the UK to make the designation.

Notably, the IRGC is distinct from most other listed terrorist organizations as it is a state military organization and is “constitutionally mandated.” In the United States, for example, no other country has military components which have been designated as FTOs.

Finally, Iran has compulsory military service, and conscripts were historically randomly assigned to branches—including the IRGC—which has impacted immigration for those who were conscripted decades ago. However, since 2010, about 80 percent of the IRGC’s conscripts actively choose to join the IRGC. There are further reports that conscripts can use bribes, “privileges,” and connections to avoid combat and that the IRGC, in particular, is “very corrupt.” Since 2010, over 70 percent of IRGC conscripts were already members of the Basij Resistance Force—a “volunteer paramilitary organization operating under” the IRGC—because the IRGC recognizes Basij training (reducing the total length of military service) and because Basij members are viewed as “more loyal” to the regime. Of the remaining 30 percent, some have postgraduate degrees with a “personal choice” of desk jobs due to their specialization. Finally, a “maximum 20 percent” are distributed to the IRGC “in some unprivileged and poor areas, due to the number of Basij members being insufficient.” Determining who falls into this category could be achieved through “filtering and determining [with] a special degree of scrutiny[…] on a case-by-case basis.” 

Celeste Kmiotek is a staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.

Lisandra Novo is a staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.

The post Iran targeted human rights sanctions series: Understanding ‘terrorist organization’ designations in relation to the IRGC appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion two years ago, one of the key catalysts driving Ukraine’s reform agenda has been the June 2022 move to grant the country EU candidate status. When announcing this decision, the European Commission set Ukraine seven key reform goals to meet before official EU membership negotiations could begin. Priorities included reforms related to the rule of law, particularly the reform of crucial judicial bodies such as the High Council of Justice (HCJ) and the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ).

While significant progress has been made toward implementing these reforms, major challenges persist. For example, although new procedures have been introduced governing the selection of judges to the country’s Constitutional Court, there are still concerns regarding the appointment of politically compromised candidates. As Ukraine continues its judicial reform efforts, it is imperative to infuse these endeavors with renewed energy.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Looking ahead, a primary focus should be on reforming Ukraine’s Supreme Court, which plays a crucial role in the country’s judiciary. In spring 2023, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office uncovered evidence of a $2.7 million bribe involving the president of the Supreme Court. However, in the wake of this corruption scandal, three-quarters of Supreme Court judges appointed another judge as the new president of the court despite serious integrity concerns.

NGOs and members of the Ukrainian judiciary have proposed a two-step approach to Supreme Court reform featuring the vetting of sitting judges and implementation of a new selection process with the involvement of international experts. This format has been endorsed by the European Commission. Reforming the Supreme Court is widely recognized as an essential step toward strengthening the rule of law, combating corruption, and enhancing protection for investors.

Another reform priority is establishing the High Administrative Court (HACU), following the liquidation of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv (DACK) in December 2022. The DACK was widely accused of judicial misconduct. It wielded substantial power, overseeing cases involving municipal authorities and central executive bodies in the Ukrainian capital, but had become tainted by successive corruption scandals. To safeguard the integrity of HACU judges and prevent future allegations of corruption, it is vital to implement a selection process with the meaningful involvement of independent international experts, similar to the successful model used to establish the High Anti-Corruption Court.

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Reform of Ukraine’s legal education system is also indispensable for the success of the country’s judicial reforms. The judicial system currently suffers from a significant shortage of personnel, underscoring the need for a robust legal education system. Detrimental practices include the training of lawyers by traditional universities and law enforcement institutions. These institutions educate one-third of all legal professionals and receive about half of state funding allocated for legal education. However, rather than promoting critical thinking, students often encounter a curriculum and environment that stresses obedience.

Critics argue that this approach fails to instill the necessary professional skills. Additionally, graduates from law enforcement academies typically exhibit lower levels of specialist knowledge compared to university graduates. The EU highlighted its concerns regarding legal education in the Ukraine Accession Report 2023, stressing the necessity of addressing this issue by separating the training of lawyers in universities and law enforcement academies. G7 countries have also raised this issue.

Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian aggression depends heavily on continued international support. Kyiv’s partners therefore have considerable leverage when it comes to maintaining the country’s reform momentum. With this in mind, it is crucial for Ukraine’s international allies to link continued financial assistance with the implementation of reforms. The effectiveness of this approach can be seen in the progress made between summer 2022 and late 2023 on the reform goals identified by the EU.

The EU has already outlined its additional reform recommendations. It would also be helpful to establish concrete reform requirements from G7 countries and connect these directly to aid. By linking financial support to specific reform targets, Ukraine’s international allies can make sure critical reforms are implemented and the country continues to move in the right direction. The need to maintain Ukraine’s reform momentum is another strong argument in favor of confirming further direct US budget support as part of future aid. This will provide vital leverage while bolstering Ukraine’s resilience and encouraging the authorities in Kyiv to implement the necessary reforms.

The road ahead is extremely challenging, but Ukraine can still emerge as a regional beacon of democracy, Euro-Atlantic security, and the rule of law. This will require the unwavering support of the country’s Western partners. To achieve this goal, future aid should be tied to a steadfast Ukrainian commitment to advance reforms without concessions. This can help shape the kind of future Ukrainians are currently fighting for.

Mykhailo Zhernakov is chair of the board of the DEJURE Foundation. Nestor Barchuk is international relations manager of the DEJURE Foundation.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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One challenge has remained constant for Haiti, however: It fades from attention just as quickly as it makes headlines. That must be stopped. The historical lack of commitment to putting Haiti on a different political and economic path—combined with the country being battered by natural disasters, in addition to the man-made ones—has meant that carving out a different trajectory for Haitians has eluded both local and international leaders. What is needed is a long-term approach, in which Caribbean leaders are in the driver’s seat along with their Haitian counterparts, while the United States and Canada help to offset the costs given the grave implications of inaction.

A window of opportunity

When Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced on March 12 that he will resign after a transitional presidential council is created, it opened a window of opportunity for a country battling multiple crises at once. Since Henry assumed power in 2021, following his predecessor’s assassination, Haiti has been taken hostage by fervent gang violence and political instability, plunging the country into a humanitarian crisis. With not enough food or medicine entering the country, Haitians suffer from hunger and disease.

Haiti’s problems are also no longer confined to its own borders. Haitians are emigrating in droves, and gangs that now control the island traffic firearms and drugs in the wider region. With the likelihood of further instability, Haiti’s neighbors must prepare for the repercussions of a failed state, where lawlessness will only invite other transnational criminal organizations to take advantage of the moment.

But amid this bleak outlook, the negotiated transitional presidential council gives a glimmer of hope that Haiti might see some form of stability in the coming years. Bringing the council and other potential solutions to fruition will require a sustained and collective effort from all parties across the hemisphere, including Haitian stakeholders.

The role of Caribbean countries

Caribbean leadership will be essential for coordinating regional and international support to Haiti. Central to this coordination should be the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a bloc of fourteen independent member states that already has offered an open, two-way channel of communication between regional countries and Haitian stakeholders.

For example, just prior to his trip to Nairobi earlier this month to discuss the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission, the Haitian prime minister was in Guyana for CARICOM’s annual heads of government meeting. It was also the current chair of CARICOM, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, who led a leaders’ delegation to Jamaica that, alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, announced the plan for a transitional presidential council. These meetings have held a spotlight on Haiti’s crisis, keeping it top of mind for both the region and foreign officials who engage with the Caribbean. In addition, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, and several other Caribbean countries have been essential in global coordination efforts on Haiti over the past few years.

But for Caribbean countries to continue leading on Haiti in a sustained way, they need resources. Engaging in frequent diplomatic discussions and devoting security personnel are cost-intensive efforts. The region has limited local capacity within its foreign ministries, and tight budgets make frequent travel difficult. Leaders also are grappling with a variety of pressing issues, including climate change, food and energy insecurity, and rising inflation.

The role of the United States and Canada

The United States and Canada must work in tandem with the Caribbean to provide the resources needed to play an active and continued role in Haiti’s future. This includes direct aid to Haiti to help restore law and order and provide the necessary humanitarian resources the country so desperately needs. Toward that end, the United States Agency for International Development on March 15 announced twenty-five million dollars in humanitarian aid, on top of the thirty-three million dollars announced by Blinken four days earlier, further solidifying the United States’ role as Haiti’s largest humanitarian donor. On February 22, Canada announced nearly ninety-one million dollars to support Haiti.

In addition to direct support, the United States and Canada should also help to offset the cost to Caribbean countries of remaining engaged on Haiti, which is essential for the country’s future.

First, traveling to Haiti or to other international convenings is costly, particularly when unplanned. Air connectivity between Caribbean islands is limited, and most governments do not have access to private aircraft. The United States or Canada can find ways to offset these costs, making it easier for leaders to attend convenings. Short-notice meetings, such as the ministerial meeting on the margins of the Group of Twenty (G20) foreign ministers’ meeting in late February or the Jamaica meeting this past week, should be led by CARICOM governments. But the cost of participation will constrain already tight budgets.

Second, deployment of security personnel is costly, particularly over a sustained period. The United States and Canada should consider alleviating the burden of these costs, which would allow leaders to justify to their national budgets and domestic populations why they should send or increase the police and defense personnel deployed to Haiti. Countries such as Jamaica and The Bahamas have committed personnel, but both countries have their own domestic security challenges to consider, meaning sending officers abroad is unlikely to win much support at home over a longer period. 

Finally, attention on Haiti cannot distract from the numerous challenges facing the rest of the region. Over the past few years, the United States and Canada have both launched new flagship Caribbean policies, and high-level diplomatic engagements have started to move the needle on important issues, including climate change and energy security. If Caribbean nations are expected to lead, then they need assurances that their priorities will not be forgotten.

What’s clear is that there is no quick fix to Haiti’s crisis, nor is there one solution over a longer period that will stabilize the country. Haiti’s challenges are complex and deeply rooted in its postcolonial history. Any cadre of solutions will only come after frequent and consistent diplomacy and action to negotiate a way forward for Haiti. All of this requires the resources to stand up the needed attention and engagement Haiti deserves.

Jason Marczak is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. 

Wazim Mowla is associate director and fellow of the Caribbean Initiative at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

The post Addressing Haiti’s turmoil starts with its Caribbean neighbors—and US and Canadian support appeared first on Atlantic Council.

• The freedom and FDI nexus
• The synergy of freedom and FDI: Georgia’s success story
• Policy recommendations: Where to start?
• Conclusion

The attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) is a pivotal objective for countries seeking to bolster their economic development and global competitiveness. Several critical factors influence a nation’s ability to draw in FDI, and among these, economic freedom, institutions, and the rule of law stand out as essential determinants. This dynamic interplay between political and economic factors not only impacts a country’s FDI inflows but also shapes its overall economic landscape and prospects for long-term prosperity.

The influence of institutional characteristics on FDI is a topic of paramount importance in the realm of international economics and global business. Institutions, which encompass a country’s legal, regulatory, and governance frameworks, significantly impact the decisions of multinational corporations when considering investment destinations. These institutional characteristics serve as a critical lens through which investors assess the risks and opportunities associated with a particular host country.

Democracy, as a system of governance characterized by political freedoms, accountability, and the rule of law, has often been associated with greater transparency and stability. Similarly, economic freedom, gauged by factors such as regulatory efficiency, property rights, and trade openness, creates an environment conducive to business activity. Institutions, including the quality of government institutions and their effectiveness in safeguarding property rights and enforcing contracts, play a pivotal role in shaping investor confidence. Moreover, the rule of law provides a foundation of legal certainty, which is essential for businesses operating within a country’s borders.

This report delves into the multifaceted relationship between freedom and FDI attraction using the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes. By examining the mechanisms through which institutions influence investment decisions, we seek to shed light on the nuanced dynamics that determine a country’s attractiveness to foreign investors. Furthermore, we will explore the strategies that countries employ to improve their institutional frameworks, thereby enhancing their prospects for increased FDI inflows and sustainable economic growth. In doing so, we aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of the pivotal role that institutions play in shaping the global landscape of foreign direct investment. The objective is to offer recommendations and insights that can assist in achieving this overarching goal.

To begin, this paper will delve into the significance of strengthening democracy and various facets of freedom, drawing upon the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes and other pertinent evidence. This section will underscore why bolstering these elements is not only beneficial but also essential for the enhancement of FDI. In the second section, we highlight the Georgian case study to illustrate the tangible benefits of freedom in fostering an environment conducive to FDI. The final section of this report will provide actionable recommendations focusing on the practical integration of democracy and freedom-strengthening components into initiatives aimed at addressing fragility, thereby fostering a more stable and prosperous global landscape for FDI.

The freedom and FDI nexus

The Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index plays a pivotal role in assessing the intricate interplay between a nation’s freedom environment and its attractiveness to foreign investors, particularly in the realm of FDI. This comprehensive tool evaluates a country’s overall level of freedom across economic, political, and legal dimensions. The literature on FDI already has extensively discussed the impact of a nation’s institutional quality on FDI inflows.¹ We aim to use the index data to further investigate this relationship.

Countries classified as “free” according to the Freedom Index exhibit the most robust FDI per capita, boasting an average of $2,200 of  FDI investment per person in 2022. This remarkable FDI per capita suggests a strong correlation between economic freedom, political stability, and foreign investment, contributing to these nations’ thriving economies and prosperity. (see Figure 1). “Free” economies significantly outperform “mostly free” economies in terms of FDI per capita. “Mostly free” countries may have various factors, such as some restrictions on economic activities or less developed legal and political institutions, which can result in a lower level of FDI per capita. “Mostly unfree” and “unfree” countries lag far behind in terms of FDI. Unfree economies often struggle with issues such as political instability, weak property rights, and high levels of corruption. These factors erode investor confidence and hinder the flow of foreign capital. As a result, these nations find themselves at a significant disadvantage when it comes to FDI.

This correlation remains if we look at FDI levels as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) (see Figure 1, gray line).

Europe, notably Western Europe, emerges as the preeminent region characterized by the highest degree of freedom (see Figure 2). Impressively, out of the forty-five countries categorized as “free,” thirty belong to Europe. Remarkably, the top ten nations in this category are all located within the confines of this continent. When we examine the relationship between freedom and FDI, we find that countries with high levels of freedom are associated with substantial FDI inflows. Investors are drawn to these nations due to their strong legal frameworks, well-defined property rights, and transparent governance structures, which provide a stable and welcoming environment for foreign capital.

In North America, both nations are in the “free” category: the United States and Canada. Neighboring Mexico is classified as “mostly free” and highly attractive to foreign investors, who value the stable and business-friendly climate it offers. The East Asia and the Pacific region also plays a prominent role in the context of FDI. Six out of the eighteen economies in this region, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore, fall into the “free” category. These nations have not only embraced economic and political freedom but also attracted substantial FDI, leading to economic growth and prosperity. While most regions have their share of mostly free and mostly unfree countries, Europe continues to dominate the “free” category with thirty out of a total of forty-three countries. It serves as a prime example of how a commitment to freedom, both economically and politically, can be a driving force behind attracting FDI and fostering economic development.

Economic development also plays a key role in terms of FDI attraction (see Figure 3). Low-income countries are mostly categorized as “unfree” and are less likely to attract FDI. Macroeconomic factors—trade freedom, quality of infrastructure, market size, and human capital, for instance—positively impact FDI.² These elements create an attractive investment landscape for foreign investors seeking opportunities with strong domestic demand. Economic freedom serves as a proxy for market size and return on investment in developing economies, making it an appealing factor for FDI.³ Furthermore, the level of openness and domestic market size plays a role in FDI attraction, with trade freedom being statistically significant in certain regions.⁴ Moreover, some literature has highlighted that business transparency and an open economy are vital aspects that promote FDI inflows.⁵ These mechanisms demonstrate the intricate interplay between macroeconomic, governance, and trade-related factors in shaping the FDI landscape within different regions.

Another critical aspect of a nation’s freedom environment is the legal framework, which includes elements like the rule of law and property rights. A well-functioning rule of law serves as a bulwark for private investments, encouraging entrepreneurial endeavors.⁶ It significantly reduces transaction costs and mitigates the risks and uncertainties associated with future profitability. Conversely, when a government fails to establish and protect a robust legal system and safeguard property rights, as assessed by this subindex, it naturally dampens the enthusiasm of multinational enterprises (MNEs) for engaging in FDI within that particular host environment. In such cases, the prospects of MNEs participating in productive and entrepreneurial ventures are substantially diminished.⁷

Any restrictions imposed on international trade can result in significant operational expenses for companies.⁸ For MNEs to achieve their economic goals, the free flow of goods and services within and between primary, intermediate, and final markets is considered a vital necessity, as evaluated by the Freedom index. Interference with international trade through measures like tariffs, nontariff barriers, and other trade-related administrative obstacles would impede the operations of foreign branches and affiliates of MNEs in accessing and capitalizing on global networks, ultimately hampering their productive endeavors.⁹

In addition, the limitations placed on the international movement of capital and labor are both critical factors influencing FDI. These limitations increase transaction costs for MNEs, consequently reducing the inflow of FDI.¹⁰ Restrictive regulations in business, labor, and credit markets deter FDI. Such regulations result in additional production and transaction costs, placing significant burdens on private investment and the operations of companies, including the foreign subsidiaries of MNEs. These regulations often serve as substantial barriers to entry, leading to reduced FDI inflows.¹¹

Finally, political freedom plays a pivotal role in fostering democratic governance, which empowers citizens to participate in the decision-making processes of their nation. This framework has been shown to positively influence FDI inflows. Empirical studies have indicated the significance of political freedom in attracting foreign investment.¹² Modifications in governmental policies or political structures hold the potential to impact the investment strategies of multinational corporations. This, in turn, affects the risk premium considered in investment projects and, consequently, the decision-making process concerning the choice of location, all of which are influenced by political risk.

This suggests that a democratic and politically free system encourages foreign investors to engage with a nation.¹³ Furthermore, research emphasizes the long-lasting influence of political freedom on a country’s capacity to attract FDI.¹⁴ In light of this evidence, it becomes evident that political freedom is not only a fundamental aspect of democratic governance but also a crucial determinant of a country’s capacity to attract FDI.

The synergy of freedom and FDI: Georgia’s success story

Georgia, located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, has experienced a remarkable transformation in recent years, becoming a magnet for FDI. Georgia is particularly relevant when studying the effect of freedom and prosperity since the country has switched from “mostly unfree” in 1995 to “free” in 2018 (see Table 1). The nation has undergone sweeping economic reforms since gaining independence in 1991, resulting in a relatively well-functioning and stable market economy.

Underpinning this transformation is Georgia’s commitment to political and economic freedom. The government initiated a series of reforms aimed at creating an open and competitive business environment. This included streamlining bureaucratic procedures, simplifying tax systems, and enhancing property rights, all of which significantly reduced the barriers to entry for businesses. Consequently, Georgia earned a reputation as one of the easiest places to start and conduct business, attracting a diverse range of investors from across the globe.

Over the period spanning from 2004 to 2019, Georgia’s average economic growth rate surpassed 5%, a testament to the efficacy of its comprehensive reforms. Simultaneously, the nation garnered accolades in global indices measuring freedom and ease of doing business. Notably, in the 2020 World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index, Georgia ranked seventh, underscoring its commitment to creating a business-friendly environment. This success can be attributed to the government’s unwavering focus on fiscal and monetary policies aimed at maintaining low deficits, controlling inflation, and sustaining a floating exchange rate (i.e., unencumbered by government controls or limits).

Despite these achievements, it is important to acknowledge that Georgia’s economic trajectory has not been without external influences. Regional developments, such as sanctions on Russia, have exerted an impact on the country’s economic landscape. Additionally, the strength of the US dollar and other global factors have also played a role in shaping Georgia’s economic circumstances. These external forces have necessitated adaptability and resilience on Georgia’s part as it continues to progress on its path to economic prosperity.

Georgia embarked on a fresh chapter under a new government, following the peaceful Rose Revolution in 2003 (see Figure 4). Georgia’s economy began to experience growth, driven by the implementation of political and economic stabilization initiatives, but it was  significant policy shifts and reforms that accelerated its journey toward economic freedom. In 2004, the nation cut rates for existing taxes, implementing a flat 20 percent income tax and a 15 percent corporate profit tax, creating a favorable fiscal environment for businesses. This tax structure significantly reduced the financial burden on investors, promoting economic growth and entrepreneurship. Georgia introduced the “single window” system for business registration in 2005. This groundbreaking reform simplified bureaucratic procedures, enabling entrepreneurs to complete company registration and obtain necessary licenses within a few hours, making it one of the easiest places to start and conduct business. From the late 2000s through the early 2010s, Georgia embarked on a comprehensive land registry reform, significantly bolstering property rights protection. This reform secured land transactions and simplified property ownership, enhancing investor confidence. The commitment to free trade agreements, which started in the mid-2000s and continues to this day, has been emblematic of Georgia’s dedication to economic freedom. These agreements expanded market access for Georgian businesses, fostering import and export activities, and promoting international trade. The pursuit of anti-corruption measures, exemplified by the zero-tolerance policy, has been active since the early 2000s. This approach brought about heightened transparency and accountability in the public sector, further solidifying Georgia’s reputation as an attractive investment destination.

Georgia’s progression toward political freedom commenced in the early 2000s with significant developments in establishing democratic governance and safeguarding civil liberties. Here, too, the Rose Revolution marked a turning point as Georgia embraced democratic governance, ensuring political stability through regular elections, a multiparty system, and the peaceful transition of power. Over the years, Georgia made substantial progress in safeguarding civil liberties, particularly freedom of speech, media, and assembly. This commitment to civil liberties fostered a vibrant and open society where citizens could freely express their views and engage in public discourse. The establishment of strong and independent political institutions, which started in the early 2000s, solidified the rule of law and prevented political interference. The judiciary and law enforcement agencies operated without undue political influence. The zero-tolerance policy against corruption, initiated in the early 2000s, brought about increased transparency and accountability in the public sector, reinforcing political freedom by instilling trust and credibility in the government’s functioning.

Legal freedom in Georgia has been shaped by a transparent and efficient legal system that upholds the rule of law, protects property rights, and ensures access to justice for its citizens. Georgia’s commitment to a transparent legal system gained momentum in the early 2000s, ensuring the fair and equitable treatment of individuals and businesses. Transparency became essential in upholding the rule of law and ensuring that legal processes were just and impartial. Property rights protection received a significant boost through the comprehensive land registry reform initiated in the mid-2000s, continuing into the early 2010s. This reform enhanced the security of land transactions and simplified property ownership, instilling investor confidence. Efficient dispute resolution mechanisms were integrated into Georgia’s legal system, ensuring the timely and fair resolution of legal conflicts. These mechanisms were developed over the years, ensuring that individuals and businesses had access to justice when disputes arose. Furthermore, Georgia’s legal system was designed to enable citizens to seek legal remedies when their rights were violated. This commitment, developed over the years, upheld the rule of law, ensuring that legal processes were just and impartial, and strengthened the overall legal freedom in Georgia.

Hence, over the past two decades, Georgia’s resolute commitment to enhancing economic and political freedom has significantly impacted the evolution of FDI in the country (see Figure 4). The early wave of economic reforms and property rights protection in the 2000s created a favorable environment for FDI, with investments pouring into sectors like real estate and infrastructure. The political watershed moment of the Rose Revolution in 2003 further bolstered Georgia’s reputation as a destination for FDI, as it ushered in a more open and transparent political landscape. Georgia’s consistent improvement in economic freedom rankings has been accompanied by increased FDI, as investors seek the stability and business-friendly climate offered by the country. Its relative political stability, especially in comparison to neighboring nations, has also made it an attractive prospect for FDI. Although regional conflicts, such as the Russo-Georgian War in 2008, briefly disrupted FDI flows, Georgia’s resilience and commitment to freedom have contributed to a steady recovery. Moreover, the country’s strategic location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, combined with its free trade agreements, has positioned it as an appealing destination for FDI, particularly in logistics and trade-related sectors. Recent trends indicate a growing influx of FDI, with a focus on tourism, manufacturing, and services, driven by streamlined regulations and reduced bureaucracy, solidifying Georgia’s status as a burgeoning hub for foreign investment. However, it is of prime importance to mention that the COVID-19 crisis has strongly affected FDI, which has not yet regained earlier levels.

Policy recommendations: Where to start?

The road map for policymakers seeking to enhance a country’s attractiveness for FDI involves multiple interconnected factors. In order to efficiently build this section, we estimate the effect of each subindex and indicator of the Freedom Index on FDI as a percentage of GDP (see Annex in the PDF version). A simplified version of the results is displayed in Table 2. The higher the number of “+”, the greater correlation between the variable of interest and FDI. In line with our argument, we first find that a higher freedom score is strongly associated with a higher level of FDI. This positive correlation underscores the pivotal role that a comprehensive commitment to freedom plays in creating an environment conducive to international capital inflow.

Economic freedom stands as a cornerstone in fostering FDI by providing an environment conducive to business growth and innovation. Nations that prioritize economic freedom often witness increased FDI due to the enhanced attractiveness of their business landscapes. For instance, countries like Singapore, renowned for its economic freedoms, have strategically positioned themselves as magnets for foreign investment. Singapore’s commitment to free-market principles, low trade barriers, and efficient regulatory frameworks has not only propelled its own economic growth but has also made it an enticing hub for international investors. Similarly, Ireland’s implementation of low corporate tax rates and favorable business policies has led to a surge in FDI, with multinational corporations establishing their European headquarters in the country. The positive correlation between economic freedom and FDI highlights the importance of embracing policies that encourage entrepreneurship, free markets, and minimal government intervention to attract substantial foreign investments.

In particular, our estimations show that property rights play a pivotal role in shaping the landscape for FDI, serving as a critical factor that influences investor confidence and security. Nations with robust protection of property rights are often more successful in attracting FDI, as investors seek assurance that their assets and investments will be safeguarded against arbitrary expropriation or infringement. Estonia’s post-Soviet era transformation, marked by a commitment to the rule of law and property rights, exemplifies this correlation. The establishment of a judicial system ensuring fair dispute resolution and robust property rights protection has positioned Estonia as a key destination for foreign investment in the Baltic region. Additionally, countries with clear and well-enforced property rights frameworks, such as Singapore, have successfully attracted FDI by assuring investors that their intellectual and tangible assets are secure. The link between property rights and FDI underscores the significance of legal frameworks that prioritize and protect the rights of individuals and businesses, fostering an environment conducive to international investment.

While political freedom is an important aspect of a conducive investment environment, its correlation with FDI is not very strong due to several reasons. First, investors, especially multinational corporations, often prioritize economic factors and market conditions over political considerations. Economic freedom, ease of doing business, and market potential tend to have a more direct impact on investment decisions. Moreover, political freedom is a multifaceted concept that includes components like civil liberties, political rights, and legislative constraints on the executive. The presence of political freedom doesn’t necessarily guarantee a stable and predictable business environment. Investors may be cautious if there is a history of political instability, frequent changes in government, or uncertainties related to policy continuity. Additionally, some authoritarian regimes with limited political freedom have managed to attract significant FDI by offering economic incentives, stable regulatory environments, and infrastructure development. China is a notable example where the government’s control is high, but its economic policies and massive infrastructure projects have made it an attractive destination for foreign investors.

In contrast, the legal subindex presents the strongest positive association with FDI. It suggests the necessity to strengthen the legal and regulatory framework. This entails creating a judicial system that assures fair dispute resolution and robust protection of property rights. Transparency and predictability in legal proceedings are key, as they instill confidence in foreign investors who need to be certain their investments are secure and enforceable. Estonia  adopted a model of democracy, political stability, and the rule of law in its post-Soviet era. Alongside its commitment to transparency and accountability, these reforms positioned Estonia as a magnet for foreign investment in the Baltic region. Estonia also streamlined administrative procedures and one-stop shop mechanisms for investors, further enhancing the ease of doing business. This practical approach has been integral to its success in attracting FDI.

Security, as an indicator within the legal subindex, emerges as one of the most determinant factors influencing FDI. Investors prioritize nations with high levels of security to safeguard their investments against various risks, including political instability, civil unrest, and threats to property. A secure environment ensures the protection of businesses, employees, and assets, fostering a sense of confidence among investors, as Estonia has experienced. Singapore, which also is renowned for economic freedoms, has invested significantly in maintaining high levels of security, contributing to its appeal as a stable and secure destination for foreign investment. Similarly, Estonia serves as a compelling example of how a strong rule of law reinforces foreign direct investment. Following its post-Soviet era, Estonia undertook comprehensive legal reforms, establishing a judicial system that prioritizes fair dispute resolution and robust protection of property rights. This commitment to transparency and accountability has positioned Estonia as a magnet for foreign investment in the Baltic region. Conversely, nations facing challenges in legal freedom and security often experience difficulties in attracting foreign investment. Countries with weak legal systems, rampant corruption, and inadequate security measures may struggle to instill confidence in investors. In such cases, the lack of legal protection and security becomes a deterrent, hindering the inflow of foreign capital and impeding economic growth.

By taking these political recommendations into account, governments create an environment that not only attracts foreign investment but also promotes political stability, transparency, and accountability. This fosters a win-win situation where foreign investors can thrive, and host countries can reap the economic benefits of increased FDI.

Conclusion

Freedom—political, legal, and economic—is a crucial factor in attracting FDI and fostering economic growth. As we’ve seen, regions with higher levels of freedom tend to receive more FDI, driven by strong legal frameworks, well-defined property rights, and transparent governance structures. Freedom, as demonstrated by the data and the example of Georgia, plays a vital role in shaping the global landscape of FDI. Encouraging countries to prioritize and embrace freedom can be a powerful catalyst for economic development and prosperity on a global scale.

About the authors

Jérémie Bertrand, Professor of Finance and Deputy Academic Director – Master PGE, IÉSEG School of Management, France

Joseph Lemoine is a director at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center

Dan Negrea is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center

Caroline Perrin, Research consultant, World Bank, and Postdoctoral Researcher, Utrecht University, Netherlands

Report Jan 11, 2024

False promises: The authoritarian development models of China and Russia

By Joseph Lemoine, Dan Negrea, Patrick Quirk, Lauren Van Metre

Are authoritarian regimes more successful than free countries in offering prosperity to their people? The answer is decidedly no, yet China and Russia advertise the “benefits” and “promise” of their authoritarian development model. This paper showcases why and how the authoritarian development model is inferior to that of free societies.

China Democratic Transitions

Feb 26, 2024

2024 Atlas: Freedom and prosperity around the world

The contemporary geopolitical landscape is marked by a series of crises—economic downturns, geopolitical tensions, and global pandemics—that have reshaped the role of governments worldwide. This comprehensive volume, featuring insights from twenty leading economists and diplomats, serves as a roadmap for navigating the complexities of contemporary governance. 

Online Event Tue, February 27, 2024 • 9:30 am ET

2024 Annual Research Conference

Scholars and policymakers from around the world present their research and analysis on international development and the relationship between freedom and prosperity. 

Freedom and Prosperity

The Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries and to explore the nature of the relationship between freedom and prosperity in both developing and developed nations.

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The post Attracting foreign direct investments appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Online Event Thu, March 7, 2024 • 2:00 pm ET

Courage to seek justice: Addressing the unjust political imprisonment of women

The Atlantic Council and the Department of State’s Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues co-host a discussion with the 2024 International Women of Courage award recipients.

Belarus Eastern Europe Europe & Eurasia Political Reform

The unjust imprisonment of women affects far more than those detained and their families, warned Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US representative to the United Nations.

“It’s devastating for entire communities,” she explained. “It hollows out civil society. It creates a culture: a culture of fear. It squashes hopes for a democratic future.”

Thomas-Greenfield spoke at an event last week cohosted by the Atlantic Council and the US Secretary of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues designed to amplify the voices of women who have survived unjust imprisonment or other human-rights abuses.

“We all must do more to familiarize ourselves with the stories and with the facts regarding political prisoners, including women political prisoners,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, ambassador-at-large at the Office of Global Women’s Issues. “We must help give voice to those who remain unjustly behind bars and those whose voices are stifled.”

The event, moderated by Atlantic Council Executive Vice President Jenna Ben-Yehuda, gathered three recipients of the US State Department’s 2024 International Women of Courage Award to share their experiences and highlight the need for international support. Below are their stories.

Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello: Why it is now “very difficult” for prisoners

• Roque, a Cuban political dissident and human-rights activist, talked about her experiences working with political prisoners and their families. “I cannot even distinguish which is worse, being imprisoned or being a relative of a prisoner,” she said.
• Speaking from Cuba—having been blocked from traveling to the United States by the Cuban government since 2018—she added that the economic crisis there, which has led to severe shortages of food and other supplies, has made the situation “very difficult” for prisoners.
• Roque herself has spent decades protesting against the Cuban government and was imprisoned twice. She now provides support to political prisoners. “I believe that being with them, even in thought, is something that will help them,” she said.

Fariba Balouch: “Pay attention” to minority groups and hold Iran’s regime responsible

• Balouch, a London-based Iranian human-rights activist, recounted how—when she lived in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province—she had escaped an abusive marriage. She said she was “afraid to speak up about that” at the time, but then realized that, as women, “we have to raise that awareness.”
• Balouch said that she felt it was her “duty” and “responsibility” to speak up for women in Sistan and Baluchestan Province; she also said that she had to make a “difficult choice” between being a mother and lifting the voices of marginalized people around her. “I decided to go with the people’s voice,” she said.
• Balouch explained that in Iran, being a woman political prisoner comes with a lot of harassment. But “if you’re representing an ethnic minority,” she said, “that even doubles your problems and challenges.” As for being an activist: “That would make it even triple.”
• She added that even once Baloch women leave Iran, they—and their families—continue to face similar threats and other pressures. She explained that she has received threats and that her son and her brother are currently imprisoned in Iran—her son was detained after having traveled to visit Balouch in the United Kingdom.
• Balouch called upon the international community to support women activists and their families and to “pay attention” to minority communities “so the Islamic Republic of Iran knows that it has a responsibility” to ensure that no Baloch is killed in prison.

Volha Harbunova: This is a “global crisis”

• Volha Harbunova, a Belarusian human rights defender, recounted how she fled Belarus after being released from prison and was later appointed the representative for social issues in the Belarusian United Transitional Cabinet, the government-in-exile led by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. She called upon Belarusians who have fled and live outside of the country to keep up communication with people inside the country who face repression. The Lukashenka regime “doesn’t want [us] to have that communication,” she said. “They want to isolate us. They want to stop that solidarity.”
• Harbunova argued that violence against women is a “global crisis,” which she said has recently been made clear by the rape and killing of a Belarusian refugee in Poland.
• Harbunova recalled having faced psychological torture and violence after being imprisoned by the Lukashenka regime. She also noted that political prisoners are restricted from accessing medical care, food, and hygienic products—and that they are not allowed to communicate with family or their attorneys. LGBTQI+ people in prison, she added, often face more severe sexual violence. “The issue of political prisoners is a humanitarian issue; it’s a matter of life and death,” Harbunova said. “We really need help in securing the release of those prisoners.”

Katherine Walla is an associate director on the editorial team at the Atlantic Council. 

Watch the full event

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1. What kind of risks does TikTok pose to US national security?

Chinese company ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses two specific risks to US national security. One has to do with concerns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could use its influence over the Chinese owners to use TikTok’s algorithm for propaganda purposes. Addressing this security concern is tricky due to legal protections for freedom of expression. The other risk, and the one addressed through the current House legislation, has to do with the ability of the CCP to use Chinese ownership of TikTok to access the massive amount of data that the app collects on its users. This could include data on everything from viewing tastes, to real-time location, to information stored on users’ phones outside of the app, including contact lists and keystrokes that can reveal, for example, passwords and bank activity.

—Sarah Bauerle Danzman is a resident senior fellow with the Economic Statecraft Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

This debate is not over free speech or access to social media: The question is fundamentally one of whether the United States can or should force a divestment of a social media company from a parent company (in this case ByteDance) if the company can be compelled to act under the direction of the CCP. We have to ask: Does the CCP have the intent or ability to compel data to serve its interests? There is an obvious answer here. We know that China has already collected massive amounts of sensitive data from Americans through efforts such as the Office of Personnel Management hack in 2015. Recent unclassified reports, including from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, show the skill and intent of China to use personal data for influence. And the CCP has the legal structure in place to compel companies such as ByteDance to comply and cooperate with CCP requests.

—Meg Reiss is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

2. Are those risks unique to TikTok?

TikTok is not an unproblematic platform, and there are real and significant user risks that could pose dangers to safety and security, especially for certain populations. However, focusing on TikTok ignores broader vulnerabilities in the US information ecosystem that put Americans at risk. An outright ban of TikTok as currently proposed—particularly absent clearer standards for all platforms—would not meaningfully address these broader risks and would in fact potentially undermine US interests in a much more profound way.

As our recent report outlines in detail, a ban is unlikely to achieve the intended effect of meaningfully curbing China’s ability to gather sensitive data on Americans or to conduct influence operations that harm US interests. It also may contribute to a global curbing of the free flow of data that is essential to US tech firms’ ability to innovate and maintain a competitive edge.

—Kenton Thibaut is a senior resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Some have argued that TikTok, while on the aggressive end of the personal data collection spectrum, collects similar data to what other social media companies collect. However, the US government would counter with two points: First, TikTok has a history of skirting data privacy rules, such as those limiting data collection on children and those that prevent the collection of phone-specific identifiers called MAC numbers, and therefore the company cannot be trusted to handle sensitive personal data in accordance with the law. And second, unlike other popular apps, TikTok is ultimately beholden to Chinese regulations. This includes the 2017 Chinese National Intelligence Law that requires Chinese companies to hand over a broad range of information to the Chinese government if asked. Because China’s legal system is far more opaque than the United States’, it is unclear if the US government or its citizens would even know if the Chinese government ever asked for this data from TikTok. While TikTok’s management has denied supplying the Chinese government with such data, insider reports have uncovered Chinese employees gaining access to US user data. In other words, the US government has little reason to trust that ByteDance is keeping US user data safe from the CCP.

—Sarah Bauerle Danzman

3. What does the House bill actually do?

There are two important, related bills. The one that passed the House today is the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which forces divestment. It is not an outright ban, and it is intended to address the real risk of ByteDance—thus TikTok—falling under the jurisdiction of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which compels Chinese companies to cooperate with the CCP’s requests. However, divestment doesn’t completely solve for the additional potential risks of the CCP using TikTok in a unique or systemic way for data collection, algorithmic tampering (e.g. what topics surface or don’t surface to users), or information operations (e.g. an influence campaign unique to TikTok as opposed to on other platforms as well). Second, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act, which cleared a House committee last week, more directly addresses a broader risk of blocking the Chinese government’s access to the type of data that TikTok and many other social media platforms collect on the open market. The former without the latter is an incomplete approach to protecting Americans’ data from the CCP—and even the two combined falls short of a federal data privacy standard.

—Graham Brookie is vice president and senior director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab.

There is no question China seeks to influence the American public and harvests large amounts of data on American citizens. As our recent report illuminates however, the Chinese state’s path to these goals depends very little on TikTok.

Today’s actions in the House underscore the disjointed nature of the US approach to governing technology. Rather than focus on TikTok specifically, it would be both legally and geopolitically wiser to pass legislation that sets standards for everyone, and not just one company. That could mean setting standards for what actions or behavior by any social media company would be unacceptable (for example on the use of algorithms or collection and selling of data). Or Congress could focus on prohibiting companies that are owned by states proven to have conducted hostile actions toward US digital infrastructure to operate in the United States. That would certainly include TikTok (and many other companies). This bill takes a halfway approach, both tying itself explicitly to TikTok owner ByteDance and hinting that it could apply to “other social media companies.”

—Rose Jackson is the director of the Democracy and Tech Initiative at the Digital Forensic Research Lab.

The recently passed House bill, if it were to become law, would create a pathway to force the divestment of Chinese ownership in TikTok or ban the app from app stores and web hosting sites. Unlike previous attempts by the Trump administration to ban the app outright or force a divestment through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act would not just affect TikTok. Instead, the legislation would create a process through which the US government could designate social media apps that are considered to be under the control of foreign adversaries as national security threats. Once identified as threats, the companies would have 180 days to divest from the foreign ownership or be subject to a ban.

—Sarah Bauerle Danzman

4. What would be some of the global ripple effects of a TikTok ban?

The United States has always opposed efforts by authoritarian nations seeking to build “great firewalls” around themselves. This model of “cyber sovereignty” sees the open, interoperable, and free internet as a threat, which is why countries like China already have a well-funded strategy to leverage global governance platforms to drive the development of a less open and more authoritarian-friendly version. A TikTok ban would ironically benefit authoritarian governments as they seek to center state-level action (over multi-stakeholder processes) in internet governance. TikTok should not lead the United States to abandon its longstanding commitment to the values of a free, open, secure, and interoperable internet.

A ban could generate more problems than it would solve. What the United States should consider instead is passing federal privacy laws and transparency standards that apply to all companies. This would be the single most impactful way to address broader system vulnerabilities, protect US values and commitments, and address the unique risks related to TikTok’s Chinese ownership, while avoiding the potential significant downsides of a ban. 

—Kenton Thibaut

5. What do you make of TikTok’s response, particularly in pushing its users to flood Capitol Hill with calls?

Members of Congress were rightfully alarmed by TikTok’s use of its platform to send push notifications encouraging users to call their representatives. However, Uber and Lyft used this exact same tactic in California when trying to defeat legislation that would have required it to provide benefits to its drivers. If we try to solve “TikTok” and not the broader issue TikTok is illuminating, we will keep coming back to these same issues over and over again. 

—Rose Jackson

6. How is China viewing this debate?

The CCP has a tendency to throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall in an attempt to make its arguments, in this case that the divestment of TikTok from its Chinese parent company ByteDance is unnecessary. When the CCP has justified the internment of Uyghurs, it has thrown out everything from defending its repression based on terrorist beliefs across the population to claiming that it was just helping with social integration and developing work programs. The CCP has already made claims that the divestment would cause investors to lose faith in the US market and that it shows a fundamental weakness and abuse of national security. Expect many different versions of these arguments and more. But all the anticipated pushback will be focused on diverting the public argument away from the fundamental concern: The Chinese government can, under law, force a Chinese company to share information. 

—Meg Reiss

The post Will the US crack down on TikTok? Six questions (and expert answers) about the bill in Congress. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

A report by the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center in partnership with the US Department of State. This readout was informed by multi-stakeholder dialogues focused on facilitating greater, constructive exchange among multi-sectoral thought leaders and government leaders as they work to implement Summit commitments.

Executive summary

The Democracy and Governance commitment at the Ninth Summit of the Americas marked an imperative platform for strengthening the region’s democratic values and institutions. As the experts deliberated how to incorporate those values into practice, they stressed the importance of good governance for the advancement of human rights,
anticorruption practices, sustainable development, and citizen inclusion. Partnering with regional stakeholders will be imperative for crucial issues like civic engagement, transparency, adherence to international order, and the rule of law, encouraging Latin American and Caribbean countries to continue to prioritize their work in democratic renewal.

Recommendations for advancing and institutionalizing democratic practices in the Americas:

Report

Nov 8, 2023

Future of the Cities Summit of the Americas

By Willow Fortunoff, Diego Area

The first-ever Cities Summit of the Americas created a new platform for mayors across the hemisphere to build partnerships with civil society organizations–particularly those focused on the region and/or local governance–private sector companies, and one another.

Civil Society Energy Markets & Governance

Summit of the Americas

Amid global uncertainties and new challenges, the ninth Summit of the Americas is a renewed opportunity to bring about hemispheric cooperation and consensus to reach regional prosperity and security.

Public Event Thu, March 17, 2022 • 12:00 pm ET

Road to the Summit: A green and equitable future for the Americas

A conversation to generate strategies for green and equitable economic growth across the Americas.

Americas Climate Change & Climate Action Economy & Business Inclusive Growth

Online Event Thu, January 27, 2022 • 2:00 pm ET

Road to the Summit. Responding to the next disaster: Building health and climate resilience in the Americas

A conversation to generate strategies for creating stronger hemispheric collaboration ahead of the ninth Summit of the Americas.

Americas Caribbean Climate Change & Climate Action Latin America

Online Event Fri, June 10, 2022 • 10:00 pm ET

The joint future of the Caribbean working with Latin America

A series of discussions featuring heads of state and government following the conclusion of the Summit of the Americas.

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Diego Area

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Crisis Management Democratic Transitions

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Wazim Mowla

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Caribbean China

The Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center broadens understanding of regional transformations and delivers constructive, results-oriented solutions to inform how the public and private sectors can advance hemispheric prosperity.

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The post The future of democracy in the Americas appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław “Radek” Sikorski, speaking yesterday at the Atlantic Council, appealed to US House Speaker Mike Johnson to “let democracy take its course” and bring to a vote the Senate’s bill that would bring more than sixty billion dollars in crucially needed military and financial aid to Ukraine.

“I’d like him to know that the whole world is watching what he would do,” said Sikorski. “And if this supplemental were not to pass and Ukraine were to suffer reversals on the battlefield, it will be his responsibility.”

Sikorski spoke with a clarity that cut through the sometimes mushy rhetoric of Washington that fails to connect the despotic dots that some US lawmakers ignore at our peril. Having grown up in a Poland under Soviet communist rule, Sikorski sees the battle as one against a new array of autocrats.

“The murderous invasion of Ukraine is aided and abetted by a crime family of dictators from Iran [and] North Korea,” Sikorski said, “but also lauded by, among others, those ruling Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, in turn, helps his fellow despots fuel chaos in the Middle East, Asia, and here on [the US] southern border. He welcomes Hamas in Moscow, and his propaganda supports those terrorists.”

He continued: “China helps Russia economically, and in turn benefits from cheap oil and gas that Putin is selling to fund his war machine. They all desire to destroy the stability of America and to create victory where it is not deserved.”

Read every word of his powerful speech, as it not only lays out the historic stakes; it also delivers the solution and explains why providing Ukraine financing now is a tremendous bargain for a US defense budget that has seldom spent so effectively.

Sikorski reported that the United States has contributed roughly five percent of its annual defense budget to security assistance for Ukraine, “and with that money, Ukraine has already managed to destroy Putin’s combat capacity by 50 percent—without any American troops firing a single shot. A truly stunning return on investment.”

According to Sikorski, most of that investment is spent in the United States: “Up to 90 percent goes directly to [creating] American jobs on American soil,” he cited, explaining that newly made equipment in the United States replaces stockpiles of older US weaponry being sent to Ukraine.

Most important is the vision Sikorski lays out for “the path to security in the twenty-first century,” where the combined scale of investment in security across the Atlantic “dwarfs” what Putin and other dictators can summon. He concedes Europe had been slow to spend sufficiently, but that it has turned a corner—and has responded to US criticism.

The bottom line from Sikorski:

“Whether we want it or not, Putin’s decision to start the biggest war in Europe since the defeat of Nazi Germany has already changed the course of history. It is up to us to decide if we want to shape that course ourselves, or let it be shaped by others—in Moscow, Tehran, or Beijing.”

Last weekend, Sikorski spoke on CNN with Fareed Zakaria on how, during his childhood in a small village in Poland, he learned from Voice of America about the benefits of freedom and the oppression of what he called his Soviet colony of Poland. Now, this Voice of Poland is reminding Americans of their global purpose and of why “helping Ukraine by defeating Putin is the right thing to do in the broadest sense of the word.”

“It is morally sound, strategically wise, militarily justified, and economically beneficial,” he said. “Now is the moment to act. Let’s get this done.”

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points Today newsletter, a column of quick-hit insights on a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

The post The ‘Voice of Poland’ appeals to Americans on Ukraine: ‘Now is the moment to act’ appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Table of contents

Evolution of freedom

International comparisons recognize that Europeans enjoy the highest quality of life in the world. European society benefits from great equality in income, excellent healthcare and basic education, good infrastructure, and eminent rule of law.¹ However, the past decade has presented an array of challenges to European Union (EU) nations. Europe’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 had only just returned to its 2008 level—before the eurozone crisis—and it has been losing market share in the global economy. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014; the 2015–16 migrant crisis; the UK’s secession from the EU; COVID-19; and Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine, the EU’s ensuing sanctions, and complete reorientation of its foreign policy toward helping Ukraine—by any historical standards, the past decade has been trying.

The EU is also the freest region of the world in the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index, 20 points above the global average throughout the period of analysis. The increase in aggregate freedom was sustained until 2014 but has stagnated in the past decade. The main reason is the changing priorities in the aftermath of the eurozone crisis, which diverted politicians’ attention towards reducing social vulnerabilities.² The ensuing decade brought several other challenges, starting in 2015–16 with a wave of migration from northern Africa that divided public opinion and engulfed the EU in heated debates about migration policy. These debates brought about political change in a number of European countries too, shifting the focus further from expanding freedoms and on to defining a narrower European identity. Just as this changing political landscape started to stabilize, the COVID-19 pandemic hit Europe hard, resulting in more demands for government participation in the economy and putting the emphasis on security rather than freedom. In sum, the past decade in Europe has been one of crisis abatement.

Crisis abatement has brought about new politics in Central Europe in particular, a region which was for a quarter century (1989–2014) at the forefront of increasing political freedom in Europe. The governments of Hungary and Poland, and to some degree Slovakia, have followed a path of what Viktor Orbán calls “illiberal democracy,” concentrating powers in the hands of few political leaders. This concentration has come at the expense of media freedom, judicial independence, and institutional development. The European Commission and other European institutions have responded with concerned actions to limit the loss of freedoms, with some success.

Economic freedom increased by more than 10 points until 2014, leveling off since then due to the various crises that emerged. However, there are some bright spots. Women’s economic freedom has increased continuously during the whole period, up 25 points. Investment freedom increased substantially during the period 2005–15, and has seen another upswing since as governments have tried to keep their economies competitive. This reflects the response of many EU countries to the pandemic, including significant subsidies to particular sectors of the economy, enlarging the role of the state, and crowding out the private sector. This effect continues to evolve, particularly in the energy sector where the war in Ukraine has given a jolt to Europe’s desire to be independent from Russian oil and gas.

The level of political freedom is very high in the EU, although “legislative constraints on the executive” receives a clearly lower score than the other three components of the political freedom subindex. All components of political freedom decrease slightly after 2016, coinciding with the reverberations from the migration crisis and the rise of populism in a number of European countries. The most prominent of these have been in Central Europe, where Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has been particularly outspoken on the need to curb political freedoms. The trend, however, runs deeper, with nationalist parties gaining popularity in Austria, Finland, Italy, Germany, and Sweden, among others. Europe is a more closed society now than it was thirty years ago.

From freedom to prosperity

Prosperity in the EU is around 17.6 points higher than the global average, and this gap has been stable since 1995. The trend is positive until 2019, but has stagnated since the pandemic struck. This is broadly consistent with the global pattern, suggesting that Europe is finding ways to maintain its edge in prosperity over its competitors.

The superior outlook on prosperity, coupled with geographic proximity, has made Europe a magnet for migrants from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The pandemic reduced this inflow, as have various country-level policies to prevent migrants from entering Europe. Still, 2022 saw a significant new wave of migration from Ukraine, reaching a total of 6 million refugees towards the end of the year. And a new wave of non-European migrants has posed challenges for Italy and Greece in 2023.

The effects of the eurozone crisis of 2008–10 and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–22 are evident in the income component data. Fortunately, financial assistance to vulnerable groups was quickly dispensed during both episodes, reducing social tensions. Europe’s social safety net expanded, increasing budget deficits but allowing the crises to pass with minimal losses in welfare. Reflective of these policies, inequality is relatively low compared to the global average.

Finally, the data show sustained improvements in health and education for the EU, probably driven by countries in Eastern Europe. These countries saw social supports deteriorating at the beginning of the post-communist transition period in the 1990s. Heavy government spending, assisted by EU funding since their accession in the 2000s, has reversed these losses and led to convergence in health and education indicators across the EU.³

The future ahead

The next decade of EU freedom and prosperity dynamics will be marked by the war in Ukraine. The EU has committed enormous financial resources, nearly €100 billion across 2022 and 2023, in supporting Ukraine’s fight against the aggressor. It has also imposed a dozen rounds of sectoral and economy-wide sanctions on Russia. These sanctions also have negative implications for some industries in Europe, which have traditionally relied on resources from Russia. The war, in other words, has a slowing effect on Europe’s economy.

Another major impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine is that it has forced the EU to rethink the Green Deal, which the European Commission has championed for the past decade. Given Russia’s threats to Europe’s energy security, a decision was taken in 2022 to sever the dependence on Russian energy products. With only two countries—Bulgaria and Hungary—receiving postponement of these measures to 2024, Europe has quickly weaned itself from Russian oil and gas. However, this change has come at a cost: a number of countries have increased their use of coal and other high-polluting sources of energy.

The war has also sped up the process of EU integration for Moldova and Ukraine, and this will occupy the attention of Brussels institutions in the years to come. Such integration provides for a larger European market: a welcome development. The past decade has shown that Europe cannot multitask—perhaps the inevitable result of gradual consensus building among twenty-seven member states—preferring to focus on one issue at a time. The clear task at hand is helping Ukraine win the war.

The two case studies in this volume on Ukraine (by Professor Yuriy Gorodnichenko from the University of California at Berkeley) and Russia (by Professor Konstantin Sonin from the University of Chicago) demonstrate what is at stake for these countries in terms of freedom and prosperity. In this chapter I suggest that, for Europe as a whole, what is at stake in the conflict is the further development of freedoms and the ensuing prosperity of Europe. Only with a free and victorious Ukraine can the EU refocus on its prosperity agenda.

In the face of Ukraine’s resolute response to Russia’s invasion, President Putin has escalated the economic warfare against its citizens by incessantly attacking the country’s energy infrastructure and cutting off vital trade channels. These acts have severely hampered the prospects for economic recovery in 2024.

A large part of Ukraine’s civilian population, an estimated 6 million refugees, is awaiting a ceasefire that would allow them to return to their homeland, as the frequent bombings and power outages have forced them to take temporary shelter in other European countries.⁴ These immigrants look forward to reuniting with their families and continuing with their jobs or finding new economic opportunities. In both cases—whether Ukraine’s refugees stay abroad or return home—massive European help is needed to jump-start the economy. The needs are enormous: rebuild infrastructure, provide financing for entrepreneurial activities as many old enterprises are razed to the ground, open new export opportunities, and invest in the training of workers and in new technologies.

Europe’s prosperity agenda

This prosperity agenda is fourfold. First, there are wide disparities across regions within Europe. These are seen within countries, for example southern versus northern Italy, and across countries, for example Scandinavia versus Eastern Europe. A significant portion of the EU budget is directed to reducing these disparities, through investments in infrastructure, agriculture, and regional economic development. Such financial aid needs to be coupled with policies that increase economic freedom at the regional level. For example, decentralization of some tax policies combined with explicit subsidy schemes will keep more resources in underdeveloped regions and thus attract businesses and individuals who would otherwise look for opportunities in more advanced parts of the EU.

Second, increased prosperity in the EU comes from completing the internal markets for energy and financial services. These topics were discussed even prior to the 2014 annexation of Crimea, which started a series of crisis years for the EU. 2024 is a good year to go back to the original design and create a single energy market in Europe, as well as a single financial market, with a single set of regulators. Much has been written and discussed about how to achieve these goals; now is the time to act.

Third, migration has been at the forefront of European politics in the past decade. It promises to remain an issue in the decade to come. On the one hand, Europe’s demographics are such that the labor market benefits from human capital coming into European countries and putting their labor and talents into productive use. On the other hand, social tensions have risen in the countries that have received large numbers of migrants. Even in countries with few actual migrants, the specter of competition for social services and jobs has boosted the fortunes of nationalist parties that have promised to erect barriers to further migration. This issue, more than any other in Europe, inflames public opinion.

Finally, prosperity in Europe emanates from open markets. While the European market itself is large, many innovations and technologies come from either the American or Asian markets. The two other superpowers—the United States and China—have been on a collision course in asserting their economic dominance, leaving Europe to choose how to align in the global picture. So far this path has meandered, with some calling for greater protections for Europe’s own market. Such an isolationist approach is counterproductive. Europe has to remain as open as possible, assimilating leading innovations and creating the space to implement these new ideas into better production processes and products.

The Atlantic Council’s Indexes also raise some philosophical questions regarding European identity: Has the golden age of European prosperity passed, weighed down by the heavy fiscal burden of an unwieldy social safety net? Has the energy of European integration through the accession of new member states tapered off? Is federalism, in the shape of the EU, losing momentum? The past decade has not given many indications of a clear reform agenda, as Europe has stumbled from one crisis to another. The existential crisis of a war in Europe has strained the abilities of European institutions to act, yet it has demonstrated a unity that has been largely absent in previous decisions Europe has faced. This unity leads to strength and such strength is needed to overcome the many challenges that lie in Europe’s path.

Simeon Djankov is policy director of the Financial Markets Group at the London School of Economics. He was deputy prime minister and minister of finance of Bulgaria from 2009 to 2013. Prior to his cabinet appointment, he was chief economist of the finance and private sector vice presidency of the World Bank.

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

The post EU’s future prosperity will be marked by war in Ukraine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Table of contents

Evolution of freedom

For many years, I have had issues with discussing various graphs and indexes illustrating what is going on in Russia, because the picture on the ground was very different from what those indexes showed. But the Freedom Index very closely represents what I felt was happening in my country over the last ten years: basically, a gradual deterioration of all dimensions of freedoms, but especially political freedom. This process started even before the war in Ukraine, and accelerated after the war started. The deterioration in economic and legal freedoms is not so evident, but this is because the starting points were already low in 1995.

Thirty years ago, Russia was a competitive democracy. Of course, an unstable democracy, as we can see from the way it has unraveled in the twenty-first century, but it was really competitive. Opposition (i.e., those not aligned with the president) controlled the parliament, incumbents would lose elections at the subnational level, and measures of democratic standards would agree that the country could be labeled as a democracy. But the system has gradually deteriorated until today, when there are no longer any competitive elections at any level above small municipalities. Every reasonably sized city or town is already fully controlled from the political center; even in cases where officials are formally elected, they are still appointed.

Civil and political rights are at a minimum. Think of freedom of expression. Nowadays you can get arrested for just mentioning the word “war” when referring to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. I myself am a fugitive of Putin’s “justice,” and by the time this book is published I will probably have been sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison for my social media posts. So, in terms of freedom of the press or individual freedom of expression, Russia today is as close to a perfect score of zero as you can possibly imagine.

The fall into autocracy is also evident in the legal freedom subindex, especially in the components of clarity of the law and judicial independence. A clear example that connects both indicators is the passing of several laws by parliament that clearly contradict the Constitution. The criminalization of any comment on the war that contradicts the story told by the Ministry of Defence obviously contravenes the Constitution, which protects freedom of expression. There cannot be any clarity of the law when day-to-day legislation contradicts the Constitution. And citizens cannot try to defend their rights through the judicial system, as it is completely controlled by the executive.

Economic freedom has never been high in Russia, and the data confirm this. But economic freedom has further deteriorated in the last few years, especially since the beginning of the war. Future updates of the Indexes will surely reflect this evolution, as they will capture the outright expropriation of western-owned property that has been taking place. Foreign companies’ assets have been seized without compensation, and those who were lucky enough to sell their assets have done so at 80 percent discounts and with a 50 percent tax rate imposed. So, trade and investment freedom are surely lower than reflected in the data right now. Even the score on women’s economic freedom is likely to drop in the short run, as Putin’s government propaganda is already pushing the idea that women should marry and bear children at a very young age, because this is good for the nation, and this directly impacts women’s economic rights.

Overall, the picture portrayed by the Freedom Index and its subindexes is consistent with my view of the situation in Russia, and I believe things may be even worse than is currently captured in the data due to lags in the underlying sources.

From freedom to prosperity

The income component of prosperity clearly shows the stagnation of the Russian economy in the last fifteen years. Economic growth was extremely low until 2018, and Russian gross domestic product (GDP) has even contracted in the last few years. Moreover, the Russian economy appears in this graph to perform reasonably well, as it somewhat follows the European trend—but this is misleading. Russia’s income in 1995 was significantly lower than the European average, so the country should have grown faster and caught up with its neighbors, as did Poland and the Baltic countries. This process of convergence is clearly not happening for Russia, and we can even observe a divergence between Russia and the rest of Europe in the last decade.

The inequality indicator is very noisy. There is likely to be significant measurement error at short-term frequencies, but the big-picture situation is clear: Russia was a very unequal country in 1995, and that inequality remains at a similar level. Looking forward, some respectable economists argue that we may see an improvement in the in­equality measure. I think there are several forces at play. On the one hand, the government is providing very substantive wartime payments to the families of killed soldiers, and these are disproportionally going to the lower quantiles of the income distribution, which can improve inequality measures. But on the other hand, wartime profits are increasing, and these are captured by the top 1 percent of the distribution. So basically, it is the middle class that is being squeezed. The inequality indicator in the Prosperity Index is the share of income going to the top 20 percent of the distribution, so I think it very likely that this will deteriorate in the coming years as inequality increases.

Regarding minority rights, the worrisome negative trend is obvious in the graph, despite the fact that the indicator only captures religious liberty. The government is now persecuting anyone whose faith is not compatible with the heightened militarism of the Russian state. Even priests of the Orthodox Church, usually in favor with government officials, are being prosecuted if they utter words against the war. Religious minorities whose faith is incompatible with military service, such as Baptists and other minority Christian denominations, face criminal prosecution and extra-legal harassment.

It is not only religious minorities who are persecuted. Think about LGBTQ+ citizens, who are now criminalized to the point where even holding hands in public may see them prosecuted. The current situation is probably worse than in Iran, in some senses. Legally, there have not been any changes in the status of—or official attitude toward—different ethnicities, but it is evident that ethnic minorities in the poorest regions of the country have been disproportionately recruited for the war. Therefore, deaths among minority ethnic groups are significantly higher than, for example, for Muscovites.

The health indicator is one of only a couple in the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes that I do not think paints a fully accurate picture of reality, especially for the past few years. Russia was one of the worst performing countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than a million deaths. The total number is similar to that of the United States, where the population is 2.5 times larger, so Russia performed significantly worse. Also, the indicator is probably not yet showing the thousands of deaths since the start of the war, and the deterioration in terms of mental health for a large share of the population due to post-traumatic stress disorder and the like. In 2023, the birth rate in Russia dropped to the level of the worst years of the economic crisis that resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union. We will likely see further drops in health indicators in the short run.

In terms of environmental quality, it has always been the case that whatever is good for Russian industry is bad for environmental indicators. And vice versa. For many years Russia was one of the best performing countries with respect to the Kyoto protocol, but this was due to a dramatic drop in industrial output. I forecast further decreases in industrial production, so on that side environmental indicators may improve. But at the same time the government is currently removing several regulations and laws that were passed before the war, so this may have an offsetting effect. The effective ban on any public protest and many civil society organizations, including those working on environmental protection, will further erode the existing protections.

Another important process that is probably not fully captured by the data above concerns the educational system. I refer to the exodus of teachers and professors from all levels of the educational system that have left the country in recent years, and especially since the war in Ukraine began. Many have fled the country, others have relocated, some are looking for a way out. This is a huge blow to the Russian educational system. Moreover, tens of thousands of students who should be increasing their human capital through further education are being mobilized and sent to the battlefield, or have become refugees in neighboring countries due to their fear of being called up to fight. This reality is not yet visible as a fall in years of schooling, but as statistics update it will most likely emerge. Furthermore, this issue is not only about the quantity of schooling as measured by the average years of schooling of Russian pupils, but the quality of the education they receive, which then translates into skills and human capital. If the best professors and teachers are leaving the country, it is clear that the quality of the educational system will suffer significantly.

The future ahead

The short- to medium-term prospects for Russia and Putin’s regime are undeniably going to be determined by the evolution of the Russia-Ukraine war. Putin’s regime entered a declining stage even before the beginning of the war, which is typical of authoritarian and personalistic regimes: following a period of stagnation, the regime reaches its final stage, in which every effort is devoted to maintaining power. Even before 2022, political repression was very substantial. Tens of thousands of people were leaving the country every year because they feared arrest if they said something wrong on social media, for example. Yet the repression has dramatically increased since the war began.

I do not think there is an easy way out of the war, nor from Putin’s authoritarian rule. Change in any personalistic regime is always dramatic and turbulent, and even if a lot of the same people still hold power, it always engenders substantial changes. It was the same with the death of Stalin. I think there is always an upside to this, because if and when Putin is gone, the new leadership will be able to do some things that will immediately improve Russia’s situation. I believe any new leadership would withdraw the Russian troops from the newly occupied territories. Talks about lifting economic sanctions and reopening trade will immediately follow. Some companies that left Russia will quickly return. These steps might not generate sustained economic growth, as the loss of growth potential due to the war is substantial. Nonetheless, they will represent an immediate improvement over the status quo. But for now, until this change in leadership takes place, everything will be defined by the evolution of the war, and, as long as the war continues, Russia will suffer further decreases in every dimension of prosperity.

Konstantin Sonin is John Dewey distinguished service professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. He studies political economics. Previously, Sonin has served as faculty and a vice-president of NES and HSE University in Moscow and guest-lectured in dozens of schools across the country. Now he is on the federal wanted list in Russia for posting information about atrocities committed by the Russian occupying forces in Ukraine.

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

The post Russia will suffer decreases in every dimension of prosperity appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Table of contents

Evolution of freedom

The flat trend of the Freedom Index between 1995 and 2004 mainly reflects the presidency of Leonid Kuchma, a “red” premier with a Soviet mentality who was not particularly interested in building democracy. The Orange Revolution and the new presidency of Viktor Yushchenko, which began in 2005, brought significant change towards democracy, political freedom, and economic liberalization. These reforms are clearly picked up by the political freedom subindex. In particular, the indicator concerning legislative constraints on the executive seems to be reflecting the substantial changes in the Constitution introduced during this period, that reduced the power of the president in favor of the parliament.

The Freedom Index, and especially the political freedom subindex, starts declining in 2010 with Viktor Yanukovych as president. This period represents a clear backsliding in terms of democratic reform, which intensified in 2013–14 when the government tightened the screws on civil society and the economy. The subsequent recovery is attributable to the Revolution of Dignity (also known as the Euromaidan), with several positive changes towards liberalization in political and economic terms. For example, the press became much freer and more independent. Nowadays, in the midst of the Russian invasion, it is hard to measure the degree of freedom in Ukraine because martial law imposes many restrictions.

The economic freedom subindex reflects the ups and downs of Ukraine’s economy in the last three decades. Generally, the level of investment freedom in Ukraine is significantly lower than in other countries of the former Soviet bloc that introduced much more radical reforms upon independence (e.g., the Baltic states). This low level is consistent with other measures of openness; for example, the Chinn-Ito index of restrictions on capital accounts paints a similar picture. Although Ukraine tried to open up, various steps toward liberalization were rolled back when the country faced economic and security crises. For instance, the government introduced stricter capital controls during the global financial crisis of 2008–09 to tame the panic. At the same time, Ukraine’s external trade has been a success story. Not only did Ukraine become much more integrated in global markets, but it was also able to redirect trade away from Russia after Russia annexed Crimea and occupied parts of the Donbas in 2014. Ukraine generally has few barriers to cross-border flows of goods and services. These very divergent trajectories for capital openness versus trade openness are also shown in the components of the economic freedom subindex.

The lack of improvement in legal freedom from 1995 to 2014 could be explained by the fact that, unlike other Eastern European countries, Ukraine did not institute a radical reform of its legal architecture on independence. Instead, there were small incremental changes from the Soviet system. For example, the labor code was written in the 1970s, and only sporadic, piecemeal changes have been made since then to make it a little more modern. As a result, the Ukrainian legal system is fraught with contradictions and inconsistencies. The history of the Constitution illustrates the complexity and ever-changing nature of the legal system. After being adopted in 1996 (which is a slow start relative to peer countries), the Constitution was amended in 2004 to limit presidential powers. President Yanukovych cancelled these amendments in 2010 before they were reinstated after the Revolution of Dignity in 2013–14. The big drop in legal freedom in 2014 is mainly driven by a plummeting security component, which reflects Russia’s annexation of Crimea and partial occupation of the Donbas.

These dynamics are consistent with Figure 1 below, which shows the evolution of two indexes produced by the V-Dem Project—on judicial constraints on the executive and on political rights—since 1985. Upon the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the path toward free institutions is markedly different for Ukraine than it is for other nations in the orbit of the USSR. While Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland quickly reached very high scores on both indexes, Ukraine followed the much weaker Russian reform path until the year 2000. With the turn of the century, Ukraine departs from the declining trend of Russia, but it still lags behind its more successful neighbors.

Figure 1. Institutional reform in selected countries (1985–2022)

One can see how the low level of legal and economic freedom generates inefficiencies and deters economic development in Ukraine by looking at the sectors and firms that are thriving. For example, the IT sector in Ukraine is very competitive and successful in the global market because it does not require a lot of physical capital. Instead, the IT sector is based on human capital which is much harder to expropriate than physical capital. This means that the sector does not need to rely on the judicial system as much as other sectors. Similarly, the agricultural sector, another highly successful part of the Ukrainian economy, is very decentralized, which creates competition and limits the power of oligarchs or other vested interests.

From freedom to prosperity

The evolution of the income component for Ukraine is very positive from 1995 up until the global financial crisis of 2008. During this period, the country experienced a fast recovery from the initial shock of transitioning from the Soviet system. A giant economic boom was fueled by easy credit and inflows of foreign direct investment. This economic expansion was halted by the global financial crisis. The banking sector was hit particularly hard and accumulated a large share of nonperforming loans. With no political will to reform the financial sector, banks became “zombie” institutions, weighing down the broader economy. Weakened by the financial crisis, the economy went through another massive upheaval after the Russian aggression of 2014. Although Ukraine implemented many reforms since 2014, and was thus more prepared to withstand the COVID-19 shock, security concerns weighed heavily on the country, depressing investment and consumption. In short, since 2008 the country has not been an attractive place to invest and produce, leading to the stagnant income we can see over the last fifteen years. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 obviously made the economic landscape even more difficult.

Data on inequality are always difficult to analyze, especially so for Ukraine because of its large informal sector. Although this factor distorts the level of inequality, examining changes in this component can still be a revealing exercise. For example, the distribution of income becomes more equal during the 1990s because incomes contracted deeply for nearly everyone due to the collapse of the previous system, hyperinflation, and so on. Inequality rose in the early 2000s as the economic recovery benefited some people more than others. The so-called oligarchs were clear winners, and this was the period in which they consolidated their economic and political power. From 2008 on, it is very hard to unpick the true evolution of inequality because of the deep crises the country faced: The global financial crisis of 2008–09 affected the population highly unevenly. The Russian annexation of Crimea and partial occupation of the Donbas displaced millions of people. The COVID-19 pandemic had heterogeneous effects on the economy and on different groups within the population. And then the fog of the current war makes any estimates of inequality tentative at best.

The very clear negative evolution of the minority rights component of the Prosperity Index, which measures religious freedom, is surprising. There is little indication that any ethnic or religious group is persecuted in Ukraine. Perhaps this dynamic reflects the fact that Ukraine was trying to limit the influence of a Russian “fifth column.” For example, Ukraine established a Ukrainian orthodox church, independent of Moscow, and has encouraged communities to switch from the Moscow patriarch to the Kyiv metropolitan. This may create formal signs of reduced rights of minorities but there have been hardly any objective impediments to citizens practicing their faith, or exercising their religious freedom. Indeed, religious and other minorities are well represented at the highest levels in Ukraine: President Zelenskyy is himself a Jew and Minister of Defense Umerov is a Crimean Tatar.

Regarding education, the divergence from the European average that seems to have started in 2005–06 does not have an obvious explanation. The capacity of universities in Ukraine exceeds the size of the graduating classes from high school. Therefore, anyone who wants to go to college can do so without problems. Surprisingly, this trend was not reversed by the economic crisis of 2008–10, because people delay entering the labor market in recessions and pursue further education in order to wait for better employment prospects. The trend away from the European average is perhaps partly explained by the fact that many more Ukrainians study abroad (the number more than tripled from 2007 to 2019) and it is possible that their educational attainment is not being properly recorded. Unfortunately, Ukraine has not had a census since 2001 and thus reliable data on socioeconomic outcomes are scarce.

The improvement in the environmental indicator in the 2004–14 period is most likely capturing the fact that Soviet-era heavy industry was clearly declining, and losing ground relative to other sectors of the economy like services. For example, the improvement in the indicator begins in 2007–08. This timing is consistent with the fact that the metals industry, a heavy polluter, was decimated during the global financial crisis (production declined by approximately 60 percent) and even after recovery, production stood at roughly 60 percent of its pre-crisis level. However, some of the improvement in the environment indicator is in line with a deliberate, but modest government policy to tighten environmental standards.

The initial level of the health indicator was very low. Heavy pollution, high consumption of alcohol, widespread smoking, and the low quality of healthcare services are clear contributors. From its low base, Ukraine could and did improve health outcomes through effective policies, a stronger economy, and a changing culture. For example, successive governments in Ukraine have consistently increased taxes on tobacco and alcohol, and higher incomes have helped to improve diet and access to food. The public healthcare system was largely unreformed until 2014, but after the Revolution of Dignity, the government pushed different measures to make the healthcare system more patient-centric, improve access, and reduce corruption. The system remains largely government run but there has been some entry of private providers in large cities.

The future ahead

The future of Ukraine will be shaped by its accession to the European Union (EU) and NATO. Joining the EU requires a lot of convergence—and hence upgrades—in terms of the legal structures, economic conditions, and environmental/health standards. The experience of Poland and other former communist countries suggests that Ukraine will see radical improvements after accession, in labor productivity, market access, infrastructure and other key metrics of economic progress. Joining NATO will be critical for addressing security concerns. To put it bluntly, if Ukraine were to join NATO, Russia would not be able to attack it again. NATO can guarantee peace and thus make Ukraine an investable country and allow refugees to return.

Obviously, with the ongoing war, any outlook is highly uncertain. However, one should flag two challenges for Ukraine.

First, there is a widespread perception that the Ukrainian judicial system does not adequately protect private property or the individual rights of citizens, and does not act as an effective check on executive power and corruption. This is a fundamental challenge that needs to be addressed in the next five to ten years if the country is to become a success story.

Second, the war will leave many scars on the country. These will be destroyed factories and homes (although rebuilding these could allow the country to modernize its infrastructure and productive capacity), and also huge swaths of land will have to be de-mined. Millions of Ukrainians are displaced; many (likely more than a million) will be veterans who will need reintegration into civilian lives, and hundreds of thousands will need medical attention (lost limbs, post-traumatic stress, etc.). Furthermore, there will be a whole generation of children who have not received a proper education through the years of COVID-19 and war. The losses of human capital are enormous and hard to reverse. Ukraine will need the help of its allies and deliberate policies to recover from these adversities.

Yuriy Gorodnichenko is Quantedge Presidential Professor at the Department of Economics, University of California – Berkeley. He received his B.A. and MA at EERC/Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kyiv, Ukraine) and his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. He is broadly interested in macroeconomics and issues related to transition economies (especially, labour markets and firm performance). Gorodnichenko serves on many editorial boards, including Journal of Monetary Economics and VoxUkraine. He is also affiliated with NBER and IZA.

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

The post Ukraine’s recovery hinges on allied support appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Table of contents

Evolution of freedom

The economic freedom subindex suggests that Chile is a country with open markets and a very open economy, but at the margin it has become less so over the last ten years. This decline has mostly been driven by policy decisions that increased government regulation of markets. Greater regulation was mostly welcome, but there may have been areas—like the length of time required to obtain approval for investment projects—where the trend has gone too far.

Most of the decline on the economic freedom subindex is attributable to changes in the trade freedom and investment freedom indicators. But the obvious measures of trade freedom, such as tariffs and nontariff barriers, have all been relatively flat or even improved over the last decade, and the last remaining capital controls were abolished fifteen years ago. Perhaps the explanation for this puzzle can be found in the property rights indicator, which has decreased in a mild but sustained fashion since 2010. Judicial procedures in Chile have become longer and more unpredictable, while processes related to obtaining permits have become maddeningly lengthy. As a result of these and other changes, the investment environment has deteriorated. Perhaps these measures partly explain the change in the trade and investment freedom indicators.

Regarding political freedom, the data presented seem like an inaccurate reflection of reality and are very hard to rationalize. Yes, Chile has become more politically fragmented and volatile, but civil liberties have not worsened. Perhaps a mild change in this subindex since 2019 could follow from the heavy-handed reaction to street unrest late that year, followed by the relatively stringent restrictions introduced in 2020 to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. But the data suggest a decline starting in 2015, which makes very little sense.

On legal freedom, the deterioration in the corruption indicator during the last fifteen years is attributable to a series of corruption scandals reported in the country. Here, as ever, it is hard to discern whether corrupt practices are now more prevalent or whether legal changes mean that more cases are being reported. Both could be true: It is possible that certain corrupt practices have indeed become more prevalent. But also keep in mind that the last decade-and-a-half has seen a number of changes in competition law and campaign finance regulations, which do make it easier to detect such practices.

In terms of security, it is clear that Chile has experienced a sustained deterioration regarding crime and safety on the streets. There is an active debate in Chile about the drivers of this trend. Some blame it on immigration, although there is limited evidence to support such a claim. Or, rather, immigration may have changed the nature of certain crimes (an increase in the use of firearms, for instance) but not the overall incidence of crime. Other factors, like a growing drug trade and the presence of foreign drug gangs, may also have had an impact. Whatever the cause, it is likely that security in large cities has worsened, even though Chile remains one of the best performers in the region when it comes to crime and citizen security.

From freedom to prosperity

Chile is a more prosperous nation than most others in the region. Its economy grew faster than most of its neighbors between the end of the last century and a decade ago. But recently growth has slowed. It is surprising that the data seem to show a larger decline in prosperity for Chile than for the rest of the region during the 2008–10 financial crisis, when Chile was undoubtedly the country with the smallest recession and experienced the most limited impact on economic activity in the whole of Latin America. This is, once again, a case in which the data presented make very little sense.

There is little doubt that Chile is an unequal country. But again, the data presented in this report tell a story that can scarcely be believed. The data suggest a sharp deterioration in income distribution, while the Gini coefficient computed by the government of Chile (and by the World Bank), shows a steady improvement since 1990, followed by a predictable deterioration during the pandemic and a slight recovery in the last two or three years. The inequality indicator of the Prosperity Index shows a completely different pattern. It may be due to the fact that the indicator measures the share of income of the top 10 percent of the distribution, which is a very partial view of income distribution.

The minority rights indicator has not shown much movement in recent years, though Chile’s score is reasonably high. However it is important to stress that this is largely because the indicator uses religious liberty as a proxy, whereas the real conflict in Chile is not religious but ethnic. If one had some measure of the situation of indigenous minorities, especially that of Mapuches in the south of Chile, the picture might look different.

Regarding the environment, Chile has a serious air pollution problem, both in big cities and smaller ones, but for different reasons. In the former, the number of cars per capita has increased substantially, and the move away from coal in the generation of electricity has been slow. In the smaller cities in the south of the country, by contrast, wood-burning stoves are the principal method of domestic heating. This is very polluting, especially if the wood is not fully dry.

There have been several educational reforms in Chile in the last twenty-five years, some more successful than others, but it seems unlikely that any of these could explain the complete stagnation in years of schooling in the 2007–11 period. There was a reform at the time that generated a movement of pupils among different types of schools, but not a decrease in enrollment. Moreover, spending per student increased significantly around this time, and the share of each cohort going to university reached the 50 percent mark in this period.

The future ahead

Chile faces two big challenges in the coming years, one economic and one political. The big economic challenge is to restore growth, which has slowed substantially in the last decade. Productivity growth, which was very fast late in the twentieth century and in the beginning of this century, has also petered out. Investment rates have not dropped, but nor have they increased. Chile was once a country experiencing rapid diversification of exports, and that process has also come to a halt.

So, when it comes to prosperity, the big question is: Why was the fast growth period in Chile so short-lived? Standard economic theory predicts that, as a country becomes richer, its growth slows due to convergence with high-income economies. So one might have expected fast growth in Chile until the country’s standards of living had reached the level of South Korea. Instead, fast growth seems to have stopped with the country still short of the income level of Greece or Portugal.

The big political challenge relates to the quality of politics and of democratic decisionmaking. Since 2010 politics has become more polarized and a great deal more fragmented. Chile went from having seven parties represented in Congress at that time to twenty-two today. Indices of satisfaction with the performance of democracy—and also indices of trust in government, political parties, the judiciary, the police, the media, business lobbies, unions, and so on—have all deteriorated. It seems that Chileans do not trust anyone anymore. That is a worldwide trend, but in Chile it might be a little more pronounced than elsewhere.

Chile’s answer has been to try to rewrite the Constitution. We have already tried twice, and failed, and the third attempt is also looking like a failure. Former president Michelle Bachelet drafted a new constitution in her second term (2014–18), but ran out of time to get it approved. A constitutional convention, dominated by the far left, was chosen in 2021, and wrote a questionable text that was rejected by 62 percent of voters in a referendum in 2022. A new convention was then elected, this time controlled by the far right, which produced a similarly partisan text that is similarly failing to attract widespread support. Polls suggest that the text will be again rejected by voters when it is put to a referendum in December 2023.

Andrés Velasco is a former finance minister of Chile, and a current professor of Public Policy and dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

The post Chile struggles with economic stagnation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Table of contents

Evolution of freedom

The Freedom and Prosperity Indexes have served as a useful tool for observers and policymakers alike to identify trends and historical evolution of countries. In the case of Mexico, the Indexes rank the country as “mostly free” and “mostly prosperous”. However, recent declines in several indicators are early warning signs of an erosion occurring, at least on some fronts. Complementing the findings of the Indexes with qualitative insights can provide a nuanced understanding of the drivers, trends, and challenges that Mexico is facing.

Between 2018 and 2022, Mexico’s overall freedom score dropped from 66 to 61, placing it 90th out of 164 countries. This decline in ranking is unique among Latin American nations, which maintained an average aggregate score of 65. During this period, the most significant declines came in Mexico’s legal freedom score, which fell from 53 to 47 (now ranked 117) and its political freedom score, which fell from 74 to 65 (now ranked 102). In contrast, the economic freedom score remained relatively stable at around 70 (ranked 52). While various political and economic factors likely contributed to these trends, it is worth noting that significant changes have occurred since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO, by his acronym), assumed office in December 2018, which have had a notable downward impact on these freedoms.

When it comes to legal freedom, the subindex records significant declines with respect to judicial independence, clarity of the law, and bureaucracy and corruption that are attributable to previous governments, but which have been exacerbated since 2018. While legal institutions such as the Supreme Court of Justice and regulators remain relatively autonomous overall, a large driver of the declining trends stems from the current government’s direct and tacit attempts to undermine their functioning and independence.

For instance, the decline in judicial independence scores, from 60 to 47 between 2018 and 2022, is largely due to ongoing attempts to influence the Supreme Court and control their key decisions. Since taking office, AMLO has appointed four of the nine Supreme Court Justices. Notably, two of them have aligned with the president’s political agenda, and the other two, in the words of the president himself “turn out to be conservatives,” meaning that they are independent—as they should be—and do not abide by his mandates. Most recently, the president directly appointed a new Justice to a vacant seat on the Supreme Court—a political loyalist and former Morena party activist. The interference in key decisions is overt at times: for example, AMLO said it would be an “act of treason to the country” if the court ruled against the Electric Industry law, despite serious concerns over the law’s constitutionality. Two key rulings regarding this law were expected in September 2023, but have been delayed as the energy ministry introduced a legal complaint regarding potential conflicts of interest of two Justices of the court. The law prioritizes the state-owned utility CFE, undermining private sector participation (among other issues) but it is a key plank in the president’s nationalistic energy agenda.

The government is also attempting to undermine the Supreme Court in other ways, for instance by engaging in confrontational and polarized criticism of the court’s president, including endorsing public protests against her, underscoring and increasing the political pressure on Justices. The government also seeks to exert financial pressures over the court. On October 25, 2023, Congress approved cuts of US$815 million to the Supreme Court’s budget—granting the court 18 percent less than had been requested for the 2024 budget (and representing a 2.7 percent reduction compared to the 2018 budget, according to México Evalúa). Moreover, the party in government presented a bill (September 2023), supported by the president, to eliminate the Judicial Power’s trust funds, which was eventually suspended by the Supreme Court itself, proving that the measure would undermine the labor rights of workers, who were the final owners of the resources: the cuts aimed to eliminate fourteen trusts specifically earmarked for employees’ pensions and healthcare, as well as implement recent judicial reforms that have expanded the responsibilities of the High Court.

The decline in the clarity of the law score, from 48 in 2018 to 34 in 2022, is a result of several policy shocks which take a toll on business confidence. The current administration has created persistent uncertainty, especially regarding the enforcement of crucial regulations governing contracts, tariffs, and prices, that are necessary for maintaining a competitive market. This ranges from the cancellation of the Mexico City airport project, despite it being 70 percent complete, to hindering competition in the electricity and renewables market. As a result of this, on July 19, 2022, the United States and Canada initiated a consultation under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to discuss Mexico’s energy policies, in particular claiming a violation of competition and clean energy commitments. The consultations are ongoing, though dispute settlement mechanisms have not been triggered as the parties are expecting the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the Electric Industry law.

The administration recently delivered yet another significant blow to business confidence. On October 5, 2023, the Federal Civil Aviation Agency unilaterally altered the tariff base regulation for the concessions of nongovernment airport operators—without any previous consultation. Ultimately, this uncertainty makes it difficult to assess the regulatory risks, and results in added costs for companies and cancellation of investments in the country.

Since 2018, there have been budget and staff cuts to key ministries and autonomous institutions, jeopardizing Mexico’s bureaucratic structure and redirecting resources to the president’s favored projects. In addition to the budget reductions to the Supreme Court, the 2024 budget proposes cuts for the health, economy, and tourism ministries (21 percent, 56 percent, and 77 percent respectively, compared to the 2019 budget, the first of AMLO’s presidency). Instead, resources are being redirected to ministries overseeing the president’s social programs and fiscally unviable pet projects, resulting in significant increases in funding for the energy, well-being, and defense ministries (609 percent, 266 percent, and 176 percent respectively). These shifts in spending reflect a broader trend towards centralized decisionmaking and an enormous role for the military—a tendency that has adversely affected the “bureaucratic effectiveness” indicator of the Index. The centralization of government procurement contracts is one example, which, together with a lack of delivery capacity, led to a severe shortage of medicines in 2021, according to an independent audit by Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF).

And while these changes have been justified on the grounds that they would reduce corruption, Mexico has not made much progress on this front, ranking 126 of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2022, with a score of 31 out of 100, a decline from 35 in 2014. Particularly worrisome has been the involvement of the military in many economic activities, including managing ports and customs, executing the president’s infrastructure projects, and even owning a commercial airline. Citing national security concerns as a justification, these changes have led to opacity in the disclosure of government contracts and an increased practice of direct assignments instead of public and transparent bids—worsening rather than abating corruption concerns.

Most recently, before the year end of 2023, the president has raised the stakes: he has indicated that the autonomous institutions will be disbanded altogether, as (in his own words), “they don’t serve the people and are at the service of minorities.”

Another notable aspect contributing to the decline of legal freedom in Mexico since 2018 is the shifting security landscape, characterized by an increasing reliance on the military for day-to-day law enforcement activities, and the “hugs not bullets” policy, which essentially advocates for a nonconfrontational stance towards organized crime. The traditional presence of civil police has been superseded by the emergence of military police, or in some instances, direct military intervention in street-level security operations throughout the country, creating human rights concerns. And the lack of actions against organized crime has allowed it to become more powerful in certain parts of Mexico, resulting in a rise in violence and insecurity across the country. According to the Executive Secretariat of the National System of Public Security, homicides during the five years of AMLO’s government have reached 156,479 (as of November 2023), more than the whole six years of the previous administration.

On political freedom, the executive has sought to undermine the National Electoral Institute (INE), not only by attempting several constitutional and legal reforms, but also by significantly slashing its budget. The INE was established in the 1990s and serves as a crucial pillar of Mexican democracy, organizing elections and ensuring fair electoral processes. Although attempts to reduce the institute’s independence and power have so far faced congressional and wider public rejection, the president plans to present a new bill during his last year in government (2024), arguing—without proof—that the institute shows a “lack of independence and impartiality.”

On yet another metric, the decline in the legislative constraints on the executive score, from 54 in 2018 to 36 in 2022, also contributed to the overall decline in political freedom. AMLO’s landslide victory in 2018 gave his ruling Morena coalition a significant majority in Congress and, although it shrank in the 2021 midterm elections, the coalition still holds 55 percent of the seats in the House and 59 percent in the Senate. The pressure on ruling coalition legislators to vote as a bloc has, in most instances, allowed the president to capture Congress and enabled major reforms in education, labor, and energy. These reforms have been approved with little or no input from the ruling party, coalition partners, or opposition legislators, undermining the process of checks and balances. The Senate has remained an important counterweight, particularly with regard to constitutional reforms; and Congress too has recovered some of its balance, since the ruling party lost its absolute majority during the 2021 midterm elections.

The active undermining of the legislative processes and political pressure on opposition legislators to vote in line with the president’s priorities have also become more common. For instance, the reform of the electoral system was ruled unconstitutional (June 2023) by the Supreme Court due to violations of the legislative process. These included not giving legislators adequate time to debate and consider the bill, as significant last-minute amendments were submitted less than three hours before the vote, and further changes were unlawfully incorporated after its approval. This and similar incidents highlight the overt sidestepping of procedure that has become more common in this legislature. Overall, this undermines the proper functioning of the legislative body and weakens the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

On economic freedom, the transformation of the relationship between the state and the private sector has been a defining characteristic of Mexico’s economic landscape since 2018. Central to this shift is the government’s altered perception, wherein the public sector is not solely viewed as a regulatory entity but as an active participant in economic activities, thereby fostering a growing inclination towards statization. Though property rights are granted in the Constitution as an individual freedom, this ideological shift has put such individual rights on a weaker footing.

In this evolving climate, several endeavors to assert state influence over private enterprises have been initiated, although not all have materialized into full-fledged nationalizations. Notably, instances have arisen where the government intervened in the decisionmaking of private companies, effectively nudging them to relocate their operations according to the state’s regional development agenda. An example is the relocation of a beer factory from the north to the underdeveloped south of the country. This is a concerning trend, wherein the state’s vision for regional development takes priority over the autonomy of private enterprises. This heavy-handed approach not only undermines the principles of competitiveness and private decisionmaking but also poses a direct threat to the fundamental tenets of property rights. Such coercive tactics, veiled under the guise of state-driven development, demonstrate a fundamental disregard for the traditional mechanisms of incentivization and market forces, creating an environment of uncertainty for private property holders.

Companies in the transportation sector, in particular railway concession holders, have recently been the target of government aims to influence private decision making. In May 2023 an attempt was made to expropriate rail infrastructure owned by Grupo Mexico’s Ferromex, to be repurposed for the Trans-Isthmic Corridor project; and in October 2023, the president issued a decree to pressurize concession-holders to invest in passenger trains and being obliged to change their business models to offer passenger services. These events are a window into the government’s approach to the private sector, offering some explanation for the deteriorating business climate and challenges to property rights reflected in the Index.

Preceding the recent developments, the challenges to property rights have long been exacerbated by the pervasive influence of organized crime, particularly through extortion and illegal impositions. This unfortunate reality has only been intensified by the implementation of the “hugs, not bullets” policy, inadvertently providing illicit entities with greater leeway to perpetrate their exploitative activities.

The erosion in freedoms is neither linear nor universal, but the examples above clearly point to some worrisome trends that have contributed to an overall decline in freedoms in Mexico, and which present clear warning signs for the way forward.

From freedom to prosperity

Mexico’s prosperity score has been stagnant since the start of the Index, oscillating between 61 and 63 since 1996 (ranking 90 out of 164 countries in 2022). Its aggregate score is now 4.1 points below the Latin America & the Caribbean regional average. The income indicator is virtually flat at 66.3, while the inequality score is remarkably low (at 15.7, falling from a high of 37.4 in 2002)—23.4 points below the regional average. This is a result of structural low growth, but also of the fact that Mexico had the worst post-pandemic recovery in North America and among the main economies in Latin America.

Mexico’s growth trajectory has not been volatile but rather the challenge has been stubbornly low growth relative to its potential. Data from the International Monetary Fund show an average 2.08 percent year-over-year (YoY) growth since 1990; this compares to 4.3 percent for Chile, 4.2 percent in Peru, 3.4 percent in Colombia, 2.6 percent in Argentina, and 2.3 percent in Brazil—some of whom have experienced very volatile growth trajectories. Unleashing further growth has come as a challenge, despite a sophisticated export sector, sound macroeconomic policy and a resilient private sector. This can be partly explained by the fact that investment as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) has for many years lagged behind its regional peers, remaining below 25 percent for most years since the 1990s, even dipping below 20 percent in 2019, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). However, some positive signs have emerged, with investment reaching 24.9 percent of GDP in the second quarter of 2023, and a more favorable external environment and positive trends such as nearshoring leading to an increase in private sector investment of 18.1 percent YoY in the first half of 2023, the largest increase since 1993.

Productivity is also an issue. Economy-wide labor productivity and overall productivity lag behind other emerging market G20 economies such as South Korea, Turkey, and Thailand.

The economic liberalization of the country in the 1980s and 1990s—which led to North American economic integration, a sound financial sector, and a much more complex economy—has greatly benefited Mexico, but its impact has not been felt by all regions, sectors, and groups. To put this in perspective, the average growth of the northern and central parts of the country reached 3.1 percent YoY between 2010 and 2019 according to Banxico data, and only 0.06 percent in the south, where most of the country’s marginalized population lives. At the same time, the large proportion of informally employed workers—55 percent of the labor force according to the 2023 labor force survey, only a slight decrease from the 2005 figure of 59 percent—is also a key driver of the inequality gap. Regional gaps in growth and informality contribute to drastically different levels of vulnerability and access to services. For example, states in the north like Baja California Sur, Baja California, and Nuevo León had the lowest percentage of multidimensional poverty as a share of their population in 2022 according to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL) (13.3 percent, 13.4 percent, and 16 percent respectively), while multidimensional poverty rates are significantly higher in the southeast with Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca (67.4 percent, 60.4 percent, and 58.4 percent respectively) topping the list.

That said, Mexico has made advances with respect to specific social indicators. For instance, the Index highlights significant improvements in education since 2000 (from 27.7 points to 48.1), although health has experienced an enormous decline of more than 5 points since then, dropping back to 78.1 points. Moreover, as the CONEVAL chart in Table 1 shows, the reduction of access to health between 2020 and 2022 happened at the worst possible time: the COVID-19 pandemic.

If we understand prosperity as the absence of social “lacks” (i.e., people’s needs are met), according to the country’s multidimensional measurement of poverty, Mexico has seen relevant improvements for several years, in spite of its low average growth. One of the reasons this has been possible is that there is now an anchor with which to assess the evolution of access to a “sufficient” income, to food and nutrition, health, education, social security, housing and services. Being capable of rigorous measurement helps align institutional aims and policies, which are in turn a prerequisite to effectively address lacks or shortfalls, and promote inclusion and prosperity. The other two vertices of the “prosperity triangle” are strong and sustained economic growth, and sound policies, which have not always been present.

While economic growth over the last five years has averaged just 0.63 percent per year, Mexico has managed to reduce poverty significantly. It has done so by almost quadrupling social program spending from US$8 billion in 2018 to US$30 billion in 2024, and increasing the minimum wage across the country (2018–24) by 182 percent—and by 324 percent in the “free border zone.”

Table 1. Change in deprivations in Mexico (2000-2022)

The future ahead

Mexico continues to preserve key technical and autonomous institutions, which have so far made it resilient to various affronts to political, legal, and economic freedoms, and which have helped the country sustain a basic level of prosperity, as reflected by the Index. However, the negative developments in some indicators should serve as early warning signs, while also pointing to the path forward, if the country wants to advance towards the next stage in democratic consolidation and progress in well-being standards.

The insights above suggest there is a clear path toward Mexico’s advancement on both the freedom and prosperity fronts. These can be summarized in three clear pillars: strong institutions, strong and sustained growth, and well-articulated and effective redistribution policies.

Mexico has a unique opportunity to capitalize on the current favorable external environment and attract investment that can serve as a pull factor for growth. Its sustainability will largely depend on productivity improvements, including to education, reskilling, infrastructure, and energy. The country remains a bastion of free trade in Latin America and holds a strong strategic position, being the United States’ largest trading partner. Amid US-China decoupling, gains from nearshoring could be significant. For the time being, this trend lays more in the expectation than the materialization front. According to Alfaro and Chor, Mexico is sixth in the list of countries to have derived the most market gains from the decoupling of the United States from China between 2017 and 2022. It should be in the top two.

Enormous expectations cannot cohere into more significant material investment commitments if the institutional framework continues to weaken, and this is one of the key risks that could lead to a further deterioration in Mexico’s Index rankings. In many ways, Mexico has de jure maintained the institutions and legal framework to support political, economic, and legal freedoms, including an independent central bank, an autonomous Supreme Court, and an independent National Electoral Institute. But a de facto deterioration is clearly occurring—in the form of political loyalists being appointed to key autonomous institutions, budget and staff cuts, a concentration of power, and a militarization of strategic economic activities. This cycle of deterioration is a risk to freedoms and prosperity in the near term.

In this sense, pendular politics also remains a significant risk, both to institutions and to sound evidence-based policymaking. The country will head to the polls in June 2024 and the signs of polarization are increasing. While disagreement and debate are essential components of a healthy democracy, the current discourse in the country is anything but constructive; and uncertain and ad hoc shifts in policy risk squandering the opportunities to attain strong and sustained growth, as well as improvements in prosperity more broadly.

Undermining institutions, pendular policies, militarization, the absence of solid foundations for strong and durable economic growth, and growing fiscal pressures, are a recipe for failure. On the contrary, policies aimed at strengthening and perfecting our institutional scaffolding, delivering good and sustained policies, ensuring the rule of law, improving competitiveness, enhancing productivity, and maintaining a sound fiscal stance, could make Mexico a success story, grounded on improved freedom and increased prosperity.

Vanessa Rubio-Márquez is professor in practice and associate dean for extended education, at the School of Public Policy, London School of Economics; associate fellow at Chatham House; consultant and independent board member. She is a member of the Freedom and Prosperity Advisory Council at the Atlantic Council. Vanessa had a twenty-five-year career in Mexico’s public sector, including serving as three-times deputy minister (Finance, Social Development, and Foreign Affairs) and senator.

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

The post Mexico’s vital institutions face decline appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Table of contents

Evolution of freedom

The evolution of political freedom is conceptually the simplest issue in the Indian context. In big-picture terms, the trends shown in the political freedom subindex are very accurate. The graph clearly shows a significant fall in India’s performance in the last ten years. This trend could be termed “democracy capture,” rather than “democracy backsliding,” for a reason that will become apparent below. Looking at the scores on the four indicators of political freedom (elections, political rights, civil rights, and legislative constraints on the executive), India’s score has reduced in every dimension.

Nonetheless, the election score, as reflected in this data, seems to show a steeper fall than most people working in India, or most political scientists, would endorse. And this is the paradox of Indian democracy at this moment. In a narrow interpretation of the electoral core of democracy—which mainly captures elements such as peaceful transitions of power, contestability, and the fairness of the process itself (i.e., Robert Dahl’s polyarchy)—India still does quite well. In fact, no opposition party in India is questioning the legitimacy of elections, which in itself tells you something. Elections are deeply contested, and India performs well on measures of participation, political contestation, or freedom to form political parties. If we look at state or local elections, the degree of contestation is even higher. The dominant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rules only 15 of 28 states currently. In the electoral indicator, India may even be performing better than is reflected in the Index. However, there are some concerns over the degradation of some aspects that make elections fair. For example, the BJP receives three times more funding from electoral bonds than all other national parties combined.¹ The Enforcement Directorate, which investigates corruption, typically focuses its efforts more on opposition politicians: about 90 percent of current investigations involve opposition politicians. While this has not yet led to opposition politicians withdrawing from electoral contests, it does seem to place additional burdens on them. But all things considered, the political system does not question the legitimacy of the electoral process.

It is between elections that a decline in civil liberties and political rights for civil society is evident. There is a palpable sense of a decline in freedom in these areas. There is a greater criminalization of dissent. Several political activists, including students, are being held under India’s draconian preventive detention laws. The whole “information order,” (which includes mass media and social media), particularly media in vernacular languages such as Hindi and most television channels, is tightly controlled. There has been a massive decline in academic freedom. It is harder for many groups to obtain permission to protest. The checks and balances of a constitutional democracy are eroding. There is more open dissemination of hate speech that targets minorities.

It is important to underscore the fact that you can have pretty good elections and institutional machinery and yet produce outcomes that are not as protective of our freedoms as we would like. It also points to the fact that the way in which this BJP government regulates or suppresses political rights and civil liberties is somewhat artful. Unlike previous episodes of backsliding in India (e.g., 1975, when a formal state of emergency was declared), there have been no mass arrests or major changes in the law. The government is very selectively targeting particular individuals or institutions, using the formal administrative and legal machinery at its disposal. It uses tax laws, administrative law, and informal threats to target institutions or individuals that dissent from the government. This is artful for three reasons: First, there is plausible deniability. Each of these instances of targeting is presented as simply the normal operation of law, rather than what they are: a form of repression. Second, it allows for a form of statistical reassurance. The numbers of individuals or groups being targeted may not be, as a proportion of the population, very large, and so large sections of society are convinced that these attacks on freedom of expression are not going to really affect them. Third, as a consequence, this selective, exemplary targeting multiplies in effectiveness because it also leads to self-censorship—a more efficient way for the government to achieve its aims. It also makes the issue seem less politically urgent, and divides opposition parties, for whom some targets are more salient than others.

Such strategies are in line with how a lot of modern authoritarianism works. This is a crucial paradox to understand: you can have vigorously contested elections by almost all measurable criteria, and yet that can be accompanied by a dramatic decline in political and civil rights in particular, as well as legislative constraints on the executive. Some might be tempted to say that this makes India closer to an illiberal democracy. This term is an oxymoron though, since some of the basic liberal freedoms—like free expression, equality before the law, freedom of association, and a fair information order—are constitutive of both liberalism and democracy. So an attack on liberal values is, inevitably, an attack on democracy. It also raises the specter of whether those who begin by attacking liberal freedoms may not, at some point, also attack electoral processes. But at the moment one cannot deny the fact that the government of Narendra Modi is popular and that it won power through legitimate means.

What are the drivers of this process? The proximate explanation is simply that Indian democracy is electing to power an explicitly majoritarian government. The BJP’s stated ideology is to make Hindus a self-conscious political force and consolidate Hindu political and cultural power. It seeks to reclaim India as a Hindu nation and rescue it from what it regards as a thousand years of Hindu subjugation in three phases: first subjugation by Islamic rulers, then by the British, and after independence by a secular elite. It also seeks to reclaim a more authentically Indian idiom of discourse and politics. This involves a massive project of cultural engineering: rewriting history, renaming public spaces, marking more sharply the boundaries between the Western and the Indian, or between Muslim and Hindu. It is important to keep this ideological background in mind because a significant explanation for the decline in India’s freedom scores has to do with the domination of this ideology. Wherever you have a project that converts a pluralist society into an ethno-nationalist state, minorities will be targeted. The clampdown on civil liberties is justified in the name of nationalism: almost all dissenters from this ideology are marked as anti-national, which licenses their persecution. The political support for the abridgment of individual rights is mobilized in the name of nationalism.

You can ask a deeper question: Why is it succeeding? The standard story in most democracies that experience this kind of backsliding is that the center and the left, or anybody who is not aligned with the autocratic right, is fragmented, which allows for nationalist political strategies to succeed much more easily. In India today, there is no opposition leader even remotely able to match Narendra Modi in terms of individual charisma. Narendra Modi’s personal biography, as a leader who did not come from either economic or social privilege, allowed sections of marginalized groups to identify with him in a way that would have been impossible a decade ago. Political strategies and political communication do matter, and Modi’s ability to identify with the poor and the lower-middle classes is really quite remarkable. He has been able to construct the argument that most of the opposition represents a kind of corrupt, privileged, ancient regime that for seventy years kept India backward, with low ambitions, and prevented the majority from realizing its full political destiny. We always used to assume that, in India, the natural check on right-wing authoritarianism was the fact that India has lots of cross-cutting divisions (language, region, caste, and so on), which provided a natural distribution of social power. The joke in India used to be that people do not cast their vote, they vote their caste. But if you look at caste voting patterns now, they are much more evenly distributed across parties. One of the interesting things that has happened over the last fifteen or twenty years is that these social groups—that once were assumed to be “natural” checks and balances on Hindu consolidation and majoritarianism—are themselves becoming more strategic in orientation. This is partly a consequence of economic growth and greater political freedom. The dynamics of growth have created inequalities not only among caste groups but also within caste groups. So for example, the interest of different subgroups among the Dalits now diverges, based on their situation in the economy. This has made the relationship between caste and voting a lot more fluid, and has led to a greater individualization of decisions.

Additionally, Mr. Modi, unlike many of his right-wing colleagues across the world (e.g., Erdoğan or Bolsonaro), is actually competent in economic management. We are nowhere near the 10 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth the government claims, nor in an environmental paradise, nor are we seeing significantly reduced inequality. But the Modi government is a reasonably competent steward of the economy. India still enjoys relative macroeconomic stability, with inflation under control. A growth rate of close to 6 percent provides enough revenue—and political capital—to build a coalition that will support welfare reform.

The legal freedom subindex highlights two important stories. First, on bureaucracy quality and corruption, the massive expansion in state capacity in India in the last fifteen years has produced a movement from retail corruption to wholesale corruption. A lot of ordinary Indians now experience the state as being less corrupt. Previously, a large number of public services would be subject to corruption by bureaucrats. In part, this was allowed to continue because these bureaucrats contributed to systems of political corruption—the bottom-up networks created by political actors. One of the interesting results of economic growth has been that politicians have realized that you can easily make money and extract rents from just two or three sectors of the economy, like construction or defense. And you can now do it in a way that is much less inefficient than used to be the case. It also means that political parties have become more centralized, because now they do not have to rely on diffuse networks of patronage across the system. They can rely instead on particular relationships between state and capital to extract all the rents they want. So, in that sense, the corruption story is relatively good news. But this is accompanied by greater concentration of capital at the top, which may pose long-term challenges for small businesses.

Second, the judicial independence score reflects the real bad news story in the area of legal freedom. The Indian Supreme Court used to be considered one of the most independent supreme courts in the world, particularly over the last twenty years. But it has more or less abdicated its function as a custodian of political values. It has consistently delayed hearings on a range of constitutional cases that would have preserved the checks and balances of the current system. Here are just some of the cases in question: the electoral bond case, which has so far failed to improve the transparency of party donations; a range of federalism petitions relating to the status of Kashmir; and the constitutional validity of the government’s use of “money bills” as a legislative device, allowing it to bypass the upper house, even in nonmoney legislation. The Supreme Court is allowing Hindus to reclaim disputed shrines, the centerpiece of Hindu nationalism. The Supreme Court has more or less subordinated itself to government, going along with the administration’s ideological agenda, even if it puts minority rights at risk. The government’s attack on political freedoms and civil liberties could not happen without the cooperation of the judiciary, and again the way in which they cooperate is very artful. The Supreme Court basically does not hear politically sensitive cases. One example is the situation with a number of students from Jawaharlal Nehru University, imprisoned awaiting trial in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots. The Supreme Court has not heard even the case for bail for three years. The judiciary has improved on things like contracts, contract law, economic disputes, and so on. But on issues where the government’s ideological agenda or power is at stake, the judiciary has, in essence, ceded its authority. The decline in judicial independence is likely to be even more severe in reality than is captured by the indicator.

In terms of economic freedom, it is surprising that the score on the investment freedom indicator is not higher because, at least for domestic businesses, further domestic liberalization is generating a great deal of optimism. Two things might explain the data: First, we are at a juncture where the frameworks for both investment and trade are relatively uncertain. There is an ongoing discussion around the development model that India should follow. The uncertainty around India’s orientation to the global economy makes for domestic regulatory uncertainty. Second (and with more on this below), the current government has been successful in publicly producing some private goods such as roads or sanitation, but it has been unable to enforce other kinds of economic regulations that could sustain economic growth in the long run.

Finally, the overall evolution of the women’s economic freedom indicator is a fair reflection of the real picture, as this is an area that has improved significantly in the last decade in India. However, the drivers of this change are probably not those captured by the Index. The data shown in the figure mainly reflects the legal changes made in terms of working hours flexibility and maternity leave. But these legal reforms apply to a very limited number of firms, and thus cannot explain the significant improvement in women’s economic freedom. Instead, the real improvement in this area seems to come from the increase in access to basic goods such as sanitation, cooking gas, or drinking water, as captured by the progress of India on the Multidimensional Poverty Index. Progress in these areas truly impacts women’s economic freedom and produces a massive expansion of their economic potential.

From freedom to prosperity

India had a remarkable period of growth until 2009, with eight years of almost 8 percent GDP growth. From 2009 to around 2014, the economic situation is hard to assess because India experienced multiple shocks. Dealing with the financial crisis of 2009, the previous government left a remarkably broken financial system. Then the process of de-monetization significantly pulled income growth down. Another remarkable economic reform was the introduction of a single nationwide goods and services tax. In the long run it is likely to be very beneficial, as it raises government revenue more efficiently and cuts down on tax evasion, but in the short run it imposes severe costs on small businesses that are still struggling in some ways. Finally, we had the COVID-19 crisis. Despite all these events, GDP growth has not fallen below 5 percent in the last ten years. This is why there is some optimism about Indian growth.

Nonetheless, there are two noteworthy potential constraints on Indian economic development in the near future. The first is reflected in the recent decrease of the legal freedom subindex, as the tax and regulatory environment is still a lot more uncertain than investors would like. This is not because of a legislative desire to suppress legal freedom in these areas. It is more a function of the state’s inability to create regulatory clarity. The second has to do with the distribution of the growth dividend. The top 20 percent of India’s income distribution has probably done very well lately, as in most countries in the world. The bottom 20 percent has actually not done too badly, because of several welfare measures, as reflected in an improvement in the Multidimensional Poverty Index. It is actually the middle 40 percent that is struggling. India’s workforce is moving away from agriculture at a rate that might be expected. But the transition from low-productivity and low-paid work to high-productivity and better-paid jobs is proving elusive for the middle 40 to 60 percent. There are two reasons for this: First, the Indian economy is still very informal. The government has made attempts to bring more of the economy into the formal sector to increase scale, productivity, and access to credit. But the process of doing it, in the short run at least, raises the costs for very small informal businesses. Many of them are struggling. There is greater concentration of capital. Second, the employment elasticity of capital is rising. It takes more capital investment to create jobs. India’s growth path is still quite capital intensive. The result is high underemployment.

Progress on education is slower than it should be. The improvements in the quality of human capital will take eight to ten years to show up. There is considerable reason for optimism regarding the human capital issue, as it is less of a binding constraint in India than it used to be. The evolution of the health indicator in the Prosperity Index is an accurate reflection of reality, but again, there is a paradox here. One of the big successes of the Modi government has been to make health insurance available to large numbers of Indians. It is one of his flagship schemes and is quite remarkable. But the investment in public health is still clearly insufficient, and this is reflected in the dramatic drop in the indicator due to the COVID-19 crisis. Similarly, Mr. Modi has done very well on sanitation. More people have toilets and fewer Indians practice open defecation. That is a huge success. But in terms of building systems that can transport that sewage and reprocess it, we are not doing so well.

In terms of environmental regulations, there is again an interesting paradox. India is doing better than many peer countries on creation of renewable energy. Progress on solar, wind, and renewables has been remarkable. Yet, the government is at the same time enabling greater investment in coal. Also, the government is still unwilling to enforce some of the key environmental regulations that are already in place. Therefore, India has one of the most polluted environments in the world. All in all, on both environment and health, and despite progress, this government is unsuccessful at creating systems and processes that can account for market failures.

The future ahead

The evolution of political freedom in India is worrisome. In the next two or three years, there is a very high probability that political freedoms will decline even more. The way in which this government has empowered hate speech against minorities and co-opted the judiciary is very concerning.

We are at a big crossroads. It is the first time since 1975 that we must ask this question: Will there be a smooth transition of power? If it looks like this government is struggling and could lose the election, will it accept transition of power as smoothly as India has been used to? And here’s the catch-22: if this government wins, the majoritarian consolidation will be a continued threat to political freedom. But if it looks like it could lose, then the chances of resorting to extra-legal means to either hold on to power or ensure that its successor is not able to function will rise considerably. We can see evidence of this course of action in state elections which the BJP has been losing. In many of them, the BJP is deploying the central government’s power to break up the state governments that have been elected.

On the economic prosperity front, I think there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic. Yet, there is a politically problematic take on the situation: I do not think the harm to political freedoms is going to translate into an economic penalty for India. Large parts of Indian capital and foreign investors may not care. If they can make money, they will come. This has always been the case; it is the blunt truth.

Whether improvements on prosperity will be enough to overcome the structural problem of the middle 40 to 60 percent remains an open question. This group cannot be satiated by welfare expenditure. But nor does it fully participate in the gains of growth. It is also worth remembering that India is a highly diverse federal country. Peninsular states of south India have historically done much better and have per capita incomes 50 percent higher than the rest of the country. North Indian states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are still lagging in growth, and that is where most of the poverty is now concentrated. Most of these states present no real challenge to Hindu nationalism as an ideology, but they may resent moves towards greater economic centralization. So India will have to manage the political challenge of a geographically unequal society. This could work for democracy in two opposing ways. On the one hand, federalism can check the centralizing tendencies of Indian democracy. On the other hand, it could exacerbate political conflict and deepen the yearning for authoritarianism.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta is senior fellow and a former president of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and Laurence Rockefeller Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University. He was previously vice chancellor of Ashoka University. He is the author of The Burden of Democracy (2003), co-editor of The Oxford Handbook to the Indian Constitution; India’s Public Institutions; and The Oxford Companion to Indian Politics. He was convenor of the Prime Minister of India’s Knowledge Commission (2005–07) and member of India’s National Security Advisory Board. He is also editorial consultant to the Indian Express and a fellow of the British Academy.

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Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

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It is impossible to put a price on this death and destruction, of course. Nevertheless, there is no escaping the financial dimension of Russia’s invasion. Every single month, Ukraine requires billions of dollars from partners to fund the war effort, balance the state budget, and keep its economy afloat. In the coming years, the bill for the reconstruction of the country is expected to be in excess of $500 billion. These are truly staggering sums. Making Russia pay would be the most sensible solution, from both a moral and practical perspective.

There is believed to be at least $300 billion in Russian assets currently frozen in the West. Discussions have been underway since the early stages of the invasion over possible mechanisms for handing these assets over to Ukraine. In recent months, the idea of using Russian funds to finance international support for Ukraine has gained momentum, with a range of parallel initiatives unfolding in the US, the EU (which holds the biggest share of frozen Russian assets), and among the G7 group of leading industrialized nations. Multiple different options are currently being explored, from directly transferring funds to Ukraine, to using frozen Russian assets as collateral for bonds.

It is now vital for individual countries to draw up and implement the necessary legislation at the national level, while also coordinating with global initiatives to create legally solid foundations for the transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. This task must be approached with a sense of urgency that reflects the scale of the challenges facing Ukraine, while also underlining Russia’s criminal responsibility for what is by far the largest and bloodiest European invasion since World War II.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Critics of asset seizures have argued that any attempt to hand over Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine could undermine faith in the international financial system while potentially deterring state bodies and private investors from the Global South from putting their money in the West. However, these concerns are overblown.

Much as the Kremlin would like to make this an issue of global confidence in Western financial institutions, any autocrats with major concerns would have been more likely to withdraw their money from Western jurisdictions in early 2022 when Russian assets were first frozen. That did not happen, in part due to recognition of the exceptional circumstances, and partly as there were no viable alternatives to Western currencies and assets. This remains the case, despite very public discussions over the possible seizure of Russia’s frozen assets.

Others have warned that Russia would almost certainly retaliate by confiscating assets belonging to Western governments and businesses. This, too, is not a serious argument against using Russia’s frozen assets to help Ukraine. The Kremlin is already applying a range of tools to seize Western businesses and assets located inside Russia, without any apparent need to justify such actions by pointing to the loss of its own frozen assets in the West. Companies that chose to invest in Putin’s Russia did so knowing this involved a high degree of risk. They cannot now realistically expect the international community to frame its response to Russia’s invasion around their narrow commercial interests, especially in light of the obvious ethical issues involved.

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From a pragmatic perspective, the argument in favor of seizing Russian assets and transferring them to Ukraine is compelling. Western support for Ukraine is expensive, with the international coalition of countries backing the Ukrainian war effort already contributing hundreds of billions of dollars over the past two years. As Ukrainian officials have rightly noted, this is not charity. On the contrary, Ukraine is fighting to defend the security and values of the entire Western world. If Russia is not defeated in Ukraine, the cost of stopping Putin will rise dramatically. It is therefore entirely reasonable to expect Western countries to back Ukraine financially.

At the same time, the very large sums involved are perhaps inevitably making Ukrainian aid an increasingly contentious domestic issue in countries across the West. Amid a widespread cost of living crisis and sluggish economic growth, many Western taxpayers are uncomfortable seeing so much money being sent to Ukraine. Kremlin allies are already seeking to exploit this mood, as are opponents of further Western aid to Ukraine. Using confiscated Russian assets would ease the burden on Western countries and silence critics who complain of paying the price for the Kremlin’s war.

Crucially, the seizure of Russia’s frozen assets is morally justified. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is widely acknowledged as a war of aggression and has been condemned in numerous UN votes. International investigators have documented evidence indicating thousands of individual Russian war crimes, while Vladimir Putin himself has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Failing to hold Russia financially accountable for the invasion would make a mockery of the entire notion of a rules-based international order.

Those expressing concerns over the legality of asset seizures or the possible implications for financial stability must recognize that time is running out. Their navel gazing is already preventing Ukraine from being able to defend itself properly and is costing Ukrainian lives on a daily basis. Urgent progress is particularly necessary as we are now approaching a period of geopolitical uncertainty, with an unprecedented number of elections set to take place around the world in the coming months.

Finding the right formula to fund Ukraine with Russia’s frozen assets should be an international priority. This will reduce the financial pressure on Western countries and undermine economic arguments against continued international support for Ukraine. Most of all, it should be pursued on moral grounds. Bringing Russians to justice for their crimes in Ukraine and transferring Russian assets located in the West to Ukraine are two very concrete steps to support Ukraine’s victory. States guilty of violating international law should be punished and held financially accountable. This would bolster the rules-based international order and send a clear message that any country embarking on wars of aggression can expect to pay a very high price for doing so.

Paul Grod is President of the Ukrainian World Congress.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Feb 15, 2024

Ukraine’s Black Sea success offers hope as Russian invasion enters third year

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea exposes the emptiness of Russia’s red lines and provides a road map for victory over Putin, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Feb 22, 2024

Putin’s unpunished Crimean crime set the stage for Russia’s 2022 invasion

By Mercedes Sapuppo

The West’s inadequate response to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea was a major blunder that emboldened Putin and set the stage for the biggest European invasion since World War II, writes Mercedes Sapuppo.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Feb 20, 2024

Outgunned Ukraine bets on drones as Russian invasion enters third year

By Mykola Bielieskov

As Putin’s invasion passes the two-year mark, tech-savvy Ukraine is betting on drones as the best way to overcome Russia’s increasingly overwhelming advantage in traditional firepower, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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