New Opportunities in Monitoring Safety of Journalists through the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda

This study assesses the potential for increased and more standardised monitoring of a range of aspects of the safety of journalists. This is in the light of a specific indicator that has been agreed by the UN as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Sample

Comprehensive information that covers the breadth of the issue, and which also allows for the in-depth analysis of causes, consequences, and correctives over time ... is indispensable for awareness-raising and capacity-building, as well as for devising and operating mechanisms to ensure the effective protection of journalists and prosecution of their attackers.

Main Findings

Operationalising SDG indicator 16.10.1 on safety of journalists involves defining its terms and justifying these definitions in terms of international human rights standards. There is also further elaboration within the discourse of the SDGs, in what is termed the “metadata” about the indicator (UNSD, 2018a). A useful way to understand this metadata was signaled at a workshop on the indicator convened by UNESCO and OHCHR in Geneva in July 2017 (UNESCO, 2017d), namely a framing in terms of ‘who did what to whom, where and when, and with what effect.’ Recognising that there is thus a diversity of approaches to safety of journalists by different actors, triangulation across the different data sources requires attention to what criteria are used to identify diverse cases. Equally, where there are shared points between systems, it is possible for researchers to develop a composite picture drawing from the range of available information. At the same time, the SDG metadata, informed by the Universal Human Rights Index and ICCS frameworks, offers a typology of more standardized and generic categories, and it enjoys UN endorsement. This makes it an authoritative and central point that researchers can consider. It

Policy recommendations/implications

Other "harmful acts" against journalists can correlate to various International Criminal Code Statistics such as sexual violence, threat, coercion, and acts intended to induce fear or emotional distress, including harassment. In addition are acts that trespass against the person, including invasion of privacy (relevant to surveillance of journalists), bullying, cyberbullying and cyberstalking. UNESCO does not systematically have a granular monitoring at global scale of the other forms of attack beyond killings as listed in indicator 16.10.1 and “other harmful acts”, but there are opportunities at national level to feed into country-based monitoring and reporting systems on SDG 16.10.1.