Freedom in the World 2025 The Uphill Battle to Safeguard Rights (FREEDOM HOUSE)

In countries where democratic forces have come to power after periods of antidemocratic rule, the new governments should pursue an agenda that protects and expands freedoms even as it delivers tangible economic and social benefits to citizens. Reforms should be undertaken without undue delay, but they should still be based on respect for fundamental rights and meaningful consultation with the affected groups. Other democratic governments, donors, and the private sector can do a great deal to help these transitions succeed. Responsive funding frameworks allow the international community to offer rapid and targeted support to countries at critical junctures, and they should be sustained or expanded.

• The rule of law is essential to addressing past abuses and securing the gains of any positive transition. All people and entities must remain equally accountable under the same laws, and legal proceedings must be free of improper political or economic influence. The rule of law is a prerequisite for the defense of fundamental freedoms, including the rights of minority groups, and for the creation of a fair economic and political playing field. A transparent and consistent legal system serves as a safeguard against corruption and nepotism, reduces risks for foreign investors, contributes to long-term economic growth, and ensures government accountability. By contrast, politically captured or corrupted courts can serve as a barrier to further democratic reforms. In the short to medium term, domestic reformers, with support and technical assistance from donors and the democratic community, should repair and strengthen the nomination processes for future judges, revise or repeal any existing laws that unduly constrain the formation of and operating environment for independent civil society organizations, and establish requirements for income and asset disclosures by public officials. Donors can work in tandem with national governments to build the capacities of the judiciary, the legislative branch, independent auditing and anticorruption bodies, and civil society groups, effectively bolstering legal reforms and strengthening the institutions that provide checks on executive authority.
   
• Domestic reformers and the international community must help newly elected governments deliver tangible social benefits and economic opportunities. When governments fail to deliver on material expectations, dissatisfied or excluded groups of citizens are more likely to lose faith in their elected leaders and embrace authoritarian alternatives. New leaders should promote small-business entrepreneurship and investment policies that strengthen the middle class, and the democratic community should reinforce positive reforms through development grants and loans, sovereign loan guarantees, and debt forgiveness. A longer-term effort to shift significant tax-and-spend authority to regional and local governments can also serve as a critical means of preventing future concentrations of political power. Especially when bolstered by fiscal transparency, integrity, and accountability mechanisms and support from donors and the private sector, such decentralization also brings governance closer to ordinary citizens, thereby improving public goods and services and deepening democratic culture.

There is no simple policy playbook for recovery after years of armed conflict or authoritarian rule. That said, countries emerging from such devastation must act swiftly to release all political prisoners, build or revitalize democratic institutions (including through constitutional reform if necessary), reform police and other security forces, organize and hold competitive multiparty elections, and ensure accountability for past human rights violations. To the greatest extent possible, democratic forces should remain united and committed to reforms that respect fundamental freedoms and pluralism, as well as to careful prevention of any further violence.

• Reconciling with the past is crucial for a peaceful and democratic future. Any crimes committed by the preceding authoritarian regime or during a related war or revolution should be investigated in a transparent and impartial manner, whether by reformed domestic institutions, international entities, or a combination thereof. Those found guilty of human rights abuses must be held accountable in accordance with the rule of law. Any path to reconciliation cannot be imposed from the outside and must be agreed upon by local actors in accordance with the country’s political context, history, and culture. Recognizing that accountability efforts can take years, if not decades, donors and democratic governments should be prepared to provide multiyear technical assistance and support to local civil society and legal experts during this delicate process. Democratic governments and donors should also partner with the new government and civil society groups to provide necessary rehabilitation and support to victims of past abuses.
   
• Policy priorities should include reforms to security forces, dismantling of units involved in systematic rights violations, and accountability for individual perpetrators. These steps will mitigate the chance of future violence and help address the grievances of victims. The remaining security and law enforcement bodies should receive clear instructions and training on the use of force against civilians, in line with international human rights standards. Officers must also protect populations at risk, including religious and ethnic minority groups, against any retaliatory violence. Security forces should ensure that recruitment and promotions are based on merit, rather than affiliation with previous elites, and that their ranks represent a cross-section of society. Democratic governments, donors, and multinational bodies can help provide guidance, oversight, and technical assistance.

Significant erosion of political rights and civil liberties within established democracies remains rare globally. But in countries where it has happened, elected leaders have driven the decline by undermining institutions that act as checks on their power, such as independent media, anticorruption authorities, and the judiciary, among others. To guard against future democratic backsliding, policymakers, legislators, jurists, civic activists, and donor communities should work to strengthen institutional guardrails and norms that serve to constrain elected leaders with antidemocratic or illiberal aims.

• Free media should be protected, and leaders’ attempts to silence their critics or unfairly promote friendly outlets should be called out and resisted. Common methods for subverting media freedom in democratic countries include government-backed ownership changes at critical outlets, regulatory and financial pressure, exertion of political influence over independent public media and regulatory bodies, and harassment of or threats against individual journalists. Whole-of-society responses, including solidarity among media outlets, are essential for raising public awareness of such political pressure and marking it as unacceptable in a democracy. Democratic governments and civil society must call out any use of SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation) and the targeting of journalists and media outlets with arbitrary and punitive administrative or criminal investigations. Donor initiatives meant to guard against those practices, such as Reporters Shield, should receive additional investment. Violence against journalists should also be met with zero tolerance and swift condemnation, and where appropriate, donors should provide emergency assistance to the affected individuals and their families. Authorities’ failure to identify and prosecute attackers, restrictions on media access, blocking of websites, and censorship on particular topics must all be publicly condemned. Business leaders should rally behind targeted outlets with advertising purchases and sponsorships. Government partiality toward politically loyal outlets—through boons such as lucrative state contracts, favorable regulatory decisions, and preferential access to state information—must be exposed and denounced. The international democratic community can reinforce domestic norms on media freedom with press statements, phone calls, meetings, letters, and the imposition of targeted sanctions on violators.
   
• Successful anticorruption enforcement and accountability requires a comprehensive, coordinated effort, both within and across democracies. Democracies should invest in prevention as well as enforcement, and strengthen both state and nonstate oversight mechanisms. They should ensure that anticorruption authorities are independent of political leaders and parties, and have sufficient resources to fulfill their mandate. Democratic governments should adopt and enforce strong regulations requiring public officials’ asset disclosures, preventing abuse of state resources, combating financial crime, ensuring the transparency and integrity of political financing, and advancing other key goals in accordance with international standards. Donors can provide technical assistance to legislative, judicial, and other institutional oversight efforts; civil society watchdog groups; and investigative journalists working to expose and prevent corruption. And since corruption has become globalized through the international financial system, democracies should backstop other countries’ anticorruption efforts by adopting and enforcing their own anti–money laundering policies, preventing foreign kleptocrats from using their banks, real estate, and legal jurisdictions to launder stolen money. Democracies should also impose targeted sanctions, including visa bans and travel restrictions, on corrupt foreign officials in a way that maximizes their impact.
   
• Competent, independent, and adequately resourced judicial bodies can rebuff political interference and maintain public trust in the courts. Judicial independence is a prerequisite for democratic longevity and the defense of fundamental freedoms. Any reform of the judiciary should therefore be carried out in line with international obligations and best practices, and in a manner that ensures the judiciary’s future strength and autonomy. Democratic governments should ensure that the appointment of judges is based on merit and qualifications, not political affiliation; that judicial salaries are adequate and cannot be reduced as a means of political pressure or augmented with excessive gifts and other forms of bribery; and that clear and enforceable codes of ethical conduct are established to guide judicial behavior and mitigate conflicts of interest. To supplement these measures, civil society, with support from donors as necessary, should work to educate the public on the importance of judicial independence in preserving the rule of law. Attempts to politically influence the judiciary, for example through bribes or attacks against judges, should be swiftly and publicly condemned, both domestically and by other democratic governments.

Nonstate armed groups—including rebel or partisan militias, terrorists, and criminal organizations—are responsible for much of the violence around the world, often fueling brutal wars, propping up authoritarian regimes, and co-opting democratic institutions. Because traditional diplomatic solutions to armed conflict are ill-suited to such groups, the democratic community must think creatively about how to increase security in the places where they operate.

• Multilateral sanctions should be imposed on individuals and entities affiliated with nonstate armed groups, and democracies should work to counter any attempts to evade the restrictions. More proactive collaboration among democratic allies is needed to dismantle the networks that sustain armed groups, whether through direct financial, material, or technological support or through illicit markets for goods and services. Because these groups often create shell corporations, stash money in accounts belonging to associates, and collaborate with authoritarian regimes, democratic governments and the private sector should work together with civil society and independent journalists to map their political and business contacts and close legal loopholes to improve compliance and enforcement. In addition to limiting nonstate armed groups’ resources, coordinated and targeted public sanctions can be a powerful tool for deterrence and accountability, particularly in conflict-affected countries where the local legal system is unlikely to provide justice. Democratic governments and donors should also continue to support avenues for accountability and independent fact-finding missions to document human rights abuses perpetrated by nonstate armed groups and other actors.
   
• International partners can help prevent violence and shrink the operating space for nonstate armed groups by mitigating the economic and political drivers of instability. Too often, the international community is merely reacting to violent conflicts and extremism and working to limit their humanitarian impacts. Once these problems have erupted, the costs of containment and de-escalation can be significant. Democratic governments and donors should therefore seek to address the root causes of instability in fragile states. Long-term stabilization efforts will require improvements in the relationship between state and society, investment in anticorruption mechanisms, more effective service delivery, professionalization of security forces, reformed judicial institutions that are able to deliver justice for conflict-related abuses, support for civil society organizations and their inclusion in public decision-making, and backing for independent media in the face of false information that can threaten peace and security. Such measures will allow state authorities to more readily fill gaps in governance that might otherwise be exploited by nonstate armed groups.
• All actors must uphold and abide by international law when responding to violence and conflict. States have a right to defend themselves and a duty to respond to violence by nonstate armed groups, but they also have good reasons to adhere to international law when doing so. The rule of law is essential to democracy and forms the foundation of international peace. War crimes and human rights violations only provoke further violence, in part by alienating the civilian populations from which nonstate armed groups seek to recruit. Democratic governments should hold state and nonstate perpetrators accountable for abuses through national and international courts, sanctions, and other punitive measures. International partners that provide military and security assistance to state armed forces should assess, as part of their ethical due diligence efforts, whether such resources are being used to carry out human rights abuses. Similarly, all parties to a conflict—whether state or nonstate actors—should allow for the safe delivery of humanitarian aid directly to civilians in need. Humanitarian aid saves lives and is vital for stabilizing conflict-affected environments, but it is often captured by authoritarian or nonstate combatants and used to serve their narrow interests. Any improper obstruction, diversion, or theft of aid should be met with strong condemnation and punitive sanctions by democratic governments. Under international law, neither foreign nor local aid workers should ever be targets in a conflict, and their rights must be respected. Donors should support and engage with local civil society organizations, as they are often the first to provide help to residents, have deep experience distributing aid in their countries, and are best positioned to understand the unique needs of vulnerable local populations.