December 2023 will mark three years since the EU adopted the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime. While the EU has used different types of sanctions for over 30 years, the EU’s Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime increases its power to hold crooked businessmen, politicians, and law enforcement officials accountable for human rights violations, particularly those suffered by girls and women, including one of the most egregious abuses—sexual and gender-based violence used as a weapon of war.
The European Union’s Use of Global Human Rights Sanctions in 2023, a new report from Open Society–Europe and Central Asia, provides a one-year review of how the sanctions have worked. While the report highlights successes, it also provides recommendations about how the sanctions can strengthen cooperation between the EU and civil society, increase the use of sanctions when women and girls are victims, and help develop an anticorruption framework to address corruption globally.
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The European Union’s Use of Global Human Rights Sanctions in 2023 (215.19 Kb pdf file)
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Evidence for Accountability
Q&A: How Open Source Evidence Is Challenging Abuses, Atrocities, and Disinformation
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Bellingcat has pioneered the use of open-source research to expose human rights abuses, atrocity crimes, and high-level corruption and other criminal activities involving governments, gangs, and other illicit actors.
Navalny’s Legacy
Night Country: The Mysterious Death of Alexei Navalny in Putin’s Russia
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Alexei Navalny’s death underscores the paradox of Russian power—that the voice of one man imprisoned and isolated in the Arctic should be such a threat.
Rethinking the EU
In an Age of Crisis, an Opportunity to Remake the EU
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From climate change to rising authoritarianism, Europe is facing a range of crises that threaten the way we live. The EU must seize the opportunity to reshape how it works and rethink what role it plays in a changing world.