Freedom of Opinion and Expression

A/HRC/RES/62/11View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2026.

What other versions does this mandate have?

5 versions · 2009–2026

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2026	A/HRC/RES/62/11	Freedom of opinion and expression	6,448	56%Compare
2024	A/HRC/RES/56/7	Freedom of opinion and expression	4,562	39%Compare
2022	A/HRC/RES/50/15	Freedom of opinion and expression	3,310	38%Compare
2020	A/HRC/RES/44/12	Freedom of opinion and expression	2,419	14%Compare
2009	A/HRC/RES/12/16	Freedom of opinion and expression	2,205	–

What subjects does this mandate have?

8 subjects

Access to Information Corporate Social Responsibility Digital Technology Disinformation Freedom of Expression Freedom of Information Freedom of the Press Human Rights

What’s in this document?

40 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and also reaffirms that States shall respect, protect and fulfil the rights contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in particular the right to freedom of opinion and expression, online and offline, which includes the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art or through any other media of one’s choice, and the intrinsically linked rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief, peaceful assembly and association and the right to vote and take part in the conduct of public affairs;

Stresses that a democratic society depends on respect for human rights, including the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and calls upon States to refrain from imposing undue restrictions on the freedom to seek, receive and impart information that undermine democracy and the rule of law by preventing efforts aimed at informing citizens, including during democratic processes and at all stages of elections, and holding public authorities accountable and exposing corruption, and also stresses the importance of promoting a safe and diverse information environment that produces accurate, trustworthy and reliable information, meaning that people can rely on the accuracy of the information they access while being exposed to a variety of ideas;

Expresses its continuing concern that violations and abuses of the right to freedom of opinion and expression continue, often with impunity, and calls upon States to prevent and address such violations and abuses, including those that are facilitated and aggravated by the abuse of states of emergency, the misuse of overbroad or vague laws to repress freedom of expression, and unlawful or arbitrary surveillance and/or interception of communications, including through digital surveillance technologies, and to ensure victims-survivors of violations and abuses have access to an effective remedy and that those responsible are brought to justice;

Strongly condemns the threats, reprisals, harassment and violence against, both online and offline, including through repressive activities conducted abroad by States, or actors under their effective control, and the targeting, criminalization, intimidation, arbitrary detention, torture, disappearance and killing of any individual, including journalists and other media workers, academic communities, artists and cultural workers, human rights defenders, including environmental human rights defenders, all women and girls, and individuals in vulnerable situations and/or belonging to marginalized groups, including persons belonging to national, ethnic, linguistic and religious or belief minorities, for exercising and advocating for their human rights and fundamental freedoms, for reporting and seeking information on human rights violations and abuses or for cooperating with national, regional and international mechanisms, including in relation to economic, social and cultural rights, which have increased and are not adequately punished, in particular where public authorities are involved in committing such acts, and including when such acts are committed in situations of crisis or armed conflict;

Expresses its deep concern at all forms of discrimination, intimidation, harassment and violence, both online and offline, that prevent women and girls from fully enjoying their human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and the right to privacy, in accordance with States’ obligations under international human rights law, that hinder their full, equal, safe and meaningful participation in economic, social, cultural and political affairs and are an impediment to achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls;

Underlines that connectivity, access to information and communications technology and the promotion of open and secure digital access and digital inclusion, including through digital, media and information literacy, are critical for the enjoyment of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and to bridge the digital divides, and encourages diverse and human rights-respecting technological solutions to advance connectivity, including by creating an enabling, inclusive and effective regulatory environment for small, non-profit and community Internet operators;

Calls upon all States:

To promote, protect, respect and ensure the full enjoyment of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, both online and offline, and to take all measures necessary to put an end to and to prevent violations and abuses of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including by ensuring that relevant national legislation complies with their international human rights obligations and is effectively implemented;

To refrain from committing, co-opting or condoning repressive acts abroad, online or offline, and ensure that all such acts on their territory are investigated and prosecuted promptly, fully and effectively, including, where applicable, reviewing, revising or adopting national laws to allow for the prosecution of the perpetrators and facilitators of repression abroad;

To promote, protect, respect and ensure all women’s and girls’ full enjoyment of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, both online and offline, without distinction or discrimination of any kind, to counter all violence or threats of violence faced while exercising this right, including technology-facilitated gender-based violence, while enhancing their efforts to ensure women have meaningful, free, open, interoperable, reliable and secure access to the Internet, in line with commitments made under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and to take appropriate measures as part of their national development plans to eliminate gender stereotypes, negative social norms and discriminatory attitudes through legislative measures, social policies and educational programmes;

To strengthen measures to ensure that persons with disabilities can exercise the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas on an equitable basis and through all forms of communication of their choice, including through the provision of accessible and affordable formats and technologies;

To enable everyone, including journalists and other media workers, members of academic and artistic communities, human rights defenders, and other civil society actors, to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression, including by taking effective measures, such as prevention and protection mechanisms, to ensure their safety both online and offline, and to protect in law and in practice the confidentiality of journalists’ sources, including whistle-blowers, in acknowledgement of the essential role of journalists and those who provide them with information in fostering government accountability and an inclusive, democratic and peaceful society;

To respect the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the media, in particular editorial independence, to promote a pluralistic approach to information and multiple points of view, inter alia by encouraging a diversity of ownership of media and of sources of information, including mass media, and by promoting the economic sustainability of media, to promote diverse, resilient and sustainable information ecosystems, including by strengthening independent and public media and supporting journalists and media workers, and to refrain from the use of imprisonment or the imposition of fines for offences relating to the media where such measures are disproportionate to the gravity of the offence, and to take note of the Windhoek+30 Declaration;

To develop, adopt and implement, in consultation with civil society and journalists’ organizations, national action plans based on human rights obligations and tailored to online as well as offline issues, to advance the freedom, independence and pluralism of the media; to set up prevention and protection mechanisms for the safety of journalists, and to promote awareness about human rights law and human rights standards and best practices;

To refrain from creating or disseminating false or misleading information, which can be designed and spread so as to violate or abuse human rights, including the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to privacy, in accordance with States’ obligations under international human rights law, and to take appropriate and proportionate measures to mitigate risks arising from disinformation, including by preventing its spread and amplification and addressing information manipulation, in a manner consistent with international human rights law, noting such risks may impact the integrity of democratic processes and the broader information integrity ecosystem, while stressing that responses to the spread of disinformation must be compliant with international human rights law;

To support relevant efforts promoting the right to freedom of opinion and expression that strengthen the resilience of societies against the impact of disinformation and misinformation at all levels, including through digital, media and information literacy, education and inclusion;

To facilitate an environment supportive of addressing disinformation through multidimensional and multi-stakeholder responses that are in compliance with international human rights law, including through enhanced cooperation with international organizations, civil society, the media, the private sector and other stakeholders;

To encourage business enterprises, including social media companies and developers, providers and deployers of artificial intelligence systems, to address disinformation while respecting human rights, including through the review of business models, in particular the role of algorithms and ranking systems, recommender systems, targeted advertising and artificial intelligence-enabled content moderation, curation and generation in amplifying disinformation, enhancing transparency, enabling independent research, providing accessible information to users about content governance policies and automated decision-making systems, ensuring notice and meaningful appeal mechanisms for content governance decisions, enforcing all applicable legal protections for users and encouraging human rights due diligence in line with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights;

To take measures to prevent human rights violations and abuses enabled by artificial intelligence systems and to refrain from or cease the use of artificial intelligence applications that are impossible to operate in compliance with international human rights law or that pose undue risks to the enjoyment of human rights, including artificial intelligence applications that generate synthetic media, unless and until the adequate safeguards to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms are in place;

To adopt and implement laws and policies to ensure easy, prompt, effective and practical access to information held by public entities, including online, via both enabling requests for information and encouraging the proactive disclosure of information, including on grave violations and abuses of human rights, while ensuring that the grounds for refusing access to this information are narrowly defined;

To take appropriate steps to bridge the digital divide and to ensure genuine access by all to communications and digital technologies;

To ensure that measures for the respect of the rights or reputations of others and the protection of national security, including counter terrorism, public order and public health are in full compliance with international human rights obligations, including the principles of lawfulness, legitimacy, necessity and proportionality, and also stress the need to protect human rights, including the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the right to privacy, in accordance with States’ obligations under international human rights law, and safeguarding personal data;

To refrain from imposing new restrictions, and to lift existing ones, on the free flow of information and ideas that are inconsistent with international human rights law, including through practices such as the use of Internet shutdowns and restrictions, including the blocking of access to communication platforms and throttling and filtering measures, and other forms of online censorship, to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or the dissemination of information online, the banning or closing of publications or other media and the abuse of administrative measures, criminalization and censorship, and the restriction on access to or use of information and communications technology, inter alia, radio, television and the Internet;

To ensure that defamation and libel laws are not misused, in particular through criminal sanctions, to censor journalists, media outlets and human rights defenders, among others, and interfere with their mission of informing the public, and where necessary to revise and repeal such laws, in compliance with States’ obligations under international human rights law;

To adopt and implement measures that protect journalists, media outlets and human rights defenders, among others, from strategic lawsuits against public participation, such as laws and policies that prevent or alleviate these cases, including by allowing early dismissal, upholding the protection and defence of public interest and ending so-called forum shopping, and providing legal support for victims;

To ensure that targeted surveillance technologies are only used in accordance with the human rights principles of lawfulness, necessity and proportionality, and that legal mechanisms of redress and effective remedies are available for all individuals, particularly victims of surveillance-related violations and abuses;

To ensure that biometric identification and recognition technologies, including facial recognition technologies, are not used by public and private actors for mass surveillance, and are used only when consistent with international human rights law and the principles of lawfulness, necessity and proportionality, and also to ensure access to remedies for human rights violations and abuses arising from biometric identification and recognition technologies;

To adopt, implement and, where necessary, reform laws, regulations, policies and other measures concerning personal data and privacy protection online in order to prevent, mitigate and remedy the arbitrary or unlawful collection, retention, processing, use or disclosure of personal data on the Internet that could violate human rights and deter individuals from the full exercise of their right to freedom of opinion and expression;

Encourages all business enterprises, including technological intermediaries and social media platforms, to meet their responsibility to respect all human rights as stated in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and in other applicable standards, including by actively contributing to initiatives aimed at fostering respect for the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including through avenues for remedy and legal protection for users, and by ensuring the greatest possible transparency in their policies, standards and actions that have an impact on the freedom of opinion and expression, privacy and data protection;

Also encourages business enterprises, including communications service providers, to work towards enabling solutions to secure and protect the confidentiality of digital communications and transactions, including measures for encryption, pseudonymization and anonymity, and to ensure the implementation of human rights-compliant safeguards, and calls upon States not to interfere with the use of such technical solutions, with any restrictions thereon complying with States’ obligations under international human rights law, and to enact policies that protect the privacy of individuals’ digital communications;

Calls upon business enterprises to conduct human rights due diligence, including regular, comprehensive human rights impact assessments of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, throughout their entire life cycle, in order to prevent and mitigate their adverse human rights impacts, and ensure effective remedies as well as human oversight, accountability and legal responsibility;

Also calls upon all business enterprises, including surveillance technology companies, to publicly affirm and fulfil their responsibility to respect human rights in line with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and to conduct and publicly disclose robust human rights due diligence for all proposed transfers of surveillance technology and refrain from exporting surveillance technology if there is a significant risk that it will be used to commit human rights violations and abuses, and to ensure their policies, including content curation and moderation policies, are fully aligned with international human rights law and standards, inter alia the right to freedom of opinion and expression;

Reaffirms that article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law;

Stresses the importance of prohibiting, in accordance with States’ obligations under international human rights law, all intentional acts of incitement to discrimination, hatred, hostility or violence, and further combating such acts by promoting understanding, education and dialogue;

Recognizes that the open public debate of ideas, as well as interfaith and intercultural dialogue at the local, national and international levels, can be among the best protections against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and can play a positive role in strengthening democracy and combating national, racial or religious hatred;

Invites the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the working groups, representatives and special procedures of the Human Rights Council and the treaty bodies to pay attention, within the framework of their mandates, to the situation of persons whose right to freedom of opinion and expression has been violated;

Encourages the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to enhance investigative expertise, in accordance with its mandate, to strengthen efforts to address impunity for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law against journalists, including by coordinating the collection, preservation and analysis of evidence to maximize the possibility of its admissibility in legal proceedings and/or to facilitate judicial cooperation, and to do so in consultation with the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression;

Requests the Office of the High Commissioner, in consultation with the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as well as other relevant United Nations bodies and experts, to conduct open, transparent and inclusive online consultations, including with States, national human rights institutions, civil society and business enterprises, among other relevant stakeholders, and, drawing on international human rights law and relevant human rights standards, prepare a comprehensive study on emerging and transnational threats to the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including challenges arising from the misuse of new and emerging digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, as well as from the impact of legislative measures adopted in response to these threats, and to present the study to the Human Rights Council at its sixty-seventh session;

Reminds States of the possibility of seeking technical assistance upon their request if needed, including from the Office of the High Commissioner, to better promote and protect the right to freedom of opinion and expression;

Decides to continue its consideration of the issue of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in accordance with its programme of work.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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