How to Combat Transnational Repression
Transnational repression occurs when governments reach across borders to threaten, intimidate, and silence exiles and diaspora populations, suppressing dissent with methods ranging from online harassment to physical assaults and killings.
In an article titled “How to Combat Transnational Repression,” published in the Journal of Democracy, Citizen Lab researchers Siena Anstis and Marcus Michaelsen write about the lack of accountability for perpetrators of transnational repression.
Anstis and Michaelsen write that “existing legal frameworks and accountability mechanisms are constrained by immunity doctrines, territorial limits to jurisdiction, and geopolitical interests”, making it challenging for victims to get justice.
Further, impunity is not “just a failure of legal enforcement, but exposes deeper vulnerabilities in the protection that democracies afford” to those seeking refuge from repression and authoritarianism.
