Every day, people across the globe raise concerns about business-related harm to their communities, environments and rights, sometimes at great personal cost. These defenders face a range of attacks, including abuse of legal systems, to deter peaceful protest and stop their legitimate human rights work. Judicial harassment – including strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs – has made up more than half of the attacks against human rights defenders raising concerns about business practice since we began tracking in 2015. This form of abuse presents a grave threat to defenders’ participation in peaceful public discourse around operations and activities which affect their lives.

SLAPPs masquerade as legitimate lawsuits and are frequently initiated by a private party (such as a company, owner of a company, or employees at a company) against people and groups for exercising their rights to participate in, comment upon or criticise matters of public concern. SLAPPs are frequently filed after individuals or groups express a critique of the plaintiff’s activities, such as by publishing a report, engaging in a peaceful protest, posting on social media, or participating in an academic event. As well as diverting time away from human rights work, SLAPPs have a chilling effect on the exercise of freedom of expression, both by the defendant at issue and often for others wishing to speak out against abuse. Like other non-lethal forms of attack against human rights defenders, SLAPPs can also precede fatal violence or be accompanied by other forms of intimidation.

Identifying SLAPPs

SLAPPs typically bear several hallmarks. The first is that the remedies and sanctions sought are severely disproportionate to the conduct the lawsuit alleges. Second, plaintiffs use the litigation process to harass third-party critics (e.g. through the discovery process). Third, the lawsuit appears to be part of a wider public relations offensive designed to retaliate against, bully or intimidate critics and civil society. They typically exploit the inequality of financial and human resources available to corporations versus the targeted defendants. And because “SLAPPs are designed to turn the justice system into a weapon to intimidate people who are exercising their rights [and] restrain public interest in advocacy and activism”, vexatious lawsuits like these also put significant pressure on public resources and waste judicial systems’ time on superfluous legal processes.

SLAPPs are partly made possible by law firms and lawyers agreeing to bring and represent these cases on behalf of business actors. Nonetheless, the legal community has an ethical responsibility and an important role to play in stopping the abuse of the law to silence peaceful dissent. Lawyers should advise prospective or current clients not to bring SLAPPs against defenders and refuse to provide legal representation in such cases. Lawyers can also provide critical support to individuals and groups facing SLAPPs, who are significantly under-resourced compared with the plaintiffs, through pro-bono legal advice and representation.

Global update

Our first analysis of the state of SLAPPs in June 2021 revealed that powerful business actors abuse legal systems worldwide to intimidate and silence defenders who speak out against corporate harms. Between January 2015-March 2023, we identified 437 lawsuits that bear the hallmarks of SLAPPs brought or initiated by 144 business actors. (More information about our methodology is available here). The highest number of cases occurred in Latin America, followed by Asia and the Pacific.

Bosnia & Herzegovina: Female law students face defamation lawsuits

Malaysia: Environmental group sued for defending rivers & forests

In August 2021, the Resource Centre sought a response from Samling to these allegations. Samling stated the lawsuit aimed to prevent the spread of incorrect and negative impressions about the company and was not an attempt to prevent or hinder public participation in the certification process. SAVE Rivers’ rejoinder pointed out Samling’s lack of transparency, disregard for Indigenous-led forest conservation initiatives, failure to obtain free, prior and informed consent, and flaws in the available complaint mechanism. In June 2022, local communities in Penan successfully stopped Samling from logging in a nearby conservation area.

Recommendations

The scale of SLAPPs across the globe shows the need for urgent action to stop this abuse of legal systems. There has been positive progress – some countries have enacted anti-SLAPP laws, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights has issued guidance for States and business on the implications of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for protecting and respecting the vital work of human rights defenders, and civil society groups and defenders are to push back against this abusive tactic.

We call on States to fulfil their duty to protect the rights of defenders and for business actors and the legal community to respect the rights of defenders and avoid initiating SLAPPs. We recommend that:

Companies and investors:

Adopt and implement policy commitments which recognise the valuable role of defenders, reference specific risks to defenders, ensure effective engagement and consultation with defenders at all stages of the due diligence process, committing to zero-tolerance for reprisals throughout their operations, supply chains, business relationships and investments. Investors should review potential investees for their history of SLAPPs and avoid investing in companies with a track record of SLAPPs.

States:

Reform any laws that criminalise freedom of expression, assembly, and association, and pass and implement:

• Legislation recognising the right to defend rights and committing to zero-tolerance for attacks
• Anti-SLAPP legislation
• National laws to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, including mandatory human rights due diligence legislation, and consult with defenders at all stages of these processes

Law firms and lawyers:

Refrain from counselling and representing companies in SLAPP suits.

Bar associations:

Develop and update ethics codes to ensure SLAPPs are a sanctionable offence for members.

Detailed recommendations for all these actors to to address SLAPPs are available here.