Protecting the Right of Peaceful Assembly

What is it about?

This piece emphasizes that States have an obligation to protect and facilitate the right of peaceful assembly under international human rights law - specifically, Article 21 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. Drawing in particular on the jurisprudence and Concluding Observations of the UN Human Rights Committee from the Asia-Pacific region, it also looks ahead to the forthcoming publication of General Comment No. 37 on the Right of Peaceful Assembly. This important document will provide the normative scaffolding for the exercise of this right - and for those seeking to hold governments to account for violations of it - for many years to come.

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Why is it important?

Written against the backdrop of the aggressive and violent policing of protests in Hong Kong, this piece focuses on the Asia-Pacific region. Its key point, however, is of wider relevance - the police must see their own role as being to protect and facilitate peaceful assemblies, not to 'manage' or 'control' the exercise of this fundamental right.