Repression of Civil Disobedience: Pathways to Protect Activists

[Dr Marco Perolini works for the Global Law and Policy Programme of Amnesty International. He is a research and policy specialist in the areas of civic space, the criminalization of dissent, and intersectional discrimination. 

Daniel Canales Anzola is a human rights consultant and researcher with over a decade of experience in the not-for-profit sector. He has led investigations and authored reports on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.]

Civil disobedience is increasingly criminalized worldwide, despite its vital role in confronting government and corporate abuses, especially amid the climate crisis and other human rights emergencies. This post identifies three legal strategies that can counter punitive state responses and protect activists: invoking the necessity defence, asserting freedom of expression, and leveraging protections stemming from the right to a healthy environment. Strengthening and expanding these strategies offers a blueprint for defending activists and resisting the criminalization of civil disobedience.

Around the world, today as much as in the past, people choose to break the law in pursuit of social, economic, and racial justice, especially in the face of rampant human rights abuses by governments and corporations. From Henry David Thoreau’s refusal to pay taxes in protest against slavery and the genocide of Native Americans in the 19^th century, to the Salt March in India in the 1930s against the British ban on producing salt locally, to Rosa Parks’ refusal in 1955 to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama (United States) in defiance of racial segregation, civil disobedience has been a key tactic to challenge slavery, colonialism, and racism. 

Today, the climate emergency, the genocide in Gaza, austerity measures, homophobia and transphobia, and the deadly consequences of migration policies are among the pressing issues motivating people to engage in civil disobedience, which entails acts that, although peaceful, deliberately breach the law for reasons of conscience. 

These acts—including, for example, trespassing on private property, interrupting the operations of companies causing environmental harm, or blocking traffic— are often met with arrests, prosecutions, and harsh penalties. In the United Kingdom, for example, 16 Just Stop Oil activists were convicted of public nuisance and criminal for four different acts of civil disobedience, including throwing soup on the Van Gogh’s Sunflower painting in October 2022 and blocking the M25 motorway in November 2022, receiving sentences ranging from fifteen months to five years. In March 2025, the Court of Appeal slightly reduced the sentences of six activists, while dismissing the appeals of the others. 

State authorities often justify punitive responses to civil disobedience in the name of public interest, to deter other people from committing similar acts in the future or to provide remedies to those who suffered damages. However, as we argue in this post, prosecuting and sanctioning individuals for civil disobedience, which is non-violent by definition, is often not in the public interest. 

Over the past year, we have worked with partners within the Campaign to Decriminalize Poverty, Status and Activism to review dozens of cases and spoken with organizations, lawyers, and human rights defenders across Australia, the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Southern Africa to identify strategies that can be used to counter the rising criminalization of civil disobedience. We have identified three strategies that have, in some instances, proven effective in courts. Amplifying these strategies has the potential not only to resist punitive state power but also foster alliances among diverse actors mobilizing for change.  

The Necessity Defence 

In 2009, a court in Peru acquitted twenty-four Indigenous protesters belonging to the Andoas Native Community who, in March 2008, had occupied the airfield and offices of an oil company. The court recognized that they had acted out of necessity, in light of the structural marginalization and the state’s failure to address their environmental concerns and protect their labour rights. 

Many jurisdictions in countries other than Peru, such as Argentina and France, allow defendants to invoke a necessity defence, based on the argument that their choice to act unlawfully was necessary to prevent a greater and imminent threat, and other reasonable, law-compliant options were not available. 

However, it has proven particularly difficult for human rights defenders to successfully invoke the necessity defence in criminal trials because courts often interpret the required criteria for its use very narrowly. For example, in some cases against environmental defenders, such as the one against three activists in Belgium for allegedly removing advertising banners, , courts have ruled that their acts did not directly contribute to addressing the climate emergency, overlooking their role in raising public awareness or influencing decision-making processes. 

In some countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, judges have instructed juries not to take into account the necessity defence raised by activists during their trials, further exposing them to disproportionate state responses for their peaceful activism. 

In spite of these difficulties, the necessity defence has protected activists from criminal sanctions and secured their acquittal in a number of cases. In 2016, for example, several activists blocked the construction of the gas pipeline in Boston (United States) by entering the construction site, chaining themselves to the machinery, and refusing to leave. Sixteen of them were charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. During the trial, they invoked the necessity defence which the judge accepted in 2018. In another case in 2021, a jury in London (United Kingdom) acquitted six activists who had targeted the headquarters of an oil company with spray paint to raise awareness of its role in fuelling the climate emergency, as the jury accepted their necessity defence despite the judge instructing against it. 

More recently, in February 2025, a court acquitted six environmental defenders who, in May 2023, had blocked the road and river traffic in the city of Le Havre (France) to protest the construction of a new floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. The court emphasized that blocking traffic was necessary to raise the awareness among the media and the general public of the planned gas terminal, which contradicted France’s commitment to reduce its investments in fossil fuels. The judges found that blocking traffic was a proportionate response to the threat posed by the climate emergency, especially given that the activists were peaceful and their acts did not cause any damage to property. 

In an interview, Libre, one of the activists involved in the protest, told us that she and the other activists invoked the necessity defence because: “the state is not taking measures to address the crisis. If we don’t act, we put ourselves in danger. We said we shouldn’t be here doing this, but the state isn’t protecting us, so it’s up to us to act because the state is not doing its job”. She added: “It’s very important that courts acknowledge that what we do is necessary; this should push the state to act to address the situation.”

Freedom of Expression

Collective acts of civil disobedience are protected by both the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Human rights defenders have sometimes successfully argued that the criminalization of their acts unduly restricted their right to freedom of expression, even if they broke the law. 

Regional human rights courts have often emphasized that criminal sanctions are likely to have a chilling effect on freedom of expression and that criminal law should be used as a last resort, especially in cases where people exercise their rights peacefully. Domestic courts have reiterated these principles. For example, the French Court of Cassation has repeatedly ruled that lower courts must assess in each case whether imposing criminal sanctions on human rights defenders would disproportionately restrict their freedom of expression. These decisions have paved the way for the acquittal of human rights defenders by lower courts in instances where they, for example, blocked highways or caused non-serious damage to property. 

Similarly, in 2023, a court in Belgium decided not to impose any sanction on activists who had allegedly removed large banners advertising electric SUVs to oppose tax incentives for these vehicles. The court considered that punishing them for theft and attempted theft would violate their right to freedom of expression. The appeal on this case is currently pending. One of the activists explained to us the importance of confirming the decision on appeal: “If we succeed in confirming the decision on appeal, it means that our arguments are accepted, that our acts are accepted and this is important because other activists will get involved, those who agree with us, and this is key for achieving social change.”

The Right to a Healthy Environment 

Despite existing human rights standards regarding the importance of public participation in tackling the climate crisis, states often hinder the efforts of environmental human rights defenders, including by targeting them with criminalization. In May 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights reiterated that states have a special duty of protection toward environmental defenders, stemming from the broad right to defend human rights. This duty entails recognizing the role of environmental HRDs, guaranteeing them a safe and enabling environment, and investigating and punishing attacks against them.

Some countries have embedded the protection of environmental defenders in their national environmental laws. In Indonesia, for example, the 2009 environmental law has sometimes played a key role in protecting defenders. The law includes a provision stating that no one defending the right to a healthy environment can be criminally prosecuted or sued before a civil court. The authorities have strengthened the implementation of the law by passing additional regulations in 2023 and 2024, which have introduced some protection against lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) and underscored that informing the public of environmental harms is a protected act. 

These safeguards have secured, for example, the acquittal of Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan, an environmental defender engaged in a public campaign against illegal shrimp ponds in Karimunjawa—an archipelago off the northern coast of Java—which caused significant environmental harm through coastal pollution and waste discharges and threatened the livelihoods of local fishermen. Daniel was charged for hate speech under the controversial Electronic Information and Transactions Law because of his replies to comments criticising the campaign on Facebook. In spite of Daniel’s speech not constituting advocacy of hatred, the threshold according to which states may criminalize hate speech, the High Court ruled that it did. However, it recognized Daniel as a defender of the right to a healthy environment protected by the 2009 law and therefore acquitted him. In October 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the acquittal based on the same reasoning.  

Conclusions 

Activists who peacefully challenge injustice by breaking the law often face prosecution and criminal sanctions. Judicial authorities must take into account the public interest these activists pursue and the motives behind their acts to avoid disproportionate responses that violate human rights. For instance, blocking a company’s operations may cause some financial loss or reputational damage, yet the environmental harm caused by the company may far outweigh these losses. In the face of government inaction, activists may act to raise public awareness of the climate crisis and the failures of state and corporate actors to respond effectively and urgently. 

Prosecuting and imposing criminal sanctions on activists engaging in civil disobedience is often not in the public interest. Therefore, it is important to advance strategies that draw on public interest arguments to secure their acquittal or, at least, to protect them from criminal sanctions, especially imprisonment, which should generally be avoided in these cases. 

Three strategies have sometimes proven successful to counter the criminalization of civil disobedience. First, invoking the necessity defence to argue that specific law-breaking acts addressed an urgent threat—a particularly compelling argument in the context of, for example, the climate crisis or the genocide in Gaza. Second, foregrounding freedom of expression by contending that criminal sanctions would disproportionately restrict this right. Third, asserting the right to defend the right to a healthy environment—particularly where such right is recognized and protected under domestic laws. Expanding the scope of these strategies and testing them in different jurisdictions could be part of a blueprint that enhances the protection of human rights defenders from criminalization.