Authoritarian states are on offense within the world’s multilateral institutions, and it is time for democracies to play more than just defense. Given the increase in authoritarian influence worldwide and in struggling democracies that constitute these institutions, the stakes are high for the international human rights system. In a July 10 article for Just Security, Dr. Rana Siu Inboden, a senior fellow with the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at The University of Texas at Austin, examines how authoritarian regimes exploit multilateral institutions to further their illiberal goals and how democracies can work together to uphold the system and hold abusers accountable. In Just Security and in the Forum’s report on the subject, Dr. Inboden argues that democracies must participate more actively in multilateral institutions’ elections, attract a diverse and cross-regional range of partners, mobilize transnational civil society networks to drive a democratic agenda, and develop new tools to document and expose authoritarian attacks on accountability mechanisms.  

Read Dr. Rana Siu Inboden’s article at Just Security.  

Read the newly released report “Defending the Global Human Rights System from Authoritarian Assault: How Democracies Can Retake the Initiative,” published by the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy.  

Watch the launch event recording for the report. 

The views expressed in this, and mentioned posts represent the opinions and analysis of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for Democracy or its staff. Image Credit: Ana Maria Serrano/Getty Images.