Joint Statement on the Day of the Endangered Lawyer

Today, January 24th, marks the International Day of the Endangered Lawyer. In recognition of endangered lawyers around the world, we, the undersigned, express our deep alarm at the growing repression of lawyers worldwide for the legitimate exercise of their professional duties. Attacks on lawyers strike at the very heart of the rule of law, deny victims meaningful access to justice, and enable wider assaults on human rights and democratic institutions.

Today, we recall that lawyers have become a deliberate target of authoritarian regimes globally.

In Russia, the regime of Vladimir Putin has moved to punish not only opponents but also those who defend them. One year ago this month, to cite just one example, lawyers Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser, and Igor Sergunin, members of the defense team of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, were sentencedto an average of four and a half years in prison on fabricated extremism charges simply for carrying out their ordinary professional duties. Since then, Russia has intensifiedits harassment of lawyers, most recently arresting human rights attorney Maria Bontsler in May 2025.

In Turkey, following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in March 2025, the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has increasedpressure on the legal profession. Lawyers who defend protesters face arrest, bar associations confront political interference, and their leaders are smeared through unfounded accusations of propaganda.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban's seizureof the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association and the transfer of licensing to the Ministry of Justice effectively stripped thousands of lawyers of their right to practise, with women lawyers almost entirely excluded from the profession.

In Iran, recent reports showa pattern of state capture of bar associations, politically motivated prosecutions, and gender specific persecution of women lawyers, which together erode fair trial guarantees for all.

In Tanzania, legal advocates have faced systemic oppressionfrom the government, including oppression under the Advocates Act, which gives the executive branch power to manage the legal profession and control over disciplinary measures against lawyers.

In China, the regime systematically cracks downon human rights lawyers, using vague national security laws and administrative controls to dismantle the independent legal profession.

These examples are a part of a wider and well-documented trend. Lawyers are disbarred, disciplined, arbitrarily detained, prosecuted, forced into exile, subjected to surveillance and harassment, and in some cases killed, precisely because they seek to uphold the rights of their clients, including human rights defenders, opposition leaders, journalists, women, minorities, and other marginalized communities.

Despite this, lawyers continue to perform a crucial function. Even in countries without an independent and impartial judiciary, where judicial outcomes are largely predetermined, lawyers document abuses, create records of testimonies and verdicts, and preserve evidence that can one day support accountability. Their efforts also enable recourse to international and regional mechanisms once domestic remedies have been exhausted or shown to be ineffective. As the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers recognized in her 2024 report, "justice systems play an essential role in safeguarding democracy, and the work of those justice systems is carried out by people. To protect the rule of law and democracy, we must protect those people."

Justice is never won easily. But it cannot be won at all if those who defend it are left defenseless.

On May 13, 2025, the Council of Europe (CoE) Convention on the Protection of the Profession of Lawyer openedfor signature. This is the first international treaty specifically designed to safeguard lawyers from threats, harassment, and undue interference in their work. This is a historic breakthrough, but it will mean little if governments fail to give it real force. We call on all CoE member states to sign and ratify the Convention without delay and to implement it fully. We encourage states in other regions to develop complementary binding standards so that protection of the legal profession becomes a universal norm.

On this Day of the Endangered Lawyer, we further call on all states to:

1. End all forms of persecution, retaliation and harassment against lawyers for their professional activities, and release immediately and unconditionally all lawyers detained or imprisoned solely for representing clients or peacefully exercising their own rights.

2. Respect and implement the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers and ensure that lawyers can perform their functions independently, including through the protection of professional confidentiality and freedom from improper interference.

3. Guarantee the independence and self-governance of bar associations and other professional legal bodies, and refrain from using licensing, disciplinary procedures or security legislation as instruments of political control.

4. Provide effective protection for lawyers at risk, with particular attention to women lawyers and those working on politically sensitive cases.

5. Use appropriate international measures, including targeted sanctions and accountability mechanisms, against individuals and institutions responsible for serious violations of the rights of lawyers and systemic obstruction of fair trial guarantees.

No lawyer should be punished for defending a client. We honour the courage of all endangered lawyers working under threat, and we reaffirm our collective commitment to protect them and to uphold the right of every person to an independent defense and a fair trial.

Respectfully,

• Human Rights Foundation
• The Anti-Corruption Foundation
• The Arrested Lawyers Initiative
• Free Russia Foundation
• Freedom House
• Freedom Now
• George W. Bush Institute
• Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign
• Human Rights First
• Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice
• Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
• Elisa Massimino, Human Rights Institute, Georgetown Law
• Tatyana Eatwell, Doughty Street Chambers