BELÉM, Brazil, November 10 (IPS) – Because the world prepares for the subsequent COP30 summit, a quieter battle is raging in courtrooms. Strategic Lawsuits Towards Public Participation (SLAPPs) are the fossil-fuel trade’s new favorite weapon, turning justice techniques into devices of intimidation.
“Communicate out, and also you’ll pay for it”
On a moist morning in August 2025, two small environmental teams in Panama — Centro de Incidencia Ambiental and Adopta Bosque Panamá — came upon by way of social media that they had been being sued for “slander” and “crimes in opposition to the nationwide financial system.” Their offence? Criticising a port undertaking on the nation’s Pacific coast.
A couple of days later, throughout the border in Costa Rica, two environmental content material creators woke as much as discover their financial institution accounts frozen and salaries withheld. Their “crime” was posting movies a few tourism undertaking they stated was damaging Playa Panamá’s fragile shoreline.
In each circumstances, the message was simple: converse out, and also you’ll pay for it.
These are a part of a rising world pattern that’s significantly ominous as local weather activists, Indigenous defenders, and journalists push their calls for upon the upcoming COP30 negotiations. The battle to guard the planet more and more comes with a further value: defending your self in court docket.
SLAPPs: Lawsuits Designed to Scare, Not Win
The acronym sounds virtually trivial — SLAPP — however its impression is something however. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Towards Public Participation, a time period coined a long time in the past to explain authorized actions meant to not win on advantage however to intimidate, exhaust, and silence those that converse out on issues of public curiosity.
In accordance with Transparency Worldwide, “SLAPPs are often known as frivolous lawsuits or gag lawsuits, as they silence journalists, activists, whistleblowers, NGOs and anybody who brings information to gentle within the public curiosity.”
These usually are not simply lawsuits; they’re actually technique. They don’t have to win, they only want to empty your time, your cash, and your hope.
The claimants are normally highly effective, starting from firms, politicians, or buyers.
Within the Costa Rican case, the corporate linked to the Playa Panama tourism undertaking didn’t even allege materials hurt. But the court docket imposed “precautionary embargoes,” blocking bank cards, freezing wages, even limiting property rights, punishing by way of the method.
In Panama, the builders of the Puerto Barú port undertaking filed a prison grievance in opposition to environmental NGOs who had challenged the undertaking’s environmental impression evaluation earlier than the Supreme Courtroom. These challenges are nonetheless pending. Slightly than ready for the judiciary’s ruling, the corporate launched a separate authorized assault, accusing these NGOs of harming the nationwide financial system.
Observers name it “judicial intimidation.” The case triggered a number of alerts throughout the EU SEE Early Warning Mechanism, warning of a “chilling impact on civic participation.”
‘Sadly, in Panama, judicial harassment of journalists and activists by politicians and businesspeople is already widespread follow as a result of prison regulation permits it. Reform is required in relation to so-called crimes in opposition to honour and the grounds for seizure of belongings. Worldwide organisations such because the Inter-American Press Affiliation have warned about this,’ says Olga de Obaldía, government director of Transparency Worldwide – Panama Chapter, a nationwide member of the EU SEE community.
In Costa Rica, the embargoes imposed on content material creators Juan Bautista Alfaro and Javier Adelfang sparked outrage. Inside days, 72 organisations and greater than 3,000 people — from teachers to Indigenous leaders — signed an open letter condemning the motion as “an assault on public curiosity advocacy.”
The backlash labored: members of the Frente Amplio Occasion launched a invoice to limit using preventive embargoes in circumstances involving public curiosity speech.
However for these already focused, the harm – emotional, monetary and reputational – has already been accomplished.
We don’t simply see SLAPPs deployed in Latin America. Examples of SLAPPs as a method of lawfare by the wealthy and highly effective have been round for a very long time throughout the globe.
In Thailand, Thammakaset sued a number of members of the NGO Fortify Rights and different activists for denouncing abusive working circumstances. Nonetheless right this moment content material posted by communities or NGOs, and even feedback below native authorities posts, are sometimes picked up and turned into prison defamation circumstances.
Regardless of the existence of anti-SLAPP provisions within the Legal Process Code, experiences point out that they’re largely ineffective. The fixed menace of dealing with litigation based mostly on on-line content material disrupts CSO work and chills free speech.
Local weather Activism Underneath Stress
Because the world heads towards one other world local weather summit in Brazil – the place journalist Amanda Miranda faces a SLAPP by authorities officers for uncovering corruption – we face a paradox: whereas governments make guarantees about defending the surroundings, environmental defenders are being prosecuted for holding them accountable.
Brazil’s baseline snapshot on an enabling surroundings additionally highlights a associated pattern: environmental defenders are often framed as “anti-development,” a story used to delegitimise their work and undermine public assist. SLAPPs reinforce this technique. Past draining time and assets, these lawsuits inflict reputational hurt, serving as instruments in broader campaigns to discredit and silence critics.
In accordance with analysis from the Enterprise & Human Rights Useful resource Centre, the best variety of SLAPPs – virtually half of them – came about in Latin America, adopted by Asia and the Pacific (25%), Europe & Central Asia (18%), Africa (8.5%), and North America (9%). Almost three-quarters of circumstances had been introduced in international locations within the International South and 63% of circumstances concerned prison expenses. Moreover, most people and teams dealing with SLAPPs raised issues about tasks in 4 sectors: mining, agriculture and livestock, logging and lumber, and at last palm oil.
In an Worldwide Heart for Non-Revenue regulation – ICNL – examine on over 80 circumstances of SLAPPs throughout the International South, out of them “91% had been introduced by non-public firms or firm officers(…) 41% introduced by mining firms and (…) 34% introduced by firms related to agriculture.”
In accordance with information from the CASE Coalition, SLAPP circumstances have risen sharply in recent times: from 570 circumstances in 2022 to over 820 in 2023 in Europe alone. Round half of these focused local weather, land, and labor rights defenders. Fossil gasoline and extractive industries stay probably the most frequent initiators.
You will need to do not forget that these numbers under-represent the extent of SLAPP use, they’re based mostly on reported authorized circumstances and may’t embody the various circumstances during which the mere menace of a lawsuit was sufficient to silence earlier than submitting a grievance
The Enterprise & Human Rights Useful resource Centre has documented that firms linked to mining, tourism, and huge infrastructure tasks are more and more utilizing SLAPPs to paralyse critics forward of worldwide occasions like COP, when scrutiny intensifies.
The hazard of SLAPPs lies of their quietness. They occur behind closed doorways, in authorized language, removed from the marches and hashtags. The trials typically don’t even find yourself in lawsuits. But their impact is profound. Each frozen checking account, each unpaid authorized price, each public apology extracted below duress weakens the collective braveness wanted to carry energy to account.
Throughout areas, SLAPPs comply with the identical playbook: establish outspoken defenders, sue them on obscure expenses like “defamation” or “financial hurt”, drag the method out for years, win by exhausting, not convincing.
After all, the particular ways fluctuate by authorized context. In some international locations, sure expenses carry strategic benefits. For instance, within the Philippines, authorities often depend on severe, non-bailable allegations — together with expenses like unlawful possession of firearms — to maintain activists detained for prolonged durations.
The Philippines stays probably the most harmful nation in Asia for land and environmental defenders with frequent assaults linked to mining, agribusiness, and water tasks.
Political repression persists and civil society teams proceed to face “red-tagging” and SLAPPs, additional enabled by the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Anti-Cash Laundering Act of 2001, and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012.
Authorities have additionally used fabricated firearms and explosives expenses to focus on activists, journalists, and neighborhood leaders, typically accompanied by asset freezes, surveillance, and extended detention. In these settings, SLAPPs can “weaponise” the prison justice system itself to take away critics from public life solely.
SLAPPs have grow to be the invisible entrance of the local weather wrestle, a slow-motion suppression marketing campaign that not often makes headlines.
Ways to Struggle Again
In early 2024, the European Union adopted its first-ever Anti-SLAPP Directive, a milestone achievement after years of campaigning by journalists and civil society. It units out minimal requirements to stop abusive lawsuits and shield public participation.
However implementation stays unsure. The Vice-President of the European Fee, Vera Jourova, referred to as the Directive “Daphne’s regulation,” in reminiscence of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in 2017 whereas she was the sufferer of quite a few authorized proceedings in opposition to her, and whose tragic story helped increase consciousness of the problem.
Past the European context, related efforts to counter SLAPPs have emerged elsewhere, for instance in Colombia with the Guerra v. Ruiz-Navarro case. This case illustrates the significance of investigating sexual violence and abuse of energy, recognising it as a matter of public curiosity that warrants safety. This ruling units a powerful precedent in opposition to the misuse of courts to silence the press by influential figures and underscores that defending victims and informing the general public are acts of defending human rights.
In Indonesia, one other nation the place SLAPPs are being deployed, civil society teams proceed to advocate for stronger authorized protections, together with laws to guard from SLAPPs. A small step ahead got here in September 2024, when the Ministry of Atmosphere and Forestry issued Regulation No. 10/2024, on authorized safety for environmental defenders.
“Whereas the Ministry of Atmosphere and Forestry Regulation No. 10/2024 represents an preliminary step towards safeguarding environmental defenders, civil society organisations anticipate its efficient implementation, coupled with broader anti-SLAPP laws, to make sure complete safety in opposition to retaliatory lawsuits and foster a safe surroundings for public participation in environmental governance,” says Intan Kusumaning Tiyas of INFID, nationwide civil society platform in Indonesia.
Civil society teams are calling for motion on rapid priorities.
These embody stronger authorized safeguards by enacting strong nationwide anti-SLAPP legal guidelines that enable for early case dismissal, guarantee defendants can get well authorized prices, and penalise those that file abusive lawsuits.
Establishing solidarity and assist by way of regional and world networks can rapidly mobilise authorized help, psychological well being assist, and emergency funding for these focused.
Lastly, actions round visibility and accountability are wanted to convey SLAPPs into the general public eye and lift consciousness. SLAPPs must be framed not as abnormal authorized conflicts, however as violations of human rights that weaken an enabling surroundings for civil society, democratic participation and hinder local weather justice.
At COP30, negotiators will debate carbon credit and transition funds. However the true check of local weather dedication might lie in whether or not states shield the individuals defending rivers, forests, and coastlines from highly effective pursuits.
Civil society hopes to push a daring message into COP30 discussions: defending the surroundings requires defending those that defend it and supporting an enabling surroundings for civil society.
This text was written with the assist of the Forus crew, significantly Lena Muhs, and members of the EU SEE community.
IPS UN Bureau
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