Principle 1: Protection and Cultivation of Fundamental

Freedoms and Civic Space

 States should maintain an enabling environment for civil society activism by
guaranteeing respect for the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, and
expression and ensuring that law and policy do not impede the work of civil
society organizations.
 States should promote the right of civil society representatives to participate in
public policymaking, in part by affording them opportunities to provide input on
proposed laws and to express views that are critical of existing laws and policies.
 States should refrain from reprisals against and stigmatization of civil society
activists, support international standards that prohibit such behavior, and offer
protection to those who are forced into exile.

Principle 2: Election Integrity and Political Pluralism

 States should conduct regular, free, and fair elections that are accessible to and
inclusive of all eligible voters and candidates and that enable orderly transfers of
power.
 States should foster space for robust political party competition that provides a
platform for diverse political viewpoints and gives voters a meaningful choice on
election day.
 States should cultivate and appropriately fund autonomous, professional, and
impartial institutions to manage elections.
 States should promote positive, open discourse on democracy, and election
authorities should proactively and expeditiously address information that has the
potential to undermine trust in the election cycle, without improperly infringing on
the fundamental freedoms of speech and expression.
 States and election authorities should consider the opportunities and risks
associated with the introduction of new election technologies and select the most
appropriate tools to support efficient, transparent, and credible election
processes.
 States should commit to the ideal, through a democratic system of checks and
balances, that all elected governments serve the interests of the public as a
whole and respect the rights of political and demographic minority groups.
Pluralistic legislatures with the power to monitor and challenge the executive
branch should play an active role in this process.
 States should increase transparency and accountability in political financing to
promote fair competition in elections and close off opportunities for private, illicit,
or undemocratic interests to unduly influence decision-making.

Principle 3: Inclusive Policymaking

 States should recognize that the loss of agency and control among citizens, or
even the impression thereof, is a key source of democratic instability.
  States should prevent related harms by working to explore, expand, and refine
mechanisms that give citizens a substantive and visible role in the major policy
decisions and legislative initiatives affecting their lives.
 States should take into account the voices of people from emerging democracies
and the Global South when developing policies that could affect conditions
beyond their own borders. For example, states should consult widely on draft
regulations for global digital platforms that might negatively impact freedom of
expression in other countries.

Principle 4: Solidarity against Authoritarian Pressure

 States with donor capacity should maintain or significantly increase their support
for democratic movements and institutions worldwide. They should deepen
diplomatic and material support for democratic activists in authoritarian
environments and provide a safe haven for those who are forced to flee as a
result of their work.
 States should keep a public spotlight on the mounting number of human rights
defenders, journalists, and democracy activists who have been detained
worldwide, and take additional steps to routinely and proactively advocate for the
swift release of specific political prisoners during interactions with counterparts in
other governments.
 States should recognize that transnational repression is a threat to democracy
and human rights worldwide, as it undermines the rule of law, imperils civil and
political liberties, and spreads authoritarian practices. States should commit to
addressing transnational repression, including by ending impunity for
perpetrators, strengthening the resilience of democratic institutions, and
protecting vulnerable groups and individuals.
 States should reinforce economic solidarity as a deterrent to authoritarian
economic coercion, working to better insulate individual states from retaliatory
measures when they stand up for the values of democracy and human rights.

Principle 5: Media Freedom and Resistance to

Disinformation
 States should recognize that a diverse and independent media sector is essential
to the health of a democracy, and actively protect journalists from censorship,
threats of violence, and other undue restrictions on their work.
 States should foster a culture of transparency in government, allowing the press
to access the information it needs to hold public officials accountable for their
performance or malfeasance.
 States should enact and adhere to laws and regulations that protect freedom of
expression as enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
 States should cultivate societal resilience to disinformation by safeguarding the
right to freely access and distribute credible information, promoting media literacy
 at all levels of society, and supporting initiatives committed to tracking, analyzing,
and combating harmful disinformation campaigns.
 States should take a proactive approach to countering disinformation, enhancing
their predictive capabilities and engaging in preemptive measures to “prebunk”
emerging narratives. They should invest in public diplomacy to advance these
goals.
 States should work with the private sector to reform media regulations and
markets in a manner that will support independent news outlets’ financial self-
sufficiency, and actively challenge business models and algorithms that either
incentivize or monetize hate speech or dis- and misinformation.

Principle 6: Human Rights on Digital Platforms

 States should uphold fundamental human rights in the digital sphere. They
should refrain from shutting down or disrupting access to and use of
telecommunications and online services, including social media platforms,
anticensorship technologies, and websites hosting political, social, and religious
speech. They should also strengthen legal protections for free expression online,
including by decriminalizing speech that is protected under international human
rights standards and refraining from the imposition of civil penalties for such
speech. The exchange of information through the internet and online platforms
should remain open, affordable, and secure, even in times of crisis.
 States should address digital threats to human security. They should tightly
regulate the deployment and ban the export of surveillance tools or other
technologies that can facilitate human rights abuses, like NSO Group’s Pegasus
spyware product. These systems are often used to spy on human rights
defenders, political dissidents, and journalists, or to harass vulnerable
communities across borders.
 States should enact data protection and privacy laws that strengthen human
rights, protect encryption, and strictly regulate access to and use of personal data
by both state and nonstate actors. Governments should protect their people from
harmful commercial data policies and practices that incentivize abuse and
misuse of private information. They should also ensure that state collection and
use of communications data is carried out in a transparent, accountable, and
rights-respecting manner.
 States should use and regulate digital technologies in a manner that not only
supports fundamental rights but also advances equitable economic development,
environmental sustainability, and innovation.

Principle 7: Rule of Law and People-Centered Justice

 States should ensure that their judicial systems are structurally protected from
undue political influence and other threats to impartiality, and that independent
courts have the authority to check executive or legislative action that infringes on
human rights or democratic principles.
  States should put ordinary people and their needs at the center of justice
systems, in part by eliminating legal, administrative, financial, and practical
barriers that may prevent some segments of society from accessing relevant
services, obtaining due process rights, or securing a fair resolution of their cases.
 States should empower people and communities to understand, use, and shape
the law, and increase meaningful participation in judicial processes.
 States should use the justice system to prevent and deescalate conflict, promote
reconciliation, and address the root causes of societal violence.

Principle 8: Safeguards against Corruption

 States should work with one another and with civic and private-sector partners to
promote best practices for fighting corruption and strengthen international
anticorruption mechanisms, including the UN Convention against Corruption, the
Financial Action Task Force, and the Open Government Partnership.
 States should seek to introduce the most effective possible legal mechanisms for
tracing, freezing, and confiscating stolen assets. These could include laws
against illicit enrichment and forfeiture systems that do not first require criminal
conviction.
 States should work proactively to identify any proceeds of corruption held within
their jurisdictions and provide information regarding these assets to the state of
origin.
 States should recognize the special nature of high-level corruption and
harmonize their laws and practices to overcome barriers to extradition and other
forms of cooperation.
 States should identify and deter any professional service providers—including
attorneys, bankers, accountants, real-estate brokers, financial advisers, and
corporate consultants—who facilitate, encourage, or enable transnational
corruption through legal or illegal means.
 States should establish a beneficial ownership registry that is appropriately
resourced and monitored, and that balances the public interests of data privacy
and ownership transparency.
 States should uphold fair and transparent processes for public procurement and
associated activities, ensuring that they serve the public interest and minimize
opportunities for rent-seeking, bribe-taking, and other forms of corruption.
 States should encourage “collective action” initiatives, including integrity pacts,
as a critical multistakeholder tool for preventing corruption at the public-private
interface.
 States should have legal mechanisms in place to ensure that no one is above the
law and all high-level representatives of the executive, legislative, and judicial
branches can be effectively investigated without fear of retribution.

Principle 9: Gender Equality

 States should accelerate efforts to address harmful gender-related norms,
stereotypes, cultural and social practices, and behaviors that undermine
 women’s opportunities to participate on equal terms in public life. They should
include men and boys in these efforts and encourage media and educational
institutions to incorporate gender equality into their professional training and core
content.
 States should conduct a systematic review of legislation, policies, and customary
laws to ensure that they promote, rather than hinder, women’s political
participation.
 States should create an enabling environment for women’s political participation
by showing zero tolerance for all forms of violence against women, setting legal
or normative quotas for women in decision-making bodies, and ensuring that
political parties adopt inclusive, transparent, and accountable measures for
gender equality within their organizations.
 States should fully implement and fund UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on
women, peace, and security. They should systematically integrate a gender
perspective into all stages of conflict prevention, peace, and security efforts by
engaging women as equal and meaningful participants at the international,
national, and local levels.

Principle 10: Youth Political and Civic Engagement

 States should encourage political parties and civil society groups to establish
youth branches within their organizations and recruit young people to participate
in political and civic activities.
 States should generally consider youth as an opportunity rather than a problem
and increase investment in high-quality education in order to enhance, in the long
term, young people’s capacity development and involvement in public affairs.
 States should encourage and support improved and fair access for young people
to open, prompt, reliable, and high-quality information, including through
information and communication technologies and community radio, in order to
strengthen accountability processes and increase youth involvement in decision-
making.
 States should support human rights and gender equality among young people,
and eradicate all forms of violence and prejudice against adolescents and youth,
including child marriage, early and coerced marriage, and other damaging
practices that affect adolescent girls and young women in particular.

Principle 11: Equal Rights for People with Disabilities

 States should involve people with disabilities and their representative
organizations in decision-making processes across all levels of government, in
the spirit of “nothing about us without us.” Disability rights issues should also be
mainstreamed across a wide range of policy areas, including climate change,
food security, disaster risk, health care, and economic growth.
 States should align their electoral processes with universal design principles to
ensure that people with disabilities can participate meaningfully in politics as
voters, candidates, election officials, and observers. This includes making all
 public buildings physically accessible, providing voter and civic education
information in accessible formats, and bringing legal frameworks into compliance
with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
 States should invest in civic education activities that will support greater
engagement by people with disabilities, making an effort to reach young people,
members of ethnic and religious minorities, Indigenous people, and those who
are out of school and living in remote areas.

Principle 12: Economic Opportunity for All

 States should support broad access to economic opportunity by upholding
individual and communal property rights and preventing arbitrary expropriation or
legal seizures without adequate compensation.
 States should create legal and regulatory conditions that support free enterprise
and fair competition, the establishment and operation of small businesses, and
freedom from bribery and extortion.
 States should uphold the freedom of workers to associate and organize in
independent labor unions, bargain collectively and enter into contracts with
employers, and engage in peaceful strike actions to advance their interests.
 States should actively identify and punish exploitative labor practices, including
unsafe working conditions, forced labor, child labor, and trafficking in persons.
 States should protect freedom of movement in all its forms, including the ability to
travel to educational institutions and new places of employment.

Principle 13: Freedom of Conscience and Religious Belief

 States should protect the fundamental freedom to practice and express one’s
religious faith or nonbelief in public and private.
 States should ensure that religious institutions and communities are able to
operate without undue regulatory burdens, construct and maintain religious
buildings without discriminatory obstacles, and provide voluntary religious
instruction without official interference.
 States should uphold the freedom of individuals to eschew religious beliefs and
practices, decline participation in religious activities, or decline military service for
reasons of conscience.

Principle 14: Comprehensive Freedom from Discrimination

 States should protect vulnerable populations that are not otherwise addressed
above, ensuring that all people are able to exercise their fundamental human
rights without disadvantage on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin,
socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other such
category.
 States should recognize that the principles enumerated here are not intended to
be exclusive. While different circumstances may call for an emphasis on different
 dimensions of democratic liberty, no such shift in focus should be interpreted as
a denial or diminishment of any aspect of human dignity.

The content of this declaration of principles reflects the contributions of the civil society
co-leads of cohorts established throughout the Year of Action as part of the Summit for
Democracy. Fourteen cohorts contributed to this effort: Anti-Corruption Policies as a
Guarantee for National Security, Stability, and Sovereignty; Civic Space; Deliberative
Democracy and Citizens’ Assemblies; Disability Rights; Election Integrity; Financial
Transparency and Integrity; Gender Equality as a Prerequisite for Democracy;
Information Integrity; International Cooperation for Anti-Corruption; Media Freedom;
Resisting Authoritarian Pressure; Rule of Law and People-Centered Justice;
Technology for Democracy; and Youth Political and Civic Engagement. This initiative
was led and coordinated by Freedom House, the George W. Bush Institute, and the
McCain Institute.