conflict & communication online, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2019
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747

Guy Berger
Getting from the global to the local: Norms and systems for protecting journalists in the times of the sustainable development goals

In the wake of progress in underlining international norms for protection of journalists, UNESCO in 2017 initiated a global consultation on how to strengthen implementation of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. The results of this consultation are relevant to the context of securing progress in terms of Sustainable Development Goal indicator 16.10.1, which is a measure for both a global and a national assessment of the state of safety of journalists. Against this backdrop, this article analyses the potential at country level to develop norms about monitoring, as well as creating practical monitoring mechanisms for systematically tracking threats against journalists. A positive scenario would see these contribute to an elaborated normative climate as well as the existence of effective institutions and systems to ensure the protection of journalists on the ground.

The author:
Guy Berger is Director for Freedom of Expression and Media Development at UNESCO. He is responsible for the Organization’s global work on press freedom, safety of journalists, internet freedom, media pluralism and independence, gender and media, media and information literacy, and journalism education. Before joining UNESCO, he headed the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. He has also worked in both press and television and had a long-running column on the The Mail & Guardian website.
eMail: g.berger@unesco.org