This research is based on a review of media sources, NGO reports and websites, and social media posts in English, Spanish and French. In order for a case to be included in this research, it must have been reported in at least two reliable sources and met the definition used for this research. In some cases, additional information was sought from civil society organisations and human rights defenders directly.

Disclaimer: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and its collaborative partners take no position on the diverse views presented in linked material within the database, nor can we guarantee the factual accuracy of all the articles and reports we make available. The appearance of such links does not constitute endorsement of the websites they lead to or the information contained therein, over which we exercise no editorial control.

Human rights defenders are at the forefront of peacefully promoting and protecting our human rights, natural resources, and shared planet, as well as playing a vital role in calling out the harm created by irresponsible business practices. Protecting these defenders’ freedom of expression and association is crucial to our democracies, transparency in markets, and protection of workers and communities.

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In this research, we consider each individual or organisation sued as a “case” when the name is publicly available. For example, if a lawsuit was brought against seven individuals, but only one person’s name is shared through public sources, we’ve counted this as only one case. If the names of all seven individuals were publicly shared, this would be counted as seven cases. Our dataset includes cases filed from January , – November , as this aligns with the period during which the Resource Centre has tracked attacks against human rights defenders. However, we recognise that many SLAPPs were filed before and so our research provides a limited picture of the full scale of SLAPPs.