The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted by consensus the updated resolution entitled “Role of States in countering the negative impact of disinformation on the enjoyment and realisation of human rights”. The resolution was initiated by Ukraine, which leads the core group comprising Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and the United Kingdom.

The adoption of the resolution once again demonstrated broad international recognition that disinformation is not only an information and security issue, but also a serious challenge to human rights, democratic institutions and the international legal order.

Since the outset of the Russian Federation’s full-scale aggression, Ukraine has consistently drawn the international community’s attention to the fact that disinformation, information manipulation and campaigns promoting false narratives constitute an integral element of modern-day aggression. They are used to justify war crimes, conceal violations of international law, fuel hatred, undermine trust in democratic institutions and impede people’s ability to exercise their rights.

Having initiated in 2022 the first-ever UN Human Rights Council resolution addressing the negative impact of disinformation on human rights, Ukraine continues to advance this issue on the international human rights agenda.

As a result of Ukraine’s initiative, addressing the negative impact of disinformation on human rights has become a distinct area of the UN Human Rights Council’s work.

The updated resolution addresses new challenges arising from the rapid development of artificial intelligence, the proliferation of synthetic content, and foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). It also contains provisions aimed at protecting victims of disinformation and strengthening information integrity and the transparency of digital content. At the same time, the resolution reaffirms that any measures taken to counter disinformation must fully comply with international human rights law and must not be used as a pretext for restricting freedom of expression.

Ukraine will continue its efforts to further develop international human rights-based approaches to countering disinformation and strengthening information integrity, as well as to ensure that this issue remains among the priorities of the UN Human Rights Council.

We are convinced that only through the joint efforts of the international community can effective, human rights-based approaches to addressing contemporary information threats be developed.