Elliott School of International Affairs | Virtual Event

Description: Since 2012, the “foreign agents” laws have been actively developing in Russia and have now become one of the most prominent instruments of repression against civil society. Despite the fact that these laws were originally stated as a means of ensuring transparency of the activities of recipients of foreign funding and applied only to NGOs, today anyone who is not loyal to the Kremlin can get on the register of “foreign agents”. Moreover, legislation on “foreign agents” is being actively developed outside Russia as well. In 2023, relevant legislative initiatives appeared in several countries at once, including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. These initiatives have been heavily criticized, with many experts seeing them as a threat to civil society and fearing the possibility of a Russian scenario.

Join our legal experts and human rights practitioners from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to discuss the main features of the development of national laws on “foreign agents”, their similarities and differences, as well as the challenges they pose for civil society.

The registration link can be found below.