Media Defence: Strategy 2025-2029
London: Media Defence (2025), 16 pp.
"The Strategy for 2025-2029 maintains our focus on attaining excellence in legal services to journalists wherever they are, with the ultimate goal that they continue their crucial public interest reporting. The Strategy for 2025-2029 maintains our focus on attaining excellence in legal services to journalists wherever they are, with the ultimate goal that they continue reporting and aren’t thwarted in their public interest work by either governments or powerful individuals. Our priorities reflect the context we live in. They are similar to what we observed in 2019, but have now become even more urgent given the intensity of threats against journalism, in both repressive countries but also in democracies around the world. Our aim with this document is to sign post our goals for the next five years, setting ambitious, sustainable objectives as a non-governmental organisation and as a key ally to independent journalists and media outlets facing legal threats." (Introducing our strategy, page 4)
"2020 – 2024 Approved cases: 400+; countries: 100+; grants: £1.5 million. We successfully increased the scale of our work during our last strategy, having approved over 400 cases in 100+ countries, disbursing over £1.5 million in grants since 2020. Going forward, we hope to continue to build on this growth, supporting over 150 emergency defence and strategic litigation cases per year. We met all our goals set out in our 2020-2024 strategy. In 2023, we supported 84 strategic cases and 92 emergency defence cases. In 2024 we surpassed the aim of 58 new strategic cases and 100 emergency defence ones, reaching over 200 new cases for the first time. Geographic spread: From 2020-2024, Brazil, Azerbaijan, and Turkey occupied 40% of our active workload. Nigeria, Russia and Colombia and Cameroon represent an additional 10%. Case outcomes: From 2020 until August 2024, 395 cases were concluded across our strategic litigation (143 cases) and emergency defence programmes (252 cases). In our strategic litigation, we saw a 50% success rate. For cases where Media Defence acted as counsel or submitted a strategic intervention at international mechanisms, the success rate was around 70%.
Capacity and network building 2020-2024: Litigation surgeries: 12; Supported training of 351 lawyers. Partner grants: 78. Increase in cases litigated by our partners: +92.6%. Regional partner convenings: 4. Since 2020, our capacity-building efforts have included a wide range of activities, including partner grants, partner convenings, litigation surgeries, peer-to-peer mentoring, litigators’ convenings and regional training modules. Litigation surgeries played an essential role in our capacity-building efforts. From 2020 to 2024, we conducted a total of 12 surgeries, offering guidance and support to legal teams, with 351 lawyers trained by Media Defence directly or in partnership with us. These sessions were delivered in four languages—French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese—to improve accessibility." (Impact under our previous strategy, page 3)
Capacity and network building 2020-2024: Litigation surgeries: 12; Supported training of 351 lawyers. Partner grants: 78. Increase in cases litigated by our partners: +92.6%. Regional partner convenings: 4. Since 2020, our capacity-building efforts have included a wide range of activities, including partner grants, partner convenings, litigation surgeries, peer-to-peer mentoring, litigators’ convenings and regional training modules. Litigation surgeries played an essential role in our capacity-building efforts. From 2020 to 2024, we conducted a total of 12 surgeries, offering guidance and support to legal teams, with 351 lawyers trained by Media Defence directly or in partnership with us. These sessions were delivered in four languages—French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese—to improve accessibility." (Impact under our previous strategy, page 3)
Our priority areas for 2025-2029: Violence Against Journalists -- Digital Rights -- Lawfare -- Promoting Accountability and Fighting Impunity -- Our goals and objectives: Provide and facilitate adaptive and flexible emergency legal defence to independent media across the globe, increasing our reach to support those most in need -- Strengthen Media Defence’s legal networks across the world to protect independent journalism from legal threats, prioritising sustainability and elevating those networks to reach international recognition -- Engage in strategic litigation to address severe, systemic and strategic legal issues by securing and contributing to landmark judgments; and take steps to maximise their impact -- Strengthening our organisational infrastructure to enable efficient, cost effective and strategic support to journalists
