Foreign Agent Laws: The Latest Authoritarian Weapon Against Civil Society
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, October 21 (IPS) – When thousands of Georgians filled the streets of Tbilisi in 2023 to protest against their government’s proposed ‘foreign agents’ law, they understood what their leaders were trying to do: this wasn’t about transparency or accountability; it was about silencing dissent. Though the government was forced to withdraw the legislation, it returned with renewed determination in 2024, passing a renamed version despite even bigger protests. The law has effectively frozen Georgia’s hopes of joining the European Union.
Georgia’s repressive law is just one example of a disturbing global trend documented in CIVICUS’s new report, Cutting civil society’s lifeline: the global spread of foreign agents laws. From Central America to Central Asia, from Africa to the Balkans, governments are adopting legislation that brands civil society organisations and independent media as paid agents of foreign interests. Foreign agents laws are proliferating at an alarming rate, posing a growing threat to civil society. Since 2020, El Salvador, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe have all enacted such laws, while many more states have proposed similar measures.
Russia established the blueprint for this architecture of repression in 2012, when Vladimir Putin’s government introduced legislation requiring any civil society organisation that received foreign funding and engaged in broadly defined ‘political activity’ to register as a foreign agent. This offered an impossible choice: accept a stigmatising designation that effectively brands organisations as foreign spies, or cease operations. Russia repeatedly expanded its crackdown, and by 2016, at least 30 groups had chosen to shut down rather than accept the designation. The European Court of Human Rights has unequivocally condemned Russia’s law as violating fundamental civic freedoms, yet this hasn’t prevented other states eagerly adopting the same model.
The pretence that these laws promote transparency is fundamentally disingenuous. Civil society organisations that receive international support are already subject to rigorous accountability requirements imposed by their donors. In contrast, governments often receive substantial foreign funding yet face no equivalent disclosure obligations. This double standard reveals the true purpose of these laws: not transparency, but control. In practice, almost any public interest activity can be deemed political under foreign agents laws, including human rights advocacy, election monitoring and efforts to strengthen democracy. States deliberately leave definitions vague and broad to allow discretionary enforcement and targeting of organisations they don’t like.
The impacts can be devastating. Nicaragua provides a particularly extreme example of the use of foreign agents laws to dismantle civil society. President Daniel Ortega has used such legislation as part of a comprehensive repressive arsenal that has shuttered over 5,600 organisationsroughly 80 per cent of all groups that once operated in the country. State security forces have raided suspended organisations, seized their offices and confiscated their assets, while thousands of academics, activists and journalists have been driven into exile. With only state-controlled organisations remaining operational, Nicaragua has become a full-blown authoritarian regime where independent voices have been eliminated and civic space has slammed shut.
In Kyrgyzstan, a foreign agents law passed in March 2024 has had an immediate chilling effect. Organisations have scaled back their activities, some have re-registered as commercial entities and others have proactively ceased operations to avoid fines for non-compliance. The Open Society Foundations closed its long-established grant-making office in the country. Meanwhile, in El Salvador, The President of Bukele’s government imposed a punitive 30 per cent tax on all foreign grants alongside stigmatising labels and registration requirements, forcing major civil society organisations to shut down their offices.
Foreign agents laws impose systematic barriers through complex registration processes, demanding reporting requirements and frequent audits that force many smaller organisations to close. The threat of harsh penalties – including heavy fines, licence revocations and imprisonment for non-compliance – creates a climate of fear that frequently leads to self-censorship and organisational dissolution. By restricting foreign funding while offering no measures to expand domestic funding sources, governments make civil society organisations dependent on state approval, curtailing their autonomy. And by forcing them to wear the stigmatising ‘foreign agent’ label, governments ensure they lose public trust, making it harder to mount a defence when further crackdowns follow.
Yet there are grounds for hope. Civil society has shown remarkable resilience in resisting foreign agents laws, and street mobilisation and legal challenges have sometimes stalled or rolled back these measures. Ukraine’s rapid reversal of its 2014 foreign agents law following mass protests showed that immediate pushback can come when the political moment is right. Ethiopia changed its restrictive 2009 law in 2019, while Hungary was forced to drop its 2017 law following a 2020 European Court of Justice ruling. In May 2025, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitutional Court suspended a foreign agents lawrecognising it violated freedom of association.
International legal pressure has been vital. The European Court of Human Rights’ categorical condemnation of Russia’s legislation established crucial precedents. These decisions provided a foundation for challenging similar laws elsewhere. However, authoritarian governments may adapt their strategies and implement new versions of restrictive legislation, as seen in Hungary’s 2023 introduction of a new ‘sovereignty protection’ law.
The acceleration of this trend since 2020 reflects broader patterns of democratic regression around the world. Authoritarian political leaders are capitalising on legitimate concerns about foreign interference to create legal tools that serve their repressive agendas. The danger extends beyond current adopters. Bulgaria’s parliament has rejected foreign agents bills five times, yet a far-right party keeps reintroducing them. Turkey’s autocratic government shelved its proposed law following public backlash in 2024, only to reintroduce an amended version months later.
Coordinated resistance is essential before foreign agents laws become normalised. There’s an urgent need for international courts to expedite consideration of cases and develop emergency procedures for situations where civil society faces immediate threats. Democratic governments must avoid adopting stigmatising legislation, impose targeted sanctions on foreign officials responsible for enacting foreign agents laws and provide safe haven for activists forced to flee. Funders must establish emergency mechanisms with rapid-disbursement grants, while civil society must strengthen international solidarity networks to share resistance strategies and expose the true intent of these laws.
The alternative to coordinated action is to watch idly as independent voices are systematically silenced. Civil society’s right to exist and operate freely must be defended.
Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for Citizen Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
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