Today, the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) commenced in New York, running from 3 October until 21 November 2025 as part of the broader 80th Session of the UNGA. The Third Committee is the UNGA’s principal human rights committee, and over the next seven weeks will negotiate resolutions and hold debates on crucial human rights issues, including pertaining to the right to freedom of expression.
The Third Commitee follows High Level Week of the UNGA, where world leaders made speeches on their foreign policy priorities, amid a rise in armed conflict, authoritarianism, and democratic backsliding worldwide. During High Level Week, UN Secretary General warned the world has ‘entered in an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering’ and how human rights are the bedrock of peace.
The Third Commitee will run against the backdrop of the Secretary General’s UN80 Initiative, which will aim to make the UN more cost efficient and effective, in a context of a deep financial crisis. While we strive for efficiency, we are concerned that this will lead to disproportionate cuts to already underfunded UN human rights bodies and process, with detrimental impacts globally.
This blog highlights resolutions and reports on the agenda of the Third Committee that are most directly relevant for the right to freedom of expression and that we will be following closely throughout the session.
Resolutions
Digital technologies
The Czech Republic and Mexico – alongside a core group consisting of the Maldives, the Netherlands, and South Africa – will lead a resolution on human rights in the context of digital technologies. This is the second iteration of this resolution, the first adopted in 2023, which is an omnibus resolution that broadly deals with human rights issues stemming from the use of digital technologies. With the 20-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) culminating in December, this resolution could prove vital in influencing broader UN standard-setting on the intersection between digital technologies and human rights.
It is essential that the resolution builds on recent progress at the UN and calls on governments to cease biometric mass surveillance, including the use of facial recognition. It should also introduce stronger protections on the use of targeted surveillance technologies, ensuring that they are only used in accordance with the principles of legality, necessity, and proportionality and with judicial authorisation and oversight, and that spyware is not sold or exported to regimes that could use them to violate human rights. It is also an opportunity to develop standards on internet shutdowns and restrictions, including blocking, filtering, and throttling, as well as attacks on net neutrality.
We will be championing these calls throughout the session, including through sending written inputs to the core group and meeting with delegations taking part in negotiations.
Safety of journalists
Greece will be the pen holder on the upcoming resolution on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity, joined by a core group consisting of Austria, Argentina, Costa Rica, France, and Tunisia. This resolution, adopted every two years at the Third Committee, will have a specific thematic focus on journalists reporting on climate change and environmental issues.
This is an important opportunity to recognise the crucial role journalists and media workers play in our fight against climate change, as well as the heightened attacks, reprisals and violence faced by journalists covering climate change or environmental issues, from killings to arbitrary arrests and detention to legal harassment. The resolution should also mirror progress seen in the recent parallel resolution on the safety of journalists adopted at the Human Rights Council,which contained strong standards on a wide range of issues, including strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), surveillance, and transnational repression – all of which are issues of direct relevant to journalists covering climate change and environmental issues.
We will be advocating for the resolution to contend with these issues throughout the session, including through working with the core group and other delegations taking part in negotiations.
Reports
Freedom of expression online
The Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression will be presenting a strong report on threats to freedom of expression online in turbulent times, focusing on the backsliding of dominant social media companies in their commitment to upholding human rights. We contributed to the report, highlighting our work arguing that content moderation and curation must be strictly aligned with international human rights law.
The Special Rapporteur rightfully concludes that these companies have rolled back their policies and tools for protecting those who are most discriminated against, vilified, and vulnerable in society, while enthusiastically investing in artificial intelligence and at the same time ignoring the limitations of automated content moderation and the dangers of engagement-based business models. It provides a wide range of important recommendations, including that businesses conduct human rights due diligence on their engagement-based business models, as well as on content curation and moderation.
While civil society cannot take part in interactive dialogues at the Third Committee as we do at the Human Rights Council, we will nonetheless be voicing strong support for the report throughout the session, encouraging delegations to integrate the findings and recommendations into all relevant future resolutions.
Human rights defenders and climate change
The Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders will be presenting an important report on human rights defenders, climate change and a just transition. We also contributed to this report – focusing on situations in Brazil and Mexico – highlighting the human rights violations faced by environmental defenders for exposing, opposing, and protesting governmental and business actions or inactions on climate change, often with impunity.
The report likewise documents the wide range of attacks faced by human rights defenders working on climate change, fuelled by authoritarianism, corruption, conflict, corporate exploitation, and organised crime, often with the complicity of governments. It also looks at how journalists are key to building an understanding of climate change and its impacts, as well as in exposing environmental destruction, yet they often face significant challenges and are targeted for their work on the subject.
We will vocally support the recommendations of the report, and push for their implementation at the national level.