AS/Jur (2023) 17 C. Explanatory memorandum by the rapporteur, Sir Christopher Chope 1. Introduction 1. The present report is based on a motion for a resolution tabled on 18 May 2021,1 which was referred to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights for report.2 On 27 September 2021, the Committee appointed me rapporteur. 2. The motion for a resolution referred to the term “transnational repression” as “actions authorised by governments and their security and intelligence services against their nationals, political challengers, civil society activists and journalists residing abroad”. Even if known to exist before, these extraterritorial acts of repression have recently reached an unprecedented level, with more than 600 reported cases since 2014, including assassinations, violence, disappearances, forced abductions and actions to destabilise exiled communities abroad. New transnational repression is taking place more openly in an international environment where autocrats co-operate with one another and avoid international scrutiny. The motion, therefore, proposed that the Parliamentary Assembly investigate this phenomenon and its consequences for the Council of Europe and its member States. 3. During the preparation of the report (on 14 November 2022), the committee held a hearing with two experts: Mr Bruno Min, legal director at Fair Trials, London, and Mr Vytis Jurkonis, project director at Freedom House, Vilnius. 4. In this report, I will start by looking at transnational repression as an emerging global phenomenon and some of the responses by certain States to face the problem. I will then refer to the practices and some of the most notable cases of transnational repression in Europe in recent years; provide an overview of the relevant Council of Europe standards applicable in this sphere; and finally present some proposals to strengthen the fight against transnational repression by States and the Council of Europe as a whole. 2. Transnational repression is an emerging global phenomenon 5. The assassination and dismemberment of a Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, inside Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, brought transnational repression to light as a global phenomenon. This incident demonstrated how authoritarian regimes were no longer confined to the boundaries of their territories in persecuting and suppressing dissidents and political opponents. Scholars now speak of an “emerging field of international studies research around the novel means that autocracies employ to exercise power over populations abroad”, and of “global authoritarianism”.3 6. Though the term is recent, the practice of transnational repression is not new. It can be traced back to the “Cold War”, when secret services used various methods to pursue dissidents who fled authoritarian regimes. The assassination of Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov in London in 1978 with a poisoned umbrella is one notorious example of transnational repression. Yet, in modern times, with globalisation, migration and the spread of digital technologies, extra-territorial repression has become global and systemic. What worries me the most is that transnational repression has become part of state policy in some countries, including current and former member States of the Council of Europe. 7. In a report published in 2021, the human rights non-governmental organisation Freedom House presented the most comprehensive overview of transnational repression as a worldwide phenomenon using the following state-sponsored techniques: a. direct attacks by which “an origin state carries out a targeted physical attack against an individual abroad”. This category includes assassinations, assaults, disappearances, physical intimidation, and violent forced renditions; 1 Doc. 15289 of 18 May 2021. Reference no 4610 of 27 September 2021. Reference No. 4610 of 27 September 2021. 3 G. Tsourapas, Global Autocracies: Strategies of Transnational Repression, Legitimation, and Co-Optation in World Politics | International Studies Review | Oxford Academic (oup.com), 2021. 2 7