DEFENDING DEMOCRACY IN EXILE Policy Responses to Transnational Repression work with the United Nations on human rights abuses by Pakistani authorities.78 In another example, multiple UN special rapporteurs expressed concern that cyberattacks against the Philippinesbased Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience Empowerment (VOICE) were carried out on behalf of Vietnam’s government in reprisal for the organization’s cooperation with UN human rights bodies.79 Remaking the international order In addition to targeting dissidents, activists, and critical groups to prevent them from or punish them for participating in international forums, authoritarians are working together to manipulate international organizations with the aim of undermining universal human rights standards. The antidemocratic international order that these governments seek to promote would be conducive to the proliferation of transnational repression. One of the United Nations’ stated purposes is to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.” However, perpetrators of transnational repression use their influence to weaken the enforcement and dilute the meaning of human rights standards. They sway votes in their favor, collaborate with one another, and reshape the very missions of international organizations. Perpetrators of transnational repression use their influence to weaken the enforcement and dilute the meaning of human rights standards. Authoritarian regimes’ alignment and cooperation are apparent in their actions at the UNHRC. States are elected to the council for three-year terms by the UN General Assembly. Fewer than a third of the states currently serving on the UNHRC are rated Free in Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report. Beijing’s campaign to alter international norms and minimize the United Nations’ ability to scrutinize the conduct of states is especially intense.80 In June 2020, the UNHRC adopted 22 @FreedomHouse a resolution proposed by the Chinese government that shifted the framing of the council’s mandate from holding states responsible for rights abuses to a goal of “mutually beneficial” cooperation that would entail states committing to a “dialogue.”81 The resolution effectively relegates human rights to the domain of domestic affairs or bilateral relations, with little role for the UNHRC itself or independent civil society groups. It was endorsed by 23 states, 11 of which are rated Partly Free and 8 of which are Not Free. Two of the 16 countries that opposed the resolution were Partly Free, and the rest were Free. Also that month, the UNHRC was split over the draconian National Security Law that Beijing had imposed on Hong Kong in order to crush its prodemocracy movement. A majority of 53 states, nearly all of which were rated Not Free or Partly Free, supported a statement backing the law, while 27 states, all rated Free, supported an opposing statement that condemned the law.82 In October 2021, diplomats from Saudi Arabia and allies including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates successfully led the UNHRC to vote against renewing the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen, which was established in 2017 to investigate human rights abuses in that country’s civil war, including by Saudi forces.83 The previous October, Cambodian monk and human rights defender Luon Sovath delivered a statement on forced evictions in Cambodia to the UNHRC. The Cambodian government’s representative interrupted him three times, and the envoys of China, Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela intervened to question “his participation in the Council, as well as his legitimacy and credibility.”84 Luon Sovath’s statement had no bearing on any country other than Cambodia, yet his testimony represented the type of dissent that all autocrats have an interest in suppressing. Efforts to undermine human rights norms are also on display in the process through which independent groups seek consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). This status allows NGOs to participate in and observe various UN meetings and mechanisms. The ECOSOC Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations is responsible for approving consultative status, but the complexity of the process and interference by governments paradoxically make the NGO Committee a barrier to organizations’ access to the United Nations.85 Nine of the current 19 member states on the NGO Committee engage in physical transnational repression: Bahrain, Burundi, China, India, Libya, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, and Sudan.86 Agents from Eswatini, another member, unsuccessfully #TransnationalRepression