ReArming Values Protection: Reinvigorating Rights Advocacy is Part of Our Defence

Edited talk given for RARE Recharge (Berlin, 11 March 2025) by Professor John Morijn

Thanks for the invitation. It is nice to be here, or rather: nice to be back among RARE people. These days my default is to say “no” to invitations. I want to focus on my work advising Ukraine on EU accession, and on mentoring a foundation organising student democracy education activities. But when Marta Pardavi asks, I say yes - blindly. You are lucky to have her and Bernhard Knoll as your instructors.  They are among Europe’s best NGO leaders and trainers. So: let’s start by giving them and the RARE team an applause. 

It is good to start on a bit of a high. Because if you close your eyes for a second, and think back to 2 years ago, 1 year, or even just 8 weeks, and then open them again, you will agree: things look grim, don’t they? We have had elections in The Netherlands, France, Austria and Germany where right-wing extremists have won far too many seats. We have seen the Romanian constitutional court finding it necessary to overturn an election on alleged evidence that Russia might have influenced it. Judging by objective external benchmarks, we see worrying autocratic tendencies in Greece too. We see that in Hungary the situation remains dire, even if there are some political counterforces, and even if judges finally take to the street. We only have Poland as a positive exception, while even there (let us not forget) right-wing populists remain the single biggest party.

We see how the same realities have tricked up to the EU level. As a result of the May 2024 European Parliament elections, we now have a Parliament and Commission that are far more conservative leaning than their predecessors. Progressive forces like the Greens and RENEW have suddenly become more marginalised. We see the new majority’s intention to undo climate and sustainability achievements of their predecessors. We see inhumane and deadly migration policies mainstreamed, even by politicians who seem reasonable in other areas. As a combined result we see a decades’ old consensus that European integration should be (rule of) law based becoming increasingly unstable in Europe.

And all of this was already the situation before the most important, and damaging development: the November US election results. These have suddenly amplified the shaky European situation. We see a Trump government that is intent on destroying its global leadership in record time. Our defence umbrella might well have largely disappeared just over the last few weeks. Our most powerful ally seems to be switching sides to Russia. Consequently, the EU, which we all thought of, and long contributed to as a Peace Project has now turned into a ReArmament Project. This effort will completely dominate and crowd out any other EU-level developments.  I personally see culmination of all these effects in my work for Ukraine. And I see the powerful and intense effect on those people I work with there – I will come back to that at the end.

In this current moment, as human rights defenders, it is easy to feel disoriented, paralysed, depressed. Lots of people might wonder whether what we, the human rights community, think, say or do, has any impact? Does what we do still matter?

My answer and theme for this talk tonight is: hell, yes! Of course, it does! When you cut through the noise, and move away from each single instance, or measure, or country, there are clear silver linings. Powerful perspectives for focused action and reprioritisation are emerging.

I see disbelief in your eyes: is he really going to provide a positive take at this moment? What is this guy on? I am serious, though. The reason I am carefully hopeful, and optimistic about knowing where we, human rights activists, need to go can be summarised in a 3-word observation that should be the compass for our new plan of action: populists are predictable. I repeat, populists are predictable.

By now we know their playbook, their strategy, their tactics, their rhetoric, and their aims. We do not like any of it, but that is beside the point. We know what we are looking at, how literally we must take it, how quickly it can be rolled out, and how dangerous it is. We also have an extensive catalogue of things that do not work in pushing back against them. So, we now must try something better.

My main message is that where populists are predictable – we, democrats, should double down. If indeed we are prepared to dig deeper and work together, I see 5 aspects for us to cling on to and fight back from. In these, I see first glimmers of strategy. I see some shades of tactics and options for cooperation. I speculate on new ways to communicate that we should try.

Last time I came to RARE, in my hometown of The Hague, I formulated 5 lessons to become more effective in human rights advocacy. These have only become more important. The 5 I will now propose come on top. They form an update for the current moment.

Here we go:

Lesson 1/ Populists are predictable in that they like and learn from other autocrats, as well as support each other.

Indeed: I often refer to the plain but painful fact that autocrats learn more from each other than democrats do. However, this does not have to be this way. In fact, awareness of the autocratic bromances is actionable, if we are prepared to connect some dots and advocate for others to do so.

It is now crystal clear that a concern with external security threats caused by Russia should equal doubling down on confronting internal rule of law concerns, since these are caused mainly by those openly supporting, or being studiedly ambiguous about Russia. This link was never coincidental in the first place. But now we may have a new partner in promoting much tougher internal rule of law monitoring: the hard-nosed security community. It may feel a bit unnatural, but now that internal rule of law issues clearly mirror external security concerns, human rights and rule of law defenders need to advocate around that.

This has a second, more familiar element too: hard-nosed economics and sound financial management is our ally. Europe is going to spend a massive amount on rearmament. We need to relentlessly advocate for rule of law and human rights conditionality in how that money can be accessed and spent. Not only because of the usual concern, avoiding corruption. But for much more fundamental considerations. Rule of law compliance, as we have just seen, rules out pro-Russian or any other kind of antidemocratic politics — so we can integrate the security considerations into the budgetary conditionality we have already used, i.e. defending the rule of law via economic considerations. We need to ReArm Values Protection too.

This is powerful, because budgetary conditionality has so far been the only thing that has moved the needle for Europe’s autocrats. Not because they are convinced – but because it threatens their bottom-line. As I said: populists are predictable. Focus on what they do, and why they do it, much more than on what they say. Which brings me to…

Lesson 2/ Populists are predictable in that they strategically employ us versus them rhetoric.

I deliberately say strategically to underline the disingenuous nature of this practice. Populists create distinctions between groups of people in ways that are illegal, immoral, deny biology or are just plain artificial. We must face the fact that, as electoral catnip, this works like a charm wherever it is tried. We need to urgently find a way to make this political method much less effective.

One of the main tasks of our community is to more forcefully dismantle the notion that a concern for equality and equity, for basic humanity, or for creating a level playing field is framed as “woke”. How is it that it is not a problem when I accept that, as a white cis-gender heterosexual guy, I get a lot of free brownie points in the society as it is currently structured? But it is all of a sudden “woke” if I stand up for someone to be able live the life that I want to live too, but who just happens to be a woman and/or lesbian and/or black?

Given the centrality of this method to populists, it is frankly surprising that human rights advocates working on this have not tried different ways to challenge this. In my personal experience, making things personal — talking about how diverse people are already part of your own current family or lived experience — can be effective.  We may try different approaches too. We could stress more the collective long-term interest, for example by underlining more that almost everyone – a large part of the majority – at some point, can be in a minority, so that taking this as a starting-point corresponds to this lived reality.

I don’t have more concrete thoughts on this. But check out, for example, the brilliant short video that European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib, responsible for equality, made for international women’s day. It is a great example of that creativity works, and how it does more leg work than hundreds of boring reports. But also that what you put out there needs to be very well thought out.

The long and the short is this: We need to reject “us versus them” reclaim “the people” from populists. We need to play on the fact that, in reality, ordinary people (rather than “the people”) are diverse, and that each individual, based on their personal characteristics, has different needs to be able to contribute and benefit equally. This is intuitive to everyone — but we need to make that visible.

What is equally important: research, for example in the 2023 book Democracy Erodes From The Top, by scholar Larry Bartels, shows that the reservoir of genuinely racist people is relatively stably relatively small. So, we need to be aware that “us versus them rhetoric” is almost never employed to respond to a belief genuinely held by large majorities, or by an increasing demand for exclusionary politics. The point of using it is to dominate the news-cycle and get us, democrats, mad. And the point of getting us mad, is to get us distracted. And of course, the point of getting democrats distracted is to spread them thin and do something else from the populist playbook that might, when immediately noticed, cause considerable outrage. It is therefore incredibly important for every pillar of a democracy to keep its eye on the ball and ensure that they can continue to do so. Which brings me to…

Lesson 3/ Populists are predictable in that they end up systematically trying to pressure every professional actor that is pointing out that “the people” they talk about are an exclusionary rather than inclusive construct, and therefore inherently problematic for different groups of people at different times.

That is why pressure is on those doing this for a living on behalf of all of us: judges, attorneys, media, scholars, civil society and civil servants. Nothing new there.

The first point I want to make about this is pretty narrow. In my view, the current moment demands from us, in our advocacy, to clearly distinguish the respective roles of each of the professional actors involved in protecting democracy, the need for each to be properly protected, and the need for those who have taken an oath of office or who are bound by professional ethics to more strictly adhere to, and enforce that internal to their group. So, for example, what distinguishes “journalism” from just putting something out in the public domain is that true journalism distinguishes facts from fiction and cannot contribute to discrimination. This is what journalistic codes state — but then it is also up to journalists to enforce it amongst their peers.

We also need to secure our institutions better. Here again just a narrow point: we will need to become better at raising money directly from people. There are positive examples here too. A week ago, the independent Slovak publication, Denník N, raised money from new private donors surprisingly quickly to sustain its operation. There are many signs that we have the silent majority, that is slowly waking up to the reality that the situation is now getting urgent, on our side. We just need to learn better how to connect directly with their wallets, so we can more often cut out the middlemen if, and as long as, these public donors come under populist control.

If indeed we find a better way to keep media, civil society and academia institutionally secure and well resourced, we will all remain constantly aware of…

Lesson 4/  Populists are predictable in that they never deliver on their promises and then blame others.

They are masters of gaining power, but even greater masters of going missing in action when in power. If our low threshold definition for democratic politics is that, after a battle of ideas which you win, you need to put something in place providing real solutions for real problems in the public interest, populists consistently fail.

It is genuinely surprising, and in my view a missed chance, that in the human rights advocacy world, as well as in the media, there is not more intuitive tracking going on which contrasts promises made with results achieved. In that regard the funny think about populists, too, is that they consistently have zero sense of humour.  So, a more lighthearted approach may often work better. We need to connect with the heart of those voting for populists.

Of course, acting in the general interest after a battle of ideas requires keeping in place the infrastructure to repeat that battle. In that way voters can bench those players who are consistently underperforming. Which brings me, finally to…

Lesson 5/ Populists are predictable in that they will eventually try to do everything to rig or steal elections, or deny electoral outcomes they don’t like, in more direct ways than just limiting free media or controlling those courts with responsibility over electoral affairs.

Rule of law and human rights work in an autocratising situation can only slow down the fall. That is why we need to avoid populists gaining power in the first place. But when populists have risen to power, we must double down on protecting elections. But what we learn from Poland is how vital it is to actually win elections to reverse course, even in a playing field that is already been tilting. It sounds obvious, but I dare say that many human rights actors seem to see ensuring free and fair elections as mainly the work of others.

This is dangerous and wrong-headed. All your advocacy here around the room, no matter the topic, rides on a meaningful right to vote. And that right will sooner or later be predictably threatened by populists who will not be able to win in a fair way because, as we have seen, they never deliver. This means that you may want to have a serious think about how you are going to chip in on elections next time.

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So, these are the new 5. They are provisional. They may be expanded or refined. But it is clear that populists will remain predictable. They are locked in their logic. We are flexible in countering it. We don’t yet know precisely how, but we to know that, as democrats, we must double down. We must ReArm Values Protection. We must reinvigorate rights advocacy as our first and best defence.

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Before I finish, I want to circle back to Ukraine. As I was writing this speech, and as I was speaking to you here this evening, I have been thinking about someone I recently met there. He gave me something in Kyiv on 24 January, after he was in my trainings for almost 3 days. I have had it in my hand. Maybe you noticed. I want to tell you something about Stanislav and his gift. And what he told me when he gave me that was for all European human rights defenders.

Stanislav works for the Ukrainian Parliamentary Ombudsoffice for Human Rights. As I was finalising my teaching he stood up. Through interpretation and in front of all his colleagues, he made a point of thanking me. He referred to me providing Ukraine with a new means and language to secure freedom: the law, specifically EU law, and all the protection methods that come with it. Stanislav, made clear that up until his recent retirement at age 60, he had served at the front. To continue the fight in other ways he switched job. At the end of his brief talk, he reached for his pocket and then gave me a very special sign of appreciation: a badge– his shevron. It is from army unit 127 that defends Kharkiv. I am sure he wanted me to show it to you too. He meant it for this kind of occasion.

Stanislav’s words and the look in his eyes, oblige me to deepened dedication and renewed focus. I think about him on a daily basis, about all Ukrainians, about how the Ukrainian front is a European front, and about the importance of forceful defence of freedom with methods short of force. Human rights and rule of law advocacy work is now at Europe’s frontline. We, as human rights advocates, have the vocabulary, methods and procedures to fight. And we still have the best ideas and the best cards to win, because we have the law and the silent majority on our side. But as democrats, rather than feeling disoriented, paralysed or depressed, this is the moment — that RARE occasion — that we can be sure that we need to step up and double down to ReArm Values Protection: for Stanislav, his compatriots, ourselves and others around us.

Thank you!