Project overview
This 36-month research project - funded by the UK's Economic Social Research Council (ESRC) [grant number ES/Z503551/1] systematically examines human rights violations against journalists undertaken with impunity. Such violations encompass attacks on the lives, dignity, and work of journalists, ranging from harassment and reprisals to physical and lethal violence. 

The research focuses on understanding why accountability fails and how impunity undermines press freedom and democratic governance.

The problem of impunity
Impunity for crimes against journalists remains widespread. Nearly 80% of journalist murders globally have resulted in no accountability, particularly affecting journalists reporting on corruption, organised crime, human rights abuses, and environmental conflicts. 

This failure to deliver justice fuels fear and self-censorship, allowing violence against the press to persist and directly impeding the ability of the media to impart information to the public. 

Project approach
Despite widespread acknowledgement of this cycle of injustice, critical knowledge gaps persist around why impunity endures and how it operates across different national contexts. 

To address these gaps, the project combines social, computational, and data science methods to develop an “Impunity Profiler”, a methodological framework for in-depth comparative assessment of impunity and the strategies used to resist it across diverse country contexts. 

To be tested three country contexts - Mexico, Indonesia, and Serbia - the framework aims to generate comparative insights and practical tools to support research, advocacy, and policy efforts aimed at more effectively addressing the problem of impunity.