A/HRC/45/28 28. The Independent Expert was informed of issues pertaining to confidentiality whereby, under the pretext of protecting “business-sensitive” information, the interests of clients reportedly prevailed over the right to access to information for affected communities. Another issue of concern raised related to the translation of documents into a language understood by those communities, in the absence of an overarching authority within each international financial institution in charge of performing that task. 29. The Independent Expert deems it useful to refer to the good practices among international financial institutions regarding requirements on access to information, as identified by OHCHR. These requirements include the following: recognition of the right to seek and receive information, the presumption of transparency with limited, specific exemptions and a requirement to justify any restrictions, and recognition of a duty of proactive disclosure; proactive measures to promote access to information, including dissemination of institutional information and project-level information; clear time frames for responding to requests for access to information, narrow and specific reasons for denial, and procedures for appeals; a policy of permitting information disclosure where a legitimate interest, such as where human rights are at stake, outweighs a protected interest; and guidelines on translations and a commitment to communication in formats and languages accessible to communities and in formats accessible to persons with disabilities. 22 The Independent Expert calls on all international financial institutions to replicate these good practices. 30. The Independent Expert also commends the good work of the civil society-led Early Warning System, including the first database of its kind, which summarizes projects at 13 development finance institutions and provides information, advice, tools and resources to communities.23 3. Reprisals in the context of development activities 31. Those seeking participation in consultations around development projects funded by international financial institutions, critics or plain opponents of such projects – be they community members, indigenous peoples, farmers, land activists, workers, or members of civil society organizations – have increasingly been the subject of egregious acts of reprisal. These acts range from acts of intimidation, stigmatization (such as labelling as “antidevelopment” and “terrorist”), criminalization and judicial harassment to physical attacks and killings.24 These instances occur in different parts of the world, against the backdrop of the global closing of civil society space. 32. The Independent Expert is extremely concerned by such disturbing instances of reprisals and expresses his solidarity with all victims, their relatives and their colleagues. By way of an illustrative example, among many others pertaining to projects funded by international financial institutions, he and other special procedure mandate holders raised concerns in 2019 with the World Bank about alleged death threats and attempted kidnappings against a human rights defender, and allegations of possible acts of reprisal for his cooperation with the World Bank and its Inspection Panel for documenting and denouncing human rights violations related to the World Bank-funded High-Priority Roads Reopening and Maintenance Project (ProRoutes) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.25 The World Bank responded that it was taking the allegations very seriously and clarified several points contained in the letter. A delegation of the World Bank further briefed the Independent Expert on the tools developed by the institution to combat reprisals. 22 23 24 25 8 OHCHR, “Benchmarking study”, draft study report, pp. 48–49. See https://ews.rightsindevelopment.org/about. See, for instance, A/71/281 and A/HRC/39/17; Human Rights Watch, “At your own risk: reprisals against critics of World Bank Group projects”, 22 June 2015; Global Witness, Defenders of the Earth: Global Killings of Land and Environmental Defenders in 2016 (London, 2016); and Coalition for Human Rights in Development, Uncalculated Risks: Threats and Attacks against Human Rights Defenders and the Role of Development Financiers (2019). See the letter dated 12 April 2019 from the group of special procedure mandate holders (OTH 16/2019) and the response dated 7 June 2019 from the World Bank, available at https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/Tmsearch/TMDocuments.