A/HRC/44/50 society, the Internet is no longer a safe place, as they have become the growing targets of surveillance and online violence. The slow progress in addressing these challenges points to the urgent need to move beyond commitments to action and accountability. 6. Climate change and other global crises 69. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a key issue that emerged is the role of peaceful assembly and of association in building society’s resilience to different crises. Civil society has historically played a key role in recovery efforts after natural disasters and amid humanitarian, health and climate crises. As civic space restrictions have widened and deepened, they have also affected these groups. A trend towards criminalizing humanitarian and climate action activists is a growing concern. The agenda will need to engage with these actors and devise better strategies to empower them to continue to meet these contemporary challenges. 7. Participation and democratic processes 70. The future agenda cannot ignore the multifaceted factors transforming democratic processes (constitutional, parliamentary and electoral) and the different ways in which those factors promote or constrain the exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. The digital environment is particularly impacting civil society’s participation in democratic processes, and the need to understand and address that issue is a matter of urgency. 8. Transitional democracies and post-conflict countries 71. These contexts offer critical opportunities to advance the protection of public freedoms, including the rights to assembly and association. Higher levels of public engagement can effectively help consolidate democratic transitions and conflict resolution, by leveraging civil society’s capacity to generate new ideas, build partnerships and engage with those hardest to reach. Future work should prioritize support for the creation of an enabling legal environment for civil society to operate in those contexts, including for women’s organizations and women’s rights defenders. 9. Legal reform 72. For civil society organizations to be able to work effectively, the legal and regulatory framework governing them must be sufficient to enable their formation, operation and participation in public life. According to data provided by the International Centre for NotFor-Profit Law, however, from 2013 to 2019, over 88 countries proposed or passed 217 legal initiatives restricting the work of civil society organizations. A future agenda will need to guide stakeholders on how to leverage opportunities to reform laws and regulations governing civil society and secure their effective implementation. 10. Accountability of State and non-State actors 73. Securing greater accountability of State and non-State actors for violations of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, including police abuse in the context of peaceful protests, remains a great challenge. Over the past decade there has been much less progress in establishing ways of increasing victim access to justice and remedy. An effective criminal justice response is the primary avenue for securing both criminal and civil responsibility in this area. A future agenda should seek to collaborate more closely with members of the legal profession and the justice sector towards ensuring that victims can effectively access justice. 11. Implementation at the domestic level 74. Mandate holders have often drawn attention to a worrying gap between international norms and standards and the extent to which they are implemented in practice. This is particularly the case with the rules governing the use of force during the management of peaceful assemblies that, despite being clearly articulated by international law, are too often disregarded. Improving compliance mechanisms at the domestic level must be a priority for States, civil society and the international community. 17