ECNL Anti-SLAPP Webinar: Beyond the Deadline – Turning Europe’s Anti-SLAPP Standards into Real Protection

Date: 16 September 2026
Time: 10:00–12:00 CET / 11:00–13:00 Vilnius time
Format: Online webinar

On 16 September, the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) and the Netherlands Helsinki Committee will hold an international webinar dedicated to the implementation of European standards against SLAPPs — Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.

The webinar, entitled “Beyond the Deadline: Turning Europe’s Anti-SLAPP Standards into Real Protection,” will examine how the EU Anti-SLAPP Directive, the European Commission Recommendation and the Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec(2024)2 on countering SLAPPs can be translated into effective protection for journalists, human rights defenders, civil society organisations, activists and other actors engaged in public participation.

Although important European standards are already in place, their implementation remains uneven. The discussion will therefore focus on practical gaps in national systems and on measures needed to ensure that legal proceedings and other forms of legal intimidation are not misused to silence public-interest work.

Speakers will include experts from the Council of Europe, Greenpeace International, as well as national experts from Bulgaria, Croatia, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia.

For Our House Centre for Human Rights and Relief, this discussion is particularly relevant because the Council of Europe Recommendation adopts a broad understanding of SLAPP-related pressure and addresses not only traditional defamation cases, but also wider forms of legal intimidation affecting human rights defenders and civil society organisations.

Organisers: ECNL and the Netherlands Helsinki Committee