On the Cancellation of Rightscon 2026 by the Zambian Government

New York City Bar Association Statement

The New York City Bar Association[1] (City Bar) expresses grave concern and disappointment at the Zambian government’s decision to postpone and effectively cancel RightsCon 2026, a leading global forum on digital rights and technology policy, mere days before the event was scheduled to begin in Lusaka, Zambia.

Unilateral Postponement of Human Rights Conference

On April 28, 2026, the Zambian Ministry of Technology and Science[2] announced a last-minute “postponement” of the summit, which is hosted annually by the global digital rights organization Access Now. A clarifying statement[3] issued on Facebook on April 29, 2026, cited concerns about undisclosed “critical information related to key thematic issues proposed for discussion” and their alleged misalignment with “Zambia’s national values.” This “postponement,” which came days before RightsCon 2026’s scheduled start on May 5, 2026, is effectively an eleventh-hour cancellation of the conference, considering the scale of the organizing. Many of the over 2,600 attendees registered to attend in-person[4] had already traveled or were en route to Lusaka, more than 500 sessions were prepared, and no credible rescheduling framework was offered. The Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice (Vance Center), a program of the City Bar, had organized a roundtable with partners for this year’s conference on safeguards against government surveillance of civil society organizations (CSOs).[5]

Access Now asserts in its official statement that foreign interference was the trigger for this postponement.[6] The organization states that the Zambian government informally conveyed that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had put pressure on the Zambian government and that certain topics would have to be moderated and some registered attendees, including Taiwanese participants, excluded, in order for the postponement to be rescinded.[7] To date, the government of Zambia has not addressed these allegations or otherwise provided further details regarding its decision and how the content of the conference conflicted with Zambia’s “national values.”

The conference was meant to be a historic RightsCon as the first session convened in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the hope of increasing engagement with African delegates, and capitalizing on a more accessible visa process for delegates from other countries.[8] The Zambian Ministry of Technology and Science was the primary government partner of RightsCon 2026 and had been collaborating with conference organizers for months, including through the facilitation of smooth processing of attendee visas.[9] The Zambian government’s actions have not merely inconvenienced organizers and participants; they struck at the very purpose and objective of such a gathering.

Another Attack on Civic Space

RightsCon brings together over 3,000 participants annually, including CSOs, human rights advocates, government representatives, international organizations, technologists, and independent experts. It is, above all, a space for open, cross-sectoral dialogue on the intersection of technology, governance, and human rights.

This final hour “postponement” is not an isolated incident. It is emblematic of a deeply troubling global trend of transnational repression targeting civil society: the deliberate narrowing of civic space through government interference in civil society gatherings, the imposition of visa and travel restrictions on activists and human rights defenders, and the conditioning of international forums on political comfort or selective participation. As has been aptly noted, “civil society is not uniformly closed, but it has become increasingly fragmented” as governments impose strategic constraints under the guise of otherwise permissible causes.[10]

When governments prevent the free assembly of human rights defenders, advocates, and civil society actors, particularly when doing so on the basis of disagreement with the substance of discussions or, as alleged, on the identity of some participants, they send a chilling message to the global community: that open discourse on human rights may be tolerated only when it proves politically convenient or is subject to State prerogative. This contravenes the principles upon which the international human rights framework is built and deals a devastating blow to civic space in Zambia, and internationally.

Previous actions by Zambia’s government have already foreshadowed issues of dwindling civic space, including frequent arrests of dissenting critics[11] and the introduction of laws like the NGO Bill of 2025, which Zambian CSOs argue will grant the government excessive oversight powers that undermine independent operation.[12] In 2025, Zambia also passed the Cyber Crimes Act (Act No. 4 of 2025), which has serious implications for free speech for activists, with some civil society organizations expressing concern about over-broad provisions and significant criminal penalties for offenses implicating digital expression.[13]  Canceling RightsCon raises further concerns of democratic regression and chilling of fundamental rights, just months before Zambia is scheduled to hold its national elections in August 2026.[14]

International and Regional Human Rights Law is Clear 

The freedoms of peaceful assembly, association, and expression are not privileges that States may grant or withdraw at will. These freedoms are inalienable, fundamental rights enshrined in binding international law. Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)—representing customary norms of international law—affirms that every individual has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.[15] Article 19 guarantees freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of borders.[16]

These rights are further protected under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Zambia is a State Party. Article 11 of the African Charter and Article 21 of the ICCPR guarantee the right of peaceful assembly, permitting restrictions only where they are prescribed by law, necessary in a democratic society, and serve a legitimate aim such as national security, public safety, public order, or the protection of public health or morals.[17] Article 10 of the African Charter and Article 22 of the ICCPR similarly limit permissible restrictions on freedom of association to those that are strictly necessary and proportionate.[18] The Zambian Constitution also affirms these rights, asserting that these rights may only be restricted  on limited grounds, including defense, public safety, public order, public morality, or public health.[19] Article 2 of both the UDHR and ICCPR prohibit discrimination of any kind, including exclusion from and restriction on the enjoyment of protected rights based on an individual’s national origin.[20] The alleged pressure to exclude RightsCon registrants based solely on their nationality is a violation of this principle.

The UN Human Rights Committee has made clear that States may not prohibit, restrict, block, disperse, or disrupt peaceful assemblies without compelling justification, nor sanction participants or organizers without legitimate cause.[21] Any restriction must be necessary to avert a real, not hypothetical, threat, and proportionate in the sense that less intrusive measures would be insufficient to achieve the stated purpose.[22] The Zambian government has offered no such justification, and has provided no basis of any legitimate aim for the curtailment of the right of peaceful assembly aside from the vague and insufficient assertion of “national values.” A State’s disagreement with topics proposed for discussion, which here include digital rights and safeguards against surveillance in the face of rising authoritarianism, does not meet this threshold. That is precisely the kind of content-based restriction that international human rights law prohibits.

The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders affirms that everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and strive for the protection and realization of human rights at both national and international levels.[23] The participants of RightsCon—lawyers, journalists, civil society representatives, technologists, and advocates—are precisely those human rights defenders whose work the international community has committed to protecting.

The Zambian government’s decision further contravenes its obligations under regional human rights instruments, beyond just the African Charter. The African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) has issued several resolutions and guidelines recognizing the importance of freedom of expression, association, and assembly, and calling on member States to protect, respect, and promote these rights. These include, inter alia, the 2017 Guidelines on Freedom of Association and Assembly in Africa[24] and the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa 2019, which affirm the importance of these freedoms as essential democratic cornerstones.[25] The ACHPR’s Resolution on the Need to Protect Civic Space and Freedom of Association and Assembly has emphasized the obligations of States to safeguard and not unduly limit civic space.[26] The Zambian government’s actions effectively preclude digital rights activists, human rights defenders, community organizers, legal experts, and more from exercising the right of peaceful assembly and free deliberations. The government’s actions are adverse to the efforts of human rights bodies towards the protection of fundamental rights, as embodied in the aforementioned instruments.

The Implications: Why Safeguards Against Surveillance Matter

The Vance Center’s session on safeguards against surveillance sits at the heart of the very concerns this cancellation raises. Unchecked government surveillance is among the most significant contemporary threats to civil society, freedom of expression, and the rule of law. It chills dissent, limits advocacy, and enables the targeting of human rights defenders, journalists, and lawyers. This effective cancellation and the purported reasoning behind it demonstrate why forums like RightsCon are indispensable. Shrinking civic space, government interference in civil society gatherings, and limitations on participation are not arguments against these events; they are the very reasons these events must exist and must be protected.

The City Bar stands in solidarity with Access Now and the RightsCon organizing team, with the thousands of participants whose work was disrupted, and with the civil society community that this forum exists to serve. The City Bar also expresses its deep sadness at this outcome and the firm conviction that spaces like RightsCon are not optional; they are essential to the health of global democratic discourse and the protection of human rights.

International forums conditioned on political comfort or selective themes or participation erode trust in global commitments to freedom of expression, open civic space, and collaborative human rights protection.

The New York City Bar Association calls upon the government of Zambia to comply with its national, regional, and international human rights obligations and refrain from unduly limiting the free exercise of speech, peaceful assembly and association.