Rhys Davies, Ben Keith and Cristian Gonzalez at the Oslo Freedom Forum 2026

Rhys Davies, Ben Keith and IHR Advisors at the Oslo Freedom Forum 2026

Rhys Davies, Ben Keith and Cristian González Ruiz of International Human Rights Advisors will attend the Oslo Freedom Forum 2026 from 1 to 3 June. The Forum is convened annually in Oslo by the Human Rights Foundation and brings together human rights defenders, journalists, artists, technologists and policymakers from across the world.

Freedom House recorded a twentieth consecutive year of decline in 2025 in the number of countries assessed as fully free. 79% of the world’s population now lives under regimes classified as Partly Free or Not Free. The Oslo Freedom Forum exists to push against that trajectory. It is one of the few annual fixtures that puts dissidents, exiles, defence lawyers and the multilateral system in the same room for three days.

Sessions of particular interest to IHR Advisors

Three sessions on the published agenda sit closest to the firm’s work.

• What Does Justice Look Like for Survivors of Sexual Torture? On the gap between what international law promises survivors of wartime sexual violence and what they actually receive in practice. With Alice Edwards, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.
• Persecuted for Belief. On how authoritarian states weaponise counter-extremism and national security law to criminalise conscience and religious practice. With Dr Matthew Gillett, Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
• Protecting the Lawyers Who Defend Democracy. On targeted prosecution and professional sanctions used to silence legal advocacy in authoritarian states. With Brandon Silver and colleagues from the International Commission of Jurists and Lawyers for Lawyers.

The wider programme covers the fall of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, journalism under state surveillance, and democratic backsliding in Georgia and Serbia.

Each of these sessions maps onto a live area of the firm’s casework.

The misuse of counter-extremism and national security law is a recurring feature of the INTERPOL Red Notices and Diffusions we challenge. States that prosecute belief and conscience domestically also tend to seek the international arrest of their critics through INTERPOL channels, and the legal answer requires running the criminal-law arguments and the human rights arguments together.

The targeting of defence lawyers is a problem the firm watches closely. Where local counsel cannot safely act for a dissident, exile or journalist because of professional sanctions or criminal exposure at home, the pro bono work of IHR Advisors is one of the routes through which a defence can still be mounted.

The questions around justice for survivors of wartime sexual violence sit alongside the firm’s international criminal law practice, including corporate accountability for human rights harms in conflict zones.

Practical details

• Dates. 1 to 3 June 2026.
• Venue. Oslo, Norway. See the official Forum page for the full venue and room allocations.
• Host. Human Rights Foundation.
• Registration. Through the Forum’s official site.

Our thanks to the Human Rights Foundation team for keeping the Oslo Freedom Forum running for another year, and to the survivors, dissidents and exiles whose work makes the published programme what it is. The full agenda is at the Oslo Freedom Forum 2026 site.