CRI BRIEFING PAPER

Q&A: Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP)

July 2025

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPP suits, are increasingly being used by business entities, governments, and others to target and penalize individuals and organizations working to hold them accountable for their actions. SLAPP suits have long been used to harass environmental and human rights defenders, NGOs, and the media.

SLAPP suits can present an existential risk for individuals and NGOs, as the cost of defending a SLAPP suit can be prohibitive. Those filing such claims often drag out the process in an effort to exhaust the resources of their targets.

The purpose of this Q&A is to provide an overview of the phenomenon of SLAPP suits. As these suits can be existential threats, it is critical to understand what they are and how best to address them. Below, we attempt to explain the prevalence of SLAPP suits and how to identify them, provide examples of some cases in the environmental and climate context, and set forth recommendations to better protect those working on matters of public interest, including human rights, climate change, and climate justice.

What are SLAPPs?

A Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation, or SLAPP, is a legal action, usually filed by a corporation, that seeks to misuse or abuse the legal process to prevent, inhibit, restrict, or penalize the exercise of free speech and public participation on matters of public interest, including climate change, environmental harm, and climate justice. It may entail the misuse or abuse of all types of legal claims including, but not limited to, defamation, insult, invasion of privacy, conspiracy, breach of intellectual property rights, economic interference, or infliction of emotional harm. However, defamation is the most common claim in SLAPP suits. In addition to civil suits, and threats of civil suits, it is possible in some jurisdictions for claimants to trigger criminal or administrative charges against their critics, including criminal defamation charges.

SLAPPs are often filed after those they target have expressed a critique of business or government actors by publishing a report, participating in an event or interview, launching a campaign, organizing a demonstration, or posting on social media. In general, the objective of SLAPPs is not to obtain redress but to intimidate and silence the target of the SLAPP, while exhausting their resources.

What is the problem with SLAPPs?

SLAPPs, no matter how meritless, can take years and large sums of money to defend, draining the time and resources of those targeted. Some agree to apologize or “correct” statements to end or prevent a SLAPP, while others fight the action, using up resources that would otherwise be used to carry out their primary mission.

The fear of SLAPPs also creates a chilling effect in which critics and activists hesitate to speak out for fear of being targeted, undermining the rights to freedoms of expression, assembly, and public participation. As Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, has stated:

It is extremely concerning how SLAPPs have become a staple in the manipulation of the judicial system by business actors to stop legitimate human rights work, restrict civic space, and repress dissenting voices. SLAPPs drain the resources of defenders, take time away from human rights defense, and can intimidate others from engaging in legitimate human rights work. ¹

What are the indicators that something is a SLAPP?

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the three key elements of a SLAPP are:

An imbalance of power between the claimant and the defendant. SLAPPs exploit imbalances in financial, political, or societal power to convert matters of public interest into a private dispute. Well-resourced claimants can turn the proceedings into a punishment itself by engaging in expensive and protracted litigation in order to exhaust the defendants’ resources. At times, the mere threat of litigation may be sufficient to silence critics and even potential critics.
Targeting public participation in a matter of public interest. SLAPPs are used to silence persons or entities vocal or active in relation to information on matters of public interest – i.e. matters affecting the public and in which the public might legitimately take an interest, including human rights violations, climate change, corporate accountability, corruption, and financial crimes.
Abusive legal tactics. SLAPPs use abusive tactics including exaggerated or disproportionate claims of damages, multiple lawsuits (possibly in different states, provinces, or countries), frequent amendments of pleadings, excessive requests for disclosure, far-reaching injunctions that encompass lawful acts of protest as well as acts of civil disobedience, or claims that target those only peripherally involved. ²

Some of the actions that may indicate an action is a SLAPP include:

Filing multiple or coordinated lawsuits, including cross-border actions.
Prolonging proceedings through delays, excessive discovery requests, or amended pleadings.
Pursuing appeals that have little or no prospect of success.
Selecting a forum that is onerous for the defendant.
Targeting outspoken individuals rather than the organizations they represent.
Putting forth arguments that are partially or fully unfounded.
Requesting remedies that are disproportionate, excessive or unreasonable.

Engaging in a public relations offensive, in addition to the litigation, that is designed to bully, discredit or intimidate actors participating in public debate or aimed at diverting attention from the substantial issue at stake. ³

Who may be targeted by SLAPPs?

SLAPPs can affect anyone who engages in activism and advocacy, but the targets are most often those who seek to hold the powerful to account, including NGOs, the media, and individual activists or environmental defenders. According to an analysis by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), three in four SLAPPs are against people raising land rights or environmental concerns, with many targeting women environmental defenders. ⁴

While SLAPPs sometimes target large NGOs such as Greenpeace, they frequently target individual activists or small community groups who are not part of a large organization and therefore lack the financial means and capacity to devote the large amount of time and money need to effectively fight off the SLAPP.

This reflects another common feature of SLAPPs: an imbalance of power between the defendant and the claimant. In short, the richer and more powerful the litigant is relative to the defendant, the more effective the SLAPP will be in advancing its objectives.

Journalists have also been the target of SLAPP suits. Recognizing the risk that such suits pose to press freedom, the UN Human Rights Council has called on states to take measures to protect journalists and media workers from strategic lawsuits against public participation, where appropriate, including by adopting laws and policies that prevent and/or alleviate such cases and provide support to victims. ⁵

Who generally files SLAPPs?

Many SLAPPs are filed by businesses or those representing business interests. According to the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe, 45.2% of the SLAPPs filed in Europe in 2023 were filed by business actors, while 35.5% were filed by political figures. ⁶ A 2020 report by the International Center for Non-Profit Law found that, in the Global South, “nearly all of the cases in our sample – 75 cases, or 91% – were brought by private companies or company officials, with 34 of these cases (41%) brought by mining companies and 28 cases (34%) brought by companies associated with agricultural operations.” ⁷

The primary sectors involved in cases filed by businesses or private actors, according to an analysis by BHRRC, are mining, agriculture, logging and lumber, or palm oil. The other main sectors involved were hydropower, oil and gas, and property development. ⁸

EarthRights International identified at least 152 cases between 2012 and 2022 where the fossil fuel industry used SLAPPs and other judicial harassment tactics in attempts to silence or punish its critics in the United States. ⁹This trend continues, with the recent case by Energy Transfer against Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace International the latest example.¹⁰

What steps are being taken to counter SLAPPs?

There is a growing trend of “anti-SLAPP statutes” aimed at providing a quick, effective, and inexpensive mechanism to discourage such suits. While anti-SLAPP laws vary from place to place, many include the same core components, including sanctions against those who use SLAPPs and an early dismissal mechanism to filter the cases out of court before too much harm can be caused.

As of writing, no country has enacted a national anti-SLAPP law. There are, however, a growing number of such laws at the state and provincial level in several countries.

According to the Institute for Free Speech, 38 US states now have anti-SLAPP legislation.¹¹In Canada, Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia have provincial anti-SLAPP laws. In Australia, the Capital Territory is the only state with an anti-SLAPP law.¹²

The European Union passed an Anti-SLAPP Directive in 2024, which established a set of minimum standards for EU member states to meet in their national legal systems.¹³The Directive requires that all EU member states ensure that, at a minimum, in court proceedings brought against individuals or organizations for making statements or carrying out of any activity which concerns a matter of public interest:¹⁴

the court can require the claimant to post security for the estimated costs of the proceedings, including the estimated cost of the defendant’s attorney’s fees;
the defendant can seek early dismissal of “manifestly unfounded” claims, with the burden on the claimant to show that the claims are well-founded;
the claimant can be required to bear all of the costs of the proceedings, including the defendant’s attorney’s fees;
the court can refuse to recognize and enforce a judgment against individuals or organizations domiciled in the country who have been subjected to abusive litigation in a third country; and
individuals or organizations domiciled in the country can seek compensation for damages and costs incurred in connection with abusive proceedings brought in a third country.¹⁵

All countries in the EU are required to enact legislation to implement the Directive by May 7, 2026.

Where no anti-SLAPP legislation is in place, some courts are relying on abuse of process and other doctrines as a basis to dismiss claims.¹⁶For example, the Philippines Supreme Court has introduced protection against SLAPPs in its “Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases”.¹⁷The court has stated that:

In including an anti-SLAPP provision, this Court recognized the egregious reality that SLAPP suits are present in Philippine environmental law litigation and that these frivolous cases are being used to financially burden petitioning parties. Our anti-SLAPP remedy in the Rules aims to encourage public participation to forward environmental law as well as to deter the chilling effect of SLAPP litigation.¹⁸

Under the rules, the defendant may raise SLAPP as an affirmative defense, and the court will hear and rule on the defense in a summary hearing.¹⁹To deter parties from filing SLAPP suits, the rules allow the award of compensatory and punitive damages, reasonable costs, and attorney’s fees to defendants.

In South Africa a 2021 High Court judgment recognized SLAPPs as an abuse of process under common law that justifies dismissal of the claim:

In essence, SLAPPs are designed to turn the justice system into a weapon to intimidate people who are exercising their constitutional rights, restrain public interest in advocacy and activism; and convert matters of public interest into technical private law disputes.²⁰

The case was the first judicial recognition of SLAPP suits in South Africa.²¹

In 2022, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights noted that a criminal defamation case filed by the former president of Ecuador against a journalist was a SLAPP suit – the first recognition of SLAPP suits by the court. The court stated:

The Court considers that the recurrence of public officials resorting to judicial channels to file lawsuits for crimes of slander or insult, not with the objective of obtaining a rectification but to silence the criticisms made regarding their actions in the public sphere, constitutes a threat to freedom of expression. This type of process, known as “SLAPP” (strategic lawsuit against public participation), constitutes an abusive use of judicial mechanisms that must be regulated and controlled by the States, with the aim of allowing effective exercise of freedom of expression.²²

Examples of SLAPPs in the Context of Environmental Human Rights Defenders

Below are a few examples of SLAPP suits filed against environmental defenders or NGOs in different parts of the world.

Malaysia: Samling v. Save Rivers

The Malaysian organization Save Rivers is a small Malaysian NGO that works to help Indigenous People protect their land, rivers and forest.²³In June 2021, after Save Rivers published a number of articles reporting that Samling Plywood was undertaking logging in Sarawak without proper consultation and in violation of the rights of the local Indigenous community, the company filed a defamation lawsuit against the NGO and its directors, claiming that seven articles published by the NGO about the dispute between June 23, 2020, and March 10, 2021, had affected their business and commercial relationships. The company asked for an apology, an injunction stopping SAVE Rivers from reporting community claims, and RM5 million in damages (around 1 million USD).²⁴The damages sought were approximately 45 times the NGO’s annual budget.²⁵

After two years of delays, the case was finally due to go to trial on May 15, 2023. In advance of the trial, 160 civil society organizations signed a letter calling on Samling to drop the lawsuit.²⁶

I feel really frustrated. Because I would like to see this done and over with so we can concentrate and do what we are supposed to do, which is support the Indigenous people. Now we are wasting our time, our resources, our finances, everything. ²⁷

On September 18, 2023, after more than two years, Samling finally withdrew the lawsuit.²⁸

Germany: PT Kennertec v. Rainforest Rescue

In 2016, Mighty Earth, Rainforest Rescue and several Indonesian and Korean NGOs were signatories to a letter sent to major German wind tower customers of PT Kennertec, part of the Korindo Group, informing them that they had business relationships with a conglomerate in Indonesia that had been accused of clearing forests for oil palm plantations and threatening Indigenous Peoples. The allegations related to deforestation by the Korindo Group in its huge palm oil operations in Papua, Indonesia documented in Mighty Earth’s report Burning Paradise.²⁹In response to the lawsuit, more than 100 organizations from Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa signed a declaration condemning the suit as a SLAPP and calling for PT Kennertec to withdraw it.³⁰

In February 2023, after more than three years, PT Kennertec agreed to settle the case after a German court made clear it was likely to dismiss it. According to Mighty Earth, PT Kennertec agreed to settle without any damages or injunctions being awarded against Mighty Earth, CIP or Rainforest Rescue and agreed to pay most of the court’s legal costs.³¹

United Kingdom: Shell v. Greenpeace

In 2023, activists from Greenpeace occupied a moving oil platform in the North Sea to highlight the climate damage caused by Shell’s operations. In response, Shell threatened suit against Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International, demanding that Greenpeace stop protests at its infrastructure at sea or in port anywhere in the world, forever, or face an $8.6m damages claim and an injunction.³³When Shell filed the lawsuit in November 2023, it sought $2.3 million in damages.³⁴The Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) classified Shell’s lawsuit against Greenpeace as a SLAPP.³⁵

In December 2024, Greenpeace and Shell settled the lawsuit. Under the agreement, Greenpeace did not accept any liability and did not agree to pay any money to Shell. Instead Greenpeace agreed to donate £300,000 to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). Greenpeace also agreed to avoid protesting for a period at four Shell sites in the northern North Sea. Greenpeace subsequently stated that the sites in question are mostly declining fields where they had no plans to take direct action, and that Greenpeace will continue to campaign against Shell including in the North Sea.³⁶Greenpeace stated that the prohibitive cost of defending the suit influenced their decision to settle.

“This is the absurd nature of SLAPP suits: even if Greenpeace had gone on to win the case, we could still have ended up worse off than by settling the case at this early stage.”³⁷

Thailand: Tungkum Ltd. v Surapun Rujichaiyavat and five others

In May 2015, mining company Tungkum Ltd. filed a civil defamation complaint at the Loei Provincial Court against six members of Khon Rak Ban Kerd Group (KRBKG), a community-based group actively protesting against the operations of the company. The defendants had posted signs at the entrance gate of Na Nong Bong village and along the road in the village, calling for the closure of the gold mine and rehabilitation of the environment and stating that the company was not welcome in their community. The company asked the defendants to pay 50 million Thai baht (approx. USD$1,632,975) for allegedly damaging the company’s reputation and credibility, with negative implications for its valuations on the stock market.

The case was ultimately dismissed by the Provincial Court on the grounds that the actions of the group were a legitimate exercise of their right of expression and opinion protected by the Thai Constitution. The Court also ruled that the Thai constitution protects community rights over their resources and grants residents the power to ask for the rehabilitation of damaged environments. The court ordered the company to pay compensation to the affected families and take full responsibility for cleaning up all contamination caused and restoring the environment to a livable condition. The Appeal Court upheld the provincial court’s decision. The company has since filed for bankruptcy and has halted all its operations. To date, the respondents have not been compensated.³⁸

United States: Energy Transfer v. Greenpeace

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), nearly 1,200 miles long, is designed to move more than half a million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois each day. Its route crosses many waterways, including Lake Oahe, an artificial reservoir that provides several successor tribes of the Great Sioux Nation with water for drinking, industry, and sacred cultural practices.³⁹

On August 22, 2017, Energy Transfer, the project lead on construction of the pipeline, filed a complaint alleging civil racketeering violations and various state law claims against Greenpeace Inc., Greenpeace International, Greenpeace Fund, BankTrack, EarthFirst and Jane Does 1-20 in federal district court in North Dakota. In short, Energy Transfer claimed that the defendants conspired to disrupt construction of the pipeline. Eighteen months later, on February 14, 2019, the district court dismissed the racketeering charges as unsubstantiated and declined to exercise jurisdiction over the state law claims.⁴⁰As the court noted:

RICO is a unique cause of action that is concerned with eradicating organized, long-term, habitual criminal activity. … This case involves several groups/individuals with similar interests who happened to engage in allegedly unlawful activity around the same time. This is far short of what is needed to establish a RICO enterprise.⁴¹

A week later, Energy Transfer filed a new suit in North Dakota state court against Greenpeace International, Greenpeace Inc., Greenpeace Fund, Red Warrior Society, and three individuals, alleging trespass, defamation, tortious interference, civil conspiracy, aiding and abetting trespass, conversion, and aiding and abetting conversion. Energy Transfer accused Greenpeace of masterminding an “unlawful and violent scheme” to harm the company’s finances, employees and infrastructure and to block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and asked for “exemplary” damages on its defamation claim.

Greenpeace Inc. countered that it had promoted peaceful protest and had played only a minor role in the demonstrations, which were led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe over concerns about its ancestral land and water supply. Greenpeace International maintained that its only involvement was signing a letter to banks expressing opposition to the pipeline, a document that was signed by hundreds and that had been drafted by a Dutch organization.

Greenpeace asked to move the trial from Morton County to Fargo to ensure an impartial jury, noting that those in Morton County had suffered significant disruption to their everyday lives from the protests, and many had ties to the fossil fuel industry. The court denied the motion.

On February 11, 2025, Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer seeking to recover damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfer’s back-to-back lawsuits. ⁴²

What should governments do about SLAPPs?

Adopt national anti-SLAPP laws. State and provincial governments should also adopt anti-SLAPP laws if national laws are not applicable in their court system. Effective anti-SLAPP legislation should be:
- Broad in scope
- Empower courts to dismiss abusive court proceedings on their own initiative or upon application by the SLAPP target if the court finds that proceedings are abusive;
- Ensure an accelerated procedure for hearing the application to dismiss, during which the main proceedings should be stayed;
- Compensate the victim and impose effective, proportionate, and dissuasive penalties on the SLAPP pursuer;
- Empower courts to deter and remedy the use of multiple and coordinated cross-border legal actions.

Monitor and raise awareness on SLAPPs.
Financially and psychologically support victims of SLAPPs, including by providing legal aid.
Train judges, prosecutors, and lawyers to identify and deter SLAPPs.
Protect the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association in the context of activism in business and human rights.
Decriminalize defamation, blasphemy and other offences that may impose disproportionate penalties on those exerting their rights to freedom of opinion and expression as well as freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Promote the active involvement of defenders and civil society organizations in the discussion on implementing strategies to prevent and sanction the use of SLAPPs.

What should businesses do about SLAPPs?

Commit to a clear public policy of non-retaliation against defenders and organizations that raise concerns about the company and its business practices.
Adopt a zero-tolerance approach on reprisals and attacks on defenders in their operations, value chains, and business relationships.
Refrain from and commit to not using SLAPPs or other forms of judicial harassment to stop public participation and advocacy.
Communicate expectations for their business partners, suppliers, and contractors to not bring SLAPPs with the intention of silencing critics.
Exercise human rights due diligence to identify and prevent the use of SLAPPs throughout their supply chain and within corporate groups.
Where they are aware of SLAPPs in their supply chains, use their leverage to encourage the perpetrator to discontinue such actions or consider exiting the business relationship.
Raise the problem of SLAPPs with governments in the countries where they are based and operate.
Encourage the enactment of anti-SLAPP legislation and measures which will help level the playing field for responsible companies.
Engage stakeholders to address criticism and protest, instead of suing them.

What should investors do about SLAPPs?

Publish a public human rights policy that recognizes:
- the important role of human rights defenders in identifying risks associated with business activities; and
- has a clear policy of zero tolerance on attacks against defenders.
Undertake rigorous human rights due diligence and review potential investees for their history of SLAPPs or other forms of legal harassment and avoid investing in companies with a track record of SLAPPs.
Clearly communicate human rights expectations to portfolio companies, including direction not to bring lawsuits which silence critics.
Engage in discussions regarding public policy on this topic whenever this is appropriate and supported by local civil society. This includes raising the importance of anti-SLAPP legislation with government bodies.

Additional Resources

There is a wealth of reporting and analysis about SLAPPs by NGOs and UN bodies, and CRI has drawn on many of those resources in creating this Q&A. A listing of some of those reports and analyses is below:

UN Bodies

UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “The impact of SLAPPs on human rights & how to respond,” briefing paper, April 29, 2024.
UN Human Rights Council, “Resolution 51/9: The safety of journalists,” adopted on October 12, 2022, A/HRC/RES/51/9.

NGOs

Business and Human Rights Resource Center, “SLAPPed but not silenced: Defending human rights in the face of legal risks,” briefing, June 15, 2021.
Business and Human Rights Resource Center, “Defending Defenders: Challenging Malicious Lawsuits in Southeast Asia,” briefing paper, March 2020.
Global Freedom of Expression, “Special Collection on the Case Law on Freedom of Expression: How are courts responding to SLAPPs? Analysis of selected court decisions from across the globe,” report, 2023.
Institute for Free Speech, “Updates to the Anti-SLAPP Report Card,” blog post, April 18, 2024.
Human Rights Law Centre, “Stop the SLAPP: Protecting Free Speech in Australia,” report, Dec. 4, 2024.
Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe, “SLAPPs in Europe: Mapping Trends and Cases,” report, December 2024.
International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, “SLAPPS in the Global South: Feature and Policy Responses,” report, July 2020.
EarthRights International, “The Fossil Fuel Industries Use of SLAPPs and Judicial Harassment in the United States,” report, September 12, 2022.

Government Bodies

Council of Europe, “Recommendation CM/Rec (2024) of the Committee of Ministers to member States on countering the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs),” adopted on April 5, 2024.