Paris-Geneva, 25 May 2021 Excellencies, The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), urges UN Member States to urgently step up their action to ensure global counter-terrorism policies do not negatively impact civil society and human rights defenders. Although human rights were given a central place in the UN Global Counter-Terrorist Strategy (GCTS), human rights organisations have extensively documented the minimisation and under-funding of human rights aspects of the strategy[1]. In addition, civil society and human rights defenders have remained sidelined in an overwhelming majority of processes within the UN Counter-Terrorist Architecture[2]. This situation has led to