2018 marked both the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 20th anniversary of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. However, Human Rights Defenders have quickly become a target for authoritarian and illiberal regimes around the world. To make things worse, in recent years Human Rights Defenders and civil society have also been strong-armed, restricted in their work or even exposed to violence by democratic states increasingly. Steven Kleemann therefore examines this so-called "shrinking spaces" phenomenon in a European context and takes into account the international legal framework.