doi:10.36633/ulr.667engGascón Marcén, AnaThe platform for the protection of journalists: a mechanism for cooperation between non-governmental organisations and the council of EuropeART-2021-125337The decrease in journalist safety and media freedom has a negative impact on the rule of law because journalists cannot act as public watchdogs. Its deterioration in Europe during the last decade is a worrying trend for society as a whole. The Council of Europe has tried to fight against it through the creation of a public Internet-based Platform for the protection of journalism and the safety of journalists. The Platform receives alerts from non-governmental organisations such as journalist associations and this serves as an early warning mechanism for the Council of Europe. Non-governmental organisations act as partners of this International Organisation and in that way they protect the rule of law from below. A simple search of the Platform permits to see the many threats journalists face in Europe every day. This paper assesses how the Platform works. It is a positive initiative to co-operate with civil society that still has to improve its results mainly through a more effective engagement of the Member States of the Council of Europe.2021http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/10913310.36633/ulr.667http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/109133oai:zaguan.unizar.es:109133Utrecht law review 17, 2 (2021), 42-55byhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess