Catalan people
In 2018, Emmerson took the case of Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, to the UN Human Rights Committee, arguing that the Government of Spain had violated his right to participate in political life through a "repressive" legal crackdown, following an independence referendum in Catalonia in October 2017. Launching the case, Emmerson said: "Spain is holding a sword of Damocles over the head of the Catalan people, implementing a strategy that is designed to cower them into submission". He also took up the case of several prominent Catalan politicians and civil society leaders at the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, arising out of their imprisonment in Spain on charges of sedition and rebellion for their part in the 2017 referendum.