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> Incidentally, Freedom of Speech laws are quite rare. I don't know of any country other than the USA that has constitutional protections for speech. I think f

by shkkmo 7y ago

> Incidentally, Freedom of Speech laws are quite rare. I don't know of any country other than the USA that has constitutional protections for speech. I think freedom of speech is almost universally considered an inalienable human right. It tends to be protected by international treaty obligations (which usually have the force of law?). Wikipedia says: >> Today, freedom of speech, or the freedom of expression, is recognised in international and regional human rights law. The right is enshrined in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. Regarding the UK, the English Bill of Rights protects free speech and I believe it still has the force of law and is cited in legal cases.

claudiawerner 7y ago
Freedom of speech is not given the same primacy as it is in the US in other countries; while it is a right everywhere, for example the ICCPC you cited also has Article 20: >Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law. Germany has even stronger caveats to freedom of speech. The US stands alone (to my knowledge) in the way it treats freedom of speech because of the wording and interpretation of the first amendment, which is why there is so much debate in the field of first amendment jurisprudence and philosophy as to what its limits are and what they, in the views of many researchers, what they should be. See Susan Brison's arguments on that point. Countries such as the UK and Germany frequently allow concerns of discrimination, the silencing power of speech, and other factors to override pure freedom of speech. To my knowledge, the bill of rights only applies in England and Wales, and it is extremely infrequently used, and hasn't been, to my knowledge, used to protect freedom of speech (at least not any time recently).

by shkkmo 7y ago

claudiawerner 7y ago

Freedom of speech is not given the same primacy as it is in the US in other countries; while it is a right everywhere, for example the ICCPC you cited also has Article 20: >Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law. Germany has even stronger caveats to freedom of speech. The US stands alone (to my knowledge) in the way it treats freedom of speech because of the wording and interpretation of the first amendment, which is why there is so much debate in the field of first amendment jurisprudence and philosophy as to what its limits are and what they, in the views of many researchers, what they should be. See Susan Brison's arguments on that point. Countries such as the UK and Germany frequently allow concerns of discrimination, the silencing power of speech, and other factors to override pure freedom of speech. To my knowledge, the bill of rights only applies in England and Wales, and it is extremely infrequently used, and hasn't been, to my knowledge, used to protect freedom of speech (at least not any time recently).