The Right to Protection from Incitement to Hatred
Mona Elbahtimy · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2021
The chapter examines, in detail, five internal features that characterize the norm providing protection from incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence, as codified in Article 20(2) of the ICCPR. These five features are the ‘emotive’ component, the ‘incitement’ component, the tensions between equality and liberty rights of speakers and members of targeted groups, the ‘group identity’ component, and, finally, the ‘religion’ component. The chapter elaborates on the dilemmas of interpretation and implementation generated by these internal features. It illustrates how the minimalist and maximalist approaches to the legal regulation of hate speech perceive these five features differently. Furthermore, they clarify how the libertarian and egalitarian approaches to freedom of expression, as well as the individualist and communitarian approaches to rights, address differently the conundrums created by the five features. This ultimately generates different delineations of the meaning and scope of the norm, and different views on whether or not legalistic constraints on hate speech (or, rather, quasi-legalistic restrictions) are warranted, as well as on the scope and nature of such restrictions.