5 - Recent Normative Battles within the UN on Hate Speech

Summary

The chapter examines the more recent attempts to further develop international standards providing protection against hate speech. It outlines the content of the proposed standards and the major players who either spearheaded or resisted the standard-setting efforts. It then examines states’ polarized positions on the meaning of the international norm prohibiting incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence and the need for new international standards on hate speech. It also examines how the standard-setting agenda’s focus on the religious grounds of hate speech complicated the process of reaching international consensus on the further development or refinement of that norm. More specifically, it analyses how the interaction of the proposed standards with the scope of freedom of religion, and their conflation of racism and advocacy of religious hatred, further increased opposition to their introduction. Finally, the chapter examines how certain actions and characteristics of both supporters and opponents of the standard-setting agenda contributed to the failure of that agenda.