The Volokh Conspiracy

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Free Speech

"South Africa the Model? A Comparative Analysis of Hate Speech Jurisprudence …

of South Africa and the European Court of Human Rights."

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


The Journal of Free Speech Law has just published this new article, by Jacob Mchangama & Natalie Alkiviadou; here's the Abstract:

We compare the handling of hate speech by the European Court of Human Rights and the highest courts of South Africa: The latter, it turns out, adopts a more robust and well-articulated approach to the issues of hate speech than the former, falling more in line with the thresholds set out by documents such as the UN's Rabat Plan of Action. We argue that South Africa can be a good template for other countries, organizations, and social media platforms seeking a human-rights-based approach to handling hate speech.

This is our fourth non-symposium article (we've also published eleven in a symposium last year), and it was selected through our usual blind peer review process. It's also our first article from foreign authors, and our first dealing with foreign and comparative free speech law.

We encourage everyone to submit manuscripts to the Journal, and we promise a decision within 14 days (a promise which we have consistently adhered to), though you need to submit to us exclusively for those 14 days. Of course, as you can tell from our first issue, we are open to articles from all perspectives, whether arguing for broader free speech protection, narrower free speech protection, or anything else.