A critique of the UN Strategy and Guidance on ‘Hate Speech’: Some Legal Considerations

Abstract

This article critically reviews the UN Strategy and Guidance on Hate Speech as examples of practice and uses them as a springboard to engage with the current legal framework. In doing so, it considers not only international human rights law but the related fields of international criminal and humanitarian law. Building upon the UN Strategy and Guidance, whilst also informed by their shortcomings, the article offers a definition and typology of ‘hate speech’ firmly rooted in the rigours of the rules of interpretation, as crystallised in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The law-based approach ensures more transparency, certainty, and predictability of the law of free speech and its limitations. As such, it should also garner the support of more States, the primary duty-holders in international human rights law and lead to a more holistic approach to countering ‘hate speech’, thus achieving the aims of the UN Strategy.