ABSTRACT
In the second part of this book, attention shifts from history to law. The most important response to US-style free speech protections to have been published in the last decade is Jeremy Waldron’s The Harm in Hate Speech. Key parts of Waldron’s argument are summarised, including his idea of dignity and of “assurance,” a public good, in which all citizens are entitled to share certain minimum standards. By having laws against hate speech, society tells members of a minority group that they are entitled to full and equal lives. Waldron’s ideas are shown to reach a legal expression in UK and EU equality law – a point developed through a summary of a key decision of the European Court of Human Rights, in relation to Article 17, which prohibits speech aimed at the destruction of human rights. Finally, the book proposes that the point to which Waldron’s ideas are tending is a prohibition on hateful speech taking the form of Holocaust denial.
