ABSTRACT
Western Europe has an array of constitutions, bills of rights, basic law provisions, case law, and customs protecting the fundamental right of freedom of expression. These have culminated in the human rights convention, which nearly every country in Western Europe has ratified. Examples of censorship are necessarily selective. The chapter presents the cases that have been chosen for their ability to demonstrate the substance, practice, and procedures of free-expression law in Western Europe, primarily through the Council of Europe and the European Convention of Human Rights. Interestingly, one of the very few victories by the government of the United Kingdom before the European Court of Human Rights involved a case of censorship. Censorship and freedom of expression continue to be legislated and litigated throughout Western Europe. Europeans have divergent bodies of law on this subject, but perhaps they may one day be unified by a regional standard.
