Scope of Freedom of Expression

The Declaration, adopted by the specialized mandates tasked with protecting Freedom of Expression at the UN, OAS, OSCE, and African Commission, was drafted in cooperation with ARTICLE 19 and the Centre for Law and Democracy. The Declaration “outlines the interrelationship and interdependency of media freedom and democratic values, and the critical role of media freedom in enabling and sustaining democratic societies.” In the three sections that follow, the Declaration focuses on the role of states, calling for state actors to protect journalists and media diversity, refrain from press freedom violations, and provide economic support to the media. In its recommendations for online platforms, the Declaration emphasizes human rights standards, transparency, risk mitigation, and fair compensation. Finally, it addresses the media sector and stresses the importance of professional and ethical conduct.

In this segment of the MOOC 'Freedom of Expression in the Age of Globalization' created by Columbia Global Freedom of Expression, Agnès Callamard reviews the international context which presided over the development and adoption of the ICCPR, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the various debates which characterized the drafting of the provision related to freedom of expression. Callamard also explains two additional institutions which have made the ICCPR a particularly important tool for the protection of human rights and freedom of expression in particular.

“Artificial intelligence (AI) – a broad concept used in policy discussions to refer to many different types of technology – greatly influences and impacts the way people seek, receive, impart and access information and how they exercise their right to freedom of expression in the digital ecosystem. If implemented responsibly, AI can benefit societies, but there is a genuine risk that its deployment by States and private companies, such as internet intermediaries, could have a deteriorating effect on human rights… [This Paper] maps the key challenges to freedom of expression presented by AI across the OSCE region, in light of international and regional standards on human rights and AI. It identifies a number of overarching problems that AI poses to freedom of expression and human rights in general, in particular: (a.) The limited understanding of the implications for freedom of expression caused by AI, in particular machine learning; (b.) Lack of respect for freedom of expression in content moderation and curation; (c.) State and non-State actors circumventing due process and rule of law in AI-powered content moderation; (d.) Lack of transparency regarding the entire process of AI design, deployment and implementation; (e.) Lack of accountability and independent oversight over AI systems; and, (f.) Lack of effective remedies for violation of the right to freedom of expression in relation to AI. This Paper observes that these problems became more pronounced in the first months of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic incentivized States and the private sector to use AI even more, as part of measures introduced in response to the pandemic. A tendency to revert to technocratic solutions, including AI-powered tools, without adequate societal debate or democratic scrutiny was witnessed. Using four specific case studies (“security threats”; “hate speech”; media pluralism and diversity online; and the impact of AI-powered State surveillance on freedom of expression), this Paper shows how these problems manifest themselves. This Paper concludes that there is a need to further raise awareness, and improve understanding, of the impact of AI related to decision-making policies and practices on freedom of expression, next to having a more systematic overview of regional approaches and methodologies in the OSCE region. It provides a number of preliminary recommendations to OSCE participating States and internet intermediaries, to help ensure that freedom of expression and information are better protected when AI is deployed.”

“This research report concerns the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, and through any media – including in the form of art. As such, it provides an overview of the human rights law framework applicable to artistic freedom of expression, highlights several contemporary instances of threat to artistic freedom, and concludes with a limited number of recommendations for States, private actors and civil society.” 

The Australian Constitution lacks a comprehensive statement of rights. The few rights which have been judicially recognized by the High Court of Australia have typically been narrowly interpreted. One such right is the freedom of political communication, which is a restricted/limited kind of free speech right. Though the early 1990s witnessed several decisions in which the freedom of speech was protected in fairly expansive ways, the doctrine was revised in 1997 due to growing doubts about its “more adventurous applications” within the Court. In Lange, the affirmation of the doctrine was accompanied by an emphasis on the limits imposed on the right by the text and structure of the Constitution, and the afterlife of Lange until Coleman witnessed the failure of all free speech challenges levelled in the High Court of Australia. In this article, Stone and Evans discuss how the decision in Coleman affirms the survival of the freedom of political communication as well as clarifies several aspects of the doctrine. They highlight that the quashing of Coleman’s conviction is reflective of the rejection of arguments about the legitimacy of the State’s endeavour to mandate civility in political communication. They argue that the Judiciary’s decision reveals a preference for public debate which tolerates insult as well as other forms of uncivil expression, and that such a justification “exposes the fragility of the consensus regarding the legitimacy of the implied freedom established in Lange.”

“Private social media companies regulate much more speech than any government does, and their platforms are being used to bring about serious harm. Yet companies govern largely on their own, and in secret. To correct this, advocates have proposed that companies follow international human-rights law. That law–by far the world’s best-known rules for governing speech–could improve regulation itself, and would also allow for better transparency and oversight on behalf of billions of people who use social media. This paper argues that for this to work, the law must first be interpreted to clarify how (and whether) each of its provisions are suited to this new purpose. For example, the law provides that speech may be restricted to protect national security, as one of only five permissible bases for limiting speech. Governments, for which international law was written, may regulate on that basis, but not private companies which have no national security to protect. To fill some of the gap, the paper explains and interprets the most relevant provisions of international human-rights law–Articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which pertain to freedom of expression–for use by social media companies, in novel detail.”

“Citizens United v. FEC has fundamentally reshaped American politics by enshrining into law a radical new conception of what it means to be a democratic participant. The Court strikes down, on freedom of speech grounds, a federal law prohibiting independent political expenditures by unions and corporations. Yet, throughout the approximately 180 pages of opinion, there is strikingly sparse discussion of just what “speech” is. Nor do any of the Justices adequately explore the rationale behind the phrase “corporate speech,” an arguably paradoxical syntactical combination rooted in the Court’s “freedom of expressive association” jurisprudence-a doctrine of relatively recent vintage. Justice Stevens’ passionate dissent is laced throughout with the concession that corporations themselves engage in “speech”-a term that, on its face, would seem to require a human “speaker.” Thus even the dissent implicitly accepts the default position that corporations are potentially eligible for protections clearly designed by the First Amendment’s framers for human beings. Legal academics and journalists of all stripes have likewise blithely accepted the conclusion that there is something called “corporate speech.” In doing so, the dissent and others who find the Citizens United decision troubling have unwittingly and unwisely ceded unnecessary ground. By reifying corporations and imbuing them with the sympathetic qualities of individual American citizens seeking to assert their fundamental First Amendment freedoms, the majority is able to craft an opinion that resembles constitutional common sense. In this article, I examine how the Court ultimately arrives at this destination. In the decades prior to Citizens United, the Court established that associating with others has a close nexus with the textual freedoms of speech and assembly, but the contours of the “right to associate” remained far from clear. I argue that the right to enhance individual expression through association gradually, and without acknowledgement, morphed into a right of the association itself I trace and critique this development, looking closely at Court precedent, the views of the Framers, and the core philosophical underpinnings of free speech. After Citizens United, the fiction of the “corporate speaker,” useful in other contexts, was inappropriately accorded First Amendment status. The result, I argue, is contrary to democratic and republican ideals-allowing corporations and other associations to become potent players in political contests intended for individual citizens.”

“[T]he Government of Costa Rica […] submitted to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights […] an advisory opinion request relating to the interpretation of Articles 13 [Freedom of thought and expression] and 29 [Restrictions Regarding Interpretation] of the American Convention on Human Rights […] as they affect the compulsory membership in an association prescribed by law for the practice of journalism […]. The request also sought the Court's interpretation relating to the compatibility of Law No. 4420 of September 22, 1969, Organic Law of the Colegio de Periodistas (Association of Journalists) of Costa Rica […], with the provisions of the aforementioned articles.”