Regulating hatred: Of devils and demons?

Abstract

Hate speech and hate crime are an anathema to any society. On a United Nations level, the central tools to tackle such hatred are Article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. On a Council of Europe level, the Additional Protocol to the Cybercrime Convention tackles racist and xenophobic material, threats and insults as well as revisionist rhetoric transmitted and disseminated through computer systems. On a European Union level, there is the Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia. In none of the above-mentioned instruments do we find provisions on homophobic and transphobic speech and crime, nor are there equivalents of documents such as the Framework Decision with the thematic of homophobia and transphobia. This creates a hierarchy of hate, with some forms of hate considered more important than others by the aforementioned institutions, a reality that goes against the very essence of international human rights law.