What’s Wrong With Defamation of Religion?
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Description
In March 2010, in Geneva, the UN's Human Rights Council (HRC) voted by a narrow margin to accept a nonbinding Resolution on “Combating Defamation of Religions.” (Hereafter, “the Resolution.”) Resolutions like this one have been offered regularly at the HRC and in the General Assembly, have the support of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League, and have passed regularly over the last decade in all of these various fora. I think this widespread support is regrettable and I hope that this idea does not gain a serious foothold in international human rights law. In fact, the Resolution had less support in March 2010 than it had had in the past and, as this volume goes to press, it appears that the resolution's proponents have abandoned their efforts, at least for the foreseeable future. I am glad that this is so, and in this chapter I want to explain why. To do this, I will have first to say something about the considerations that I think favor laws against defamation in general; my aim is to make the best case for legal sanctions against defamation of religion in particular before recommending against such legal sanctions.
Source Publication
The Content and Context of Hate Speech: Rethinking Regulation and Responses
Source Editors/Authors
Michael Herz, Peter Molnar
Publication Date
2011
Recommended Citation
Appiah, Kwame Anthony, "What’s Wrong With Defamation of Religion?" (2011). Faculty Chapters. 123.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/123
