The European Approach to Legal Regulation of Hate Speech

Date: April 23, 2019 (Tuesday)

Time: 12:15pm-1:45pm

Venue: STL 209, PKU Shenzhen

Speaker: Bjørnar Borvik, Professor of Law, University of Bergen Faculty of Law

Moderator: Thomas Man, Associate Dean and Professor from Practice, STL

Abstract

The legal regulation of hate speech must balance conflicting human rights: Freedom of ex-pression is protected by Article 10 of the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, while Article 4 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Ra-cial Discrimination entails an obligation to criminalize hate speech. In the lecture, the Stras-bourg Court’s approach to this clash between human rights will be outlined, as well as select-ed judgments on hate speech from the Norwegian Supreme Court. Emphasis is put on de-scribing the current legal situation, but major steps leading up the present situation will also be pinpointed, as they have a decisive impact on the overall balancing between the human rights involved.

About the Speaker

Bjørnar Borvik is Professor of Law at University of Bergen Faculty of Law, where he has taught since 2002 and served as Vice Dean for Education from 2014 to 2017. He received his PhD from University of Bergen in 2008. His research and teaching interests focus on constitutional law and human rights. He currently serves as the Director of Norwegian China Law Centre at the Faculty of Law, and is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament as Vice Chairman of Norwegian Priva-cy Appeals Board from 2017 to 2020. He has twice been temporarily appointed as Appellate Judge at Court of Appeal for Western Norway.