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	Striking a balance between freedom of expression and the prohibition of incitement to hatred by Kyung-wha Kang UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Morocco   Oct 2012   Speaking at a gathering of international experts, in Rabat, Morocco, on freedom of expression and prohibition of incitement to national, racial or religious hatred, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kyung-wha Kang described an increasingly globalized world where the inequalities and fault-lines have deepened and the challenges intensified.   A number of recent incidents, Kang said, have sounded “alarm bells about the level of hatred and cynicism that has permeated the minds of thoughtless or extremist elements in societies.”   “Over and above religious issues, the challenge of advocacy of hatred runs deeper and wider. It is clear that hatred has many faces and we have seen them in all parts of the world”, she said.   “Against this background,” Kang said, “the fine line between freedom of expression and hate speech has come increasingly under focus.”   The Rabat meeting was the culmination of four regional events, held over the past year, in Vienna, Austria; in Nairobi, Kenya; in Bangkok, Thailand; and Santiago, Chile. Organized by the UN Human Rights Office, the experts examined what constitutes “incitement” to discrimination, hostility or violence based on national, racial or religious grounds as described in international human rights law. They considered how to adequately prevent and address this problem while at the same time ensuring protection of freedom of expression.   “In response to today’s challenges, many governments have reinforced existing laws and introduced new punitive measures,” the Deputy said. She observed that the workshops have surveyed national policies and legislation in many different places and have “found various examples of insufficient legislation, or new, vague and unclear provisions open to misuse.”   “Any action in response to incitement to hatred must not be applied in a normative vacuum or muddle,” Kang said. “Measures to provide protection against abuse, excessive state intervention, loose interpretation and selective application of the norms need to be implemented in accordance with international human rights standards,” she said.   The Plan of Action adopted by the experts contains a number of recommendations and conclusions – in legislation, judicial infrastructure, and policy – aiming to better guide all stakeholders in implementing the international prohibition of incitement to national, racial or religious hatred.   They suggested establishing precise criteria defining limitations on freedom of expression and for defining incitement. The experts noted that there is often a very low recourse to judicial and quasi-judicial mechanisms in alleged cases of incitement to hatred.   A “vital component” is an independent judiciary, Kang said. Adjudicating cases related to incitement to hatred “should never be left for an angry crowd to judge.”   The Deputy High Commissioner said restrictions to freedom of speech must be formulated “in a way that makes clear that its sole purpose is to protect individuals holding specific beliefs or opinions, whether of a religious or other nature, from hostility, discrimination, or violence, rather than to protect belief systems, religions, or institutions as such from criticism.”   The experts have concurred too, that “the right to freedom of religion or belief, as enshrined in relevant international legal standards, does not include the right to have a religion or a belief that is free from criticism or ridicule.”   Blasphemy laws should be repealed, they agreed, because “at the national level, [such] laws can prove counter-productive, since they may result in the de factor censure of all inter-religious and intra-religious criticism, dialogues and debates, most of which could be constructive, healthy and needed.”   In her speech, Kang rejected the notion that freedom of expression and freedom of religion can be “contradictory”. “I wish to clearly state,” she said, “that instead, they are mutually dependent and reinforcing. Freedom of religion cannot exist if freedom of expression is not respected.”   Adama Dieng, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide welcomed the consensus reached on the need for a “robust and high” threshold to distinguish between less dangerous speech and incitement.   Dieng also noted that agreement had been reached on the limits of legislation, especially of criminal law, to combat hate speech and incitement. What is needed now, he said, is a "multilayered approach” which promotes human rights and tolerance, encourages dialogue and understanding among different groups and builds the capacity of national authorities, security officials and journalists creating “an environment conducive to preventing acts of incitement to hatred.”   This view was shared by the experts who highlighted that “while a legal response is of key importance, legislation was only part of a larger toolbox to respond to the challenges of hate speech” and they made a number of recommendations for policies to be implemented by various stakeholders.   “All religions, prophets and followers in the course of history have faced criticism, insults and denigration, but that’s no justification for violence,” Kang said. “Political and religious leaders in particular, should speak out firmly in the face of ignorance and bigotry,” she said.   Expert international human rights monitoring bodies, in particular the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Human Rights Committee and the individual experts appointed by the Human Rights Council, play a crucial role in guiding States to implement provisions of human rights law on incitement to hatred.   The Human Rights Council has also taken action, adopting, in March 2011, a consensus resolution (Res 16/18) that provides a comprehensive road map for a coordinated national and international effort against incitement to religious hatred.   * For more details visit the link below. 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	The four business gangs that run the US by Ross Gittins USA   If you"ve ever suspected politics is increasingly being run in the interests of big business, I have news: Jeffrey Sachs, a highly respected economist from Columbia University, agrees with you - at least in respect of the United States.   In his book, The Price of Civilisation, he says the US economy is caught in a feedback loop. "Corporate wealth translates into political power through campaign financing, corporate lobbying and the revolving door of jobs between government and industry; and political power translates into further wealth through tax cuts, deregulation and sweetheart contracts between government and industry. Wealth begets power, and power begets wealth," he says.   Sachs says four key sectors of US business exemplify this feedback loop and the takeover of political power in America by the "corporatocracy".   First is the well-known military-industrial complex. "As President Eisenhower famously warned in his farewell address in January 1961, the linkage of the military and private industry created a political power so pervasive that America has been condemned to militarisation, useless wars and fiscal waste on a scale of many tens of trillions of dollars since then," he says.   Second is the Wall Street-Washington complex, which has steered the financial system towards control by a few politically powerful Wall Street firms, notably Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and a handful of other financial firms.   These days, almost every US Treasury secretary - Republican or Democrat - comes from Wall Street and goes back there when his term ends. The close ties between Wall Street and Washington "paved the way for the 2008 financial crisis and the mega-bailouts that followed, through reckless deregulation followed by an almost complete lack of oversight by government".   Third is the Big Oil-transport-military complex, which has put the US on the trajectory of heavy oil-imports dependence and a deepening military trap in the Middle East, he says.   "Since the days of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust a century ago, Big Oil has loomed large in American politics and foreign policy. Big Oil teamed up with the automobile industry to steer America away from mass transit and towards gas-guzzling vehicles driving on a nationally financed highway system."   Big Oil has consistently and successfully fought the intrusion of competition from non-oil energy sources, including nuclear, wind and solar power.   It has been at the side of the Pentagon in making sure that America defends the sea-lanes to the Persian Gulf, in effect ensuring a $US100 billion-plus annual subsidy for a fuel that is otherwise dangerous for national security, Sachs says.   "And Big Oil has played a notorious role in the fight to keep climate change off the US agenda. Exxon-Mobil, Koch Industries and others in the sector have underwritten a generation of anti-scientific propaganda to confuse the American people."   Fourth is the healthcare industry, America"s largest industry, absorbing no less than 17 per cent of US gross domestic product.   "The key to understanding this sector is to note that the government partners with industry to reimburse costs with little systematic oversight and control," Sachs says. "Pharmaceutical firms set sky-high prices protected by patent rights; Medicare [for the aged] and Medicaid [for the poor] and private insurers reimburse doctors and hospitals on a cost-plus basis; and the American Medical Association restricts the supply of new doctors through the control of placements at medical schools.   The result of this pseudo-market system is sky-high costs, large profits for the private healthcare sector, and no political will to reform."   Now do you see why the industry put so much effort into persuading America"s punters that Obamacare was rank socialism? They didn"t succeed in blocking it, but the compromised program doesn"t do enough to stop the US being the last rich country in the world without universal healthcare.   It"s worth noting that, despite its front-running cost, America"s healthcare system doesn"t leave Americans with particularly good health. This conundrum is easily explained: America has the highest-paid doctors.   Sachs says the main thing to remember about the corporatocracy is that it looks after its own. "There is absolutely no economic crisis in corporate America".   "Consider the pulse of the corporate sector as opposed to the pulse of the employees working in it: corporate profits in 2010 were at an all-time high, chief executive salaries in 2010 rebounded strongly from the financial crisis, Wall Street compensation in 2010 was at an all-time high, several Wall Street firms paid civil penalties for financial abuses, but no senior banker faced any criminal charges, and there were no adverse regulatory measures that would lead to a loss of profits in finance, health care, military supplies and energy," he says.   The 30-year achievement of the corporatocracy has been the creation of America"s rich and super-rich classes, he says. And we can now see their tools of trade.   "It began with globalisation, which pushed up capital income while pushing down wages. These changes were magnified by the tax cuts at the top, which left more take-home pay and the ability to accumulate greater wealth through higher net-of-tax returns to saving."   Chief executives then helped themselves to their own slice of the corporate sector ownership through outlandish awards of stock options by friendly and often handpicked compensation committees, while the Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way. It"s not all that hard to do when both political parties are standing in line to do your bidding, Sachs concludes.   * Ross Gittins is the Sydney Morning Herald"s Economics Editor. Access Jeffrey Sachs site via the link below. Visit the related web page
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