Human Rights Committee adopts general comment on the right to freedom of expression

21 July 2011

The Human Rights Committee this afternoon adopted a General Comment on States parties' obligations under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, setting out the rights to hold an opinion without interference and to freedom of expression. The meeting today concluded the second and final reading of the draft text and it was adopted at the end of the meeting. The adoption of the General Comment comes two years after the Committee began its first reading of the text in March 2009. Over the course of the two years the Committee solicited input from the public including non-governmental organizations, States parties and individuals, whose suggestions were incorporated into the final language of the document.

Michael O'Flaherty, the Committee Expert serving as rapporteur for the draft General Comment, noted that a number of submissions had recently come in from non-governmental organizations and while these interventions had been received after the stated deadline, he suggested they be considered nonetheless because they were quite relevant to the draft General Comment and made some good points. The Committee then began reviewing the document on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, beginning with a paragraph regarding the decriminalization of defamation. Experts commented on and proposed changes to the draft General Comment.

The Committee discussed the best way to approach situations in which journalists or media outlets broke the law in the course of reporting stories or harmed the reputation of someone and whether truth could be used as a defence of such actions. These questions spoke to issues of defamation and privacy and whether they should be handled under criminal or penal law. Several countries and non-governmental organizations had written submissions that applauded the language in the draft document that called upon States to decriminalize defamation, while other States weighed in with the opinion that criminalization of certain language could be appropriate in some cases. One Committee member pointed out that in some States newspapers and media outlets were owned by criminals and if there was no strong rule of law in the country then they could use the media to publish or broadcast defamatory speech and to advance their political agendas. Therefore, total decriminalization could go too far, according to the speaker. Another speaker noted that for the Committee to back away from its call for the decriminalization of defamation now would undercut the Committee’s own jurisprudence, previous concluding observations and General Comments and several speakers opposed the weakening of the language dealing with this matter and supported the text as it was written. The text as it was currently written was balanced according to those who supported it.

Turning to paragraph 50 dealing with blasphemy and defamation of religion, Mr. O’Flaherty read out a revised version of the text and members discussed whether to work from the revised text or with the previous version of the paragraph. A discussion ensued on blasphemy and its general incompatibility with the Covenant and how to word this concept in the document. One speaker said that while he would like to ban blasphemy outright, he felt that this would not enjoy widespread support and would actually undermine the body of General Comments of the Committee. The Committee members also talked about changing the language to make it clearer and to clarify it in various languages. Someone said that they should not become prisoners of their own interpretation and they had problems finding any blasphemy laws that were compatible with the Covenant. Using the suggestions and input of all the Committee members, the Rapporteur wrote a revised text and the Committee members all agreed on it.

Turning to paragraph 51, there were three States that wanted the entire paragraph deleted, while one State and several non-governmental organizations wanted it strengthened. This paragraph related to “memory laws” that penalized the promulgation of specific views about past events. The Committee members discussed the various effects of removing such language and whether it would weaken the paragraph or strengthen it. It was suggested that the reference to memory laws be included in a footnote.

Suggestions for paragraph 54 regarding hate speech included a call for the clarification of the language. One Committee member suggested they delete the first two sentences of the paragraph as they were political statements, while others suggested they could simply be rephrased. After a brief discussion Committee members agreed on a revised text of paragraph 54, the last paragraph of the General Comment.

With the agreement on the last paragraph, the Committee concluded its second and final reading of General Comment 34 and it was then adopted as amended. The General Comment will be translated and when the Committee meet again in October the translations will be compared and then the General Comment for each of the different languages will be adopted. An advanced, unedited version of the General Comment will be made available to the public next week.

The Committee publishes its interpretation of the content of human rights provisions, known as General Comments, on thematic issues or its methods of work. To date, it has issued 33 General Comments. The General Comments of all human rights treaty bodies are compiled annually and the latest version can be found in the document HRI/GEN/1/Rev.9 (Vol.I).

The Committee will next meet in public on Friday, 22 July at 3 p.m., when it will discuss its working methods.

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For use of the information media; not an official record