Human Rights Committee continues discussion of draft general comment on the right to freedom of expression

20 July 2011

The Human Rights Committee this afternoon continued its second reading of a draft 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.

Michael O'Flaherty, the Committee Expert serving as rapporteur for the draft General Comment, began the day’s discussion by suggesting that they begin with paragraph 33 concerning “public morals” and whether States could abridge the freedom of expression to protect public health or public morals. The Committee then began reviewing the document on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, reviewing sections regarding restrictions on political discourse and public debate as well as restrictions on publications and other media. Experts commented and proposed changes to the draft General Comment.

A Committee member raised a linguistic question of whether it was correct to refer to public morals in the plural sense, while another Committee member pointed out that they should recognize that public morals varied from one culture or society to another. They should respect pluralism without harming the concept of universality so the final wording of the draft General Comment needed to recognize these two values – diversity and universality. Another speaker pointed out that they needed to ask themselves why there was a need to make a reference to universality. A detailed discussion ensued on how best to word the paragraph so that it showed respect for diverse cultures, while at the same time acknowledging the universality of the right to freedom of expression.

The Committee then turned its attention to a paragraph dealing with public figures and the freedom to criticize them as well as national institutions such as the military and the government. Someone raised the issue of national symbols and whether freedom of expression also protected certain treatment of flags and symbols. If so, they suggested that a line be added to the paragraph to clearly outline the inclusion of such symbols under the protection of the right to freedom of expression.

The Committee then rewrote the language regarding the freedom of the press to make it expressly clear that media outlets should not be penalized for speech solely because it was critical of the government. They also discussed at length freedom of expression in the context of new media and emerging technologies. Committee members said that they could not abstain from addressing this area just because technology was constantly changing. They could not wait for the case law to catch up to the technology, and print, broadcast and online media were converging so it was important not to ignore this area in the General Comment. A Committee member said that if they looked at the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa in the past year, they were driven largely by new media so the Committee needed to address this area. While the current draft General Comment was based on previous jurisprudence as it related to older media, this did not mean that it could not also address new media and new technology as well. One had to also acknowledge the wide range of actors today considered journalists who did not meet the old stereotypical images of journalists.

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 Thursday, 21 July at 3 p.m. when it will continue its consideration of the draft General Comment on Article 19 concerning freedom of expression.

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For use of the information media; not an official record