In 2009, Eric Heinze will be publishing in the International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 12, an article entitled ‘Public Awareness of Human Rights: Distortions in the Mass Media’. The study, assisted by doctoral candidate Rosa Freedman, examines day-by-day coverage of global human rights in two US and two UK broadsheets: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and The Financial Times.
The aim of the study is to understand the kinds of factors which, albeit tangential to violations of fundamental human rights, nevertheless influence both the quantity and the quality of reporting. Comparative analysis suggests that the media fail to present an image of human rights violations roughly proportionate to their gravity. Human rights journalism within the mainstream media remains driven by factors which may bear only a tangential, or even inverse, relationship to the actual level of violations, such as involvement of Western military forces, prospects for Western investment, or media access to closed societies.
Even-handed coverage of human rights has long been a concern, but has often been directed at professional bodies, such as the United Nations and its specialised agencies, or at non-governmental organisations, such as Amnesty International. The study identifies the kinds of distortions that are likely to be, and to remain, entrenched within the mass media, in view of its readership and marketplace pressures. It identifies factors which would be relevant to future study of human rights and the mass media. It then suggests ways in which the quantity, style, fairness and consistency of human rights journalism can be evaluated. While attempting to remain realistic about the possibilities and limits of the mass media, the study suggests that some improvements are feasible.
The ‘even-handedness’ principle advocated in that article builds upon Eric Heinze’s 2008 article, ‘Even-handedness and the Politics of Human Rights’, 21 Harvard Human Rights Journal 7 (2008). Virtually all human rights norm-creation, advocacy and adjudication entail some degree of ‘selectivity’. No single body can easily take charge of all human rights abuses occurring at all times and in all places; indeed, even questions as to which acts count among such abuses remain controversial. Selectivity does not, however, warrant sheer randomness. A requirement of even-handed condemnation of perpetrators is necessarily presupposed, if often overlooked, by any plausible concept of human rights law.
Since human rights are always in some sense ‘political’, questions arise as to whether distinctions can be drawn between politically biased and politically unbiased appeals to human rights. For the most part, human rights professionals remain free to choose the issues with which they wish to be concerned. These include free choices as to states or territories, specific human rights issues, and specific kinds of victims. Nevertheless, perpetrator selection—criticism of internationally responsible actors—must accord with those choices, and should not be driven by political factors extraneous to the specific human rights norms at issue.
In 2009, Eric Heinze will also publish ‘Cumulative Jurisprudence and Hate Speech: Sexual Orientation and Analogies to Disability, Age and Obesity’, appearing first in International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 12, then to be reprinted in Extreme Speech and Democracy chapter 14 (James Weinstein and Ivan Hare, eds., Oxford University Press). Leading non-discrimination norms in post-World War II human rights instruments have generally enumerated specified categories for protection, such as race, ethnicity, sex or religion, etc. They have often omitted express reference to sexual minorities. However, through ‘such as’ or ‘other status’ clauses, or otherwise open-ended phrasing or interpretation, such instruments have generated a ‘cumulative jurisprudence’, whereby sexual minorities subsequently become incorporated through analogical reasoning. That cumulative jurisprudence has yielded protections for sexual minorities through norms governing, e.g., privacy, employment, age of consent, or freedoms of speech and association.
Hate speech bans, too, have often been formulated with reference only to more traditionally recognised categories, particularly race and religion, rarely making express reference to sexual minorities. It might therefore be expected that the same cumulative jurisprudence should be applied, such that their scope may be extended to encompass sexual minorities. In this article, however, that approach is challenged. It is argued that hate speech bans suffer in themselves from deep flaws, such that they either promote discrimination by limiting the number of protected categories, or, by including all meritorious categories, would dramatically limit free speech. Whilst sexual minorities within longstanding, stable and prosperous democracies should generally enjoy all human rights, it is argued that they should not seek the protection of hate speech bans, which run real risks of betraying fundamental principles of human rights law.
In addition to that piece, the Hare & Weinstein collection will also include a chapter by Eric Heinze entitled ‘Wild-West Cowboys versus Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Some Problems in Comparative Approaches to Extreme Speech.’ All European states ban some form of hate speech. US law precludes such bans. Euro-American comparisons can shed great light on debates about hate speech, but little attention has been paid to comparative methodology. This chapter does not propose systematic guidelines, but aims only to warn against some pitfalls. In view of the political and symbolic importance of free speech, the trans-Atlantic divide inevitably invites broader cultural comparisons. As with any comparison, it is important to avoid drawing broad conclusions about deeper Euro-American differences solely on the basis of surface, black-letter norms.
Prof E. Heinze (QMUL) Recent publications (2008 – 9)
• ‘Public Awareness of Human Rights: Distortions in the Mass Media’, International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 12 (2009).
• ‘Even-handedness and the Politics of Human Rights’, 21 Harvard Human Rights Journal 7 (2008).
• ‘Cumulative Jurisprudence and Hate Speech: Sexual Orientation and Analogies to Disability, Age and Obesity’, 12 International Journal of Human Rights (2009), reprinted in Extreme Speech and Democracy chapter 14, James Weinstein and Ivan Hare, eds., Oxford University Press (2009).
• ‘Wild-West Cowboys versus Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Some Problems in Comparative Approaches to Extreme Speech,’ in Extreme Speech and Democracy chapter 10, James Weinstein and Ivan Hare, eds., Oxford University Press, 2009.
