The irony, of course, that if this provision was binding one of the primary effects in the United States, Canada and Europe would be a restriction on the bigoted, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian free expression of American Islamofascists.

And if I understand this provision correctly, in occupied Persia the Islamic "republic" of "iran" and its racist, anti-Jewish, and anti-Christians laws could no longer be published.

And, as another example, the "state" of "sa'udi arabia" could no longer publish anti-Infidel street signs that forbid non-Moslems from entering and living in the cities of Makkah and Medinah.

Therefore Moslems especially should be wary of such Resolutions because the exclusively western notion of free speech is exactly what gives leeway to Moslems to express their discriminatory, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian bigotry.

This is quite clearly extremely dumb. However, in a sense it is also democracy at work. Quite likely, this is what the world population would vote for if they got the chance. (I know, there aren't that many muslim democracies around, but I'm not sure that makes much of a difference here.)

As a result, I wonder how the responses on this issue would correlate with people's opinion about the gay marriage litigation in California. If the people of California can vote by simple majority to take away the right of gays to marry, how is that any different than a hypothetical world vote to criminalise "defamation of religion"? Do we vote on rights or don't we?

I think I asked once before if anybody expects this to be successfully used against Muslim anti-Jewish or anti-Christian defamation.
No answer then.
So I figured I'd try again.

Wait, by itself, the language is pretty unobjectionable. Who is in favor of "acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion"? Who wants to defend "the use ... media ... to incite acts of violence, xenophobia or related intolerance and discrimination"?

Of course, there is a context behind all this, and we can have very lively debates about whether the Danish cartoons "incite acts of violence" by anyone except the people sending death threats to the author. But the debate is over the expected implementation, not the text itself, which I would have little problem supporting.

dhdcnr,

But that is not what the resolution said, at least based on the quote above. It requires protection against "acts of hatred . . . resulting from defamation of religions." If I truthfully criticize Sharia law, I am not sure I have committed any "act," and I certainly haven't "defamed" the religion if what I say is accurate.

Even the broader provision "deploring" (note, not prohibiting) "the use of ... media ... to incite acts of .. intolerance and discrimination towards Islam" requires (a) an act, and (b) intolerance towards Islam, not the practices that may be sanctioned by Islam (at least not explicitly).

Eugene Volokh:
Of course we vote on rights -- the Bill of Rights is in the Constitution only because the people's representatives voted on it. But I suspect that most of us Americans would, quaintly enough, prefer that Americans' rights be voted on by our fellow Americans. Some might want this to be done in a relatively unfiltered way. Others might suggest a broad role for American courts, staffed by Americans elected by other Americans, or appointed by Americans who are elected by Americans. And different people have different views on what it should take to overturn a judgment of the courts -- the California constitutional amendment procedure, for instance, is much easier to trigger than is the federal constitutional amendment procedure. But it's still all about us setting rules for our own government.

The one thing that I'm pretty sure you'll get very little support for in America is the idea of either a democratic vote of "the world population," or a vote of the highly undemocratically selected U.N. Human Rights Council, or a vote of any other foreign body deciding what we Americans may say and what we may not.

Fair enough, although I guess philosophically we vote rights because that's how we figure out what they are. The vote does not, in theory, create the right, but instead the right is recognised in a document that has to be fixed somehow.

The more interesting thing about this reply is the second part. What is the difference between Americans voting a Bill of Rights for America and the world population voting a Bill of Rights for the world? (Or the inhabitants of the Americas voting a Bill of Rights for the Americas? Etc.) As far as I can see, it's only a difference of scale. (And of practicality, of course.) Assuming a proper democratic vote, why should the scale affect the legitimacy of the result?

tvk, does publishing a book or putting on a play or disseminating a cartoon not count as an "act"? Is it okay for such an act to express hatred, intolerance, and hostility? Is it okay if the act targets all of a religion, rather than a mere part of it? And is it okay if such an act is not scrupulously truthful, but instead filled with exaggeration and distortion?

If not, then freewheeling criticism of religion is prohibited. And then what about freewheeling political criticism?

Bill, everyone knows that is the intent, but that is not what the substantive provisions of the resolution says. This is the neverending debate between textualism and original intentism.

dhdcnr, my opinion on what is and is not OK is hardly going to bind anyone, so your defense-lawyer-cross-examination tone doesn't help. You can presumably read as well as I can.

1. The resolution urges states to protect against "acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation". Does your play "result from defamation"?

2. The resolution "deplores" (whatever that means, probably nothing) "incit[ing] acts of .. intolerance and discrimination towards Islam." Well, is your play "intolerant of Islam"? Does it "incite" people to "discriminate against Muslims"? Read in their common-sense ways, very few people in America, whether they be liberal or conservative, think that "intolerance of Islam" or "discriminating against Muslims" is a good idea.

At bottom, I take your point to be these are fuzzy words that can be blown up in interpretation like a balloon. But that is hardly unique to U.N. resolutions. Our Constitution is filled with them, as is the Declaration of Independence, congressional statutes, Supreme Court opinions, and a wide range of other documents that we don't use as evidence of a slippery slope to very bad places.

there is something called the U.N.? is that the congregation of totalitarian states that I keep hearing about? We really should kick them out of NYC. Ed Koch was right. I really don't understand why we even bother putting it in the news.

What is the difference between Americans voting a Bill of Rights for America and the world population voting a Bill of Rights for the world? (Or the inhabitants of the Americas voting a Bill of Rights for the Americas? Etc.)

Well, for one thing, imperfect though it sometimes may be, I trust our government to protect those rights, and I don't trust the thugs and kleptocrats of any self-appointed international organization to do so.

This is quite clearly extremely dumb. However, in a sense it is also democracy at work. Quite likely, this is what the world population would vote for if they got the chance. (I know, there aren't that many muslim democracies around, but I'm not sure that makes much of a difference here.)

Maybe, but if so, only because (i) the language of the resolution seems fairly benign and belies the intent, (ii) there's a discrete and insular minority that has a strong interest in the issue and would come out strongly in favor of it and (iii) most people in the world simply don't have the education to understand the issues at stake.

While it's true there are a large number of "muslim" states in the world, most aren't particularly populous, especially when you think about the ones that really care about this issue and relations with the West. There are nearly as many non-muslims in each of India and China as there are muslims worldwide. Any true world democracy would likely skew towards Indian and Chinese interests (and I'm willing to wager that most Indians would vote against such a resolution just because most Pakistanis voted for it).

A Brit described the four stages of surrendering sovereignty by increments to the EU.

1. That's absurd. What a bunch of loons to think we'd do that.

2. We have the veto. We'll make sure it doesn't happen.

3 It doesn't mean what you think it means. It's really alright.

4. Too late now, old man. Nothing to be done.

A prolix way of describing the slippery slope.
We're past 1, here, and a couple of folks are into 2. And even 3.

"protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general," and "deplores the use of printed, audio-visual and electronic media, including the Internet, . . . to incite acts of violence, xenophobia or related intolerance and discrimination towards Islam or any religion."

It seems to me that the only problem here is the bit about "protection against acts of hatred," which would require states to suppress nasty speech aimed at a particular religion. Protection against "discrimination, intimidation, and coercion resulting defamation of religions and incitement of religious hatred in general" is just as laudable as protection against discrimination, intimidation, and coercion resulting from any other source. No doubt the libertarians here will object legal to protections against discrimination but you lost that battle in 1964.

As for the second item, the council can deplore whatever it wants. There is no right to freedom from criticism. And what they're deploring—"violence, xenophobia or related intolerance and discrimination towards Islam or any religion" is indeed deplorable stuff. The phrase "any religion" makes it a bit overbroad (what's so bad about intolerance of disguised financial scams like Scientology?) but overbroad rhetoric about what's deplorable is not a threat to freedom.

This is not to defend the entire contents of the resolution, though. The provision Pizza Snob referred to is pretty bad. Item 8 is no good either:

Urges States to take actions to prohibit the dissemination, including through political institutions and organizations, of racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constitute incitement to racial and religious hatred, hostility or violence

They want us to ban not just incitement of hatred, but of hostility? So much for Christopher Hitchens!

Item 13 is horrendous:

Reaffirms that general comment No. 15 of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in which the Committee stipulates that the prohibition of the dissemination of all ideas based upon racial superiority or hatred is compatible with the freedom of opinion and expression, is equally applicable to the question of incitement to religious hatred;

The U.N. Human Rights Council is calling for the prohibition of all ideas based on religious superiority or hatred? That would be the end of freedom of thought.

So here's my question: why is Post going after the relatively unproblematic bits of the resolution rather than the terrible bits?

So, does this mean that Christians and Jew, etc. could freely practice their religion in Muslim countries and, if so desired, prosteletize in those same countries without fear of persecution? Does this mean Arabs would have to quit calling Jews the sons of pigs and monkeys?

Just wondering.

When the "human rights" council comes up with something like this, it really does a disservice to the cause of human rights around the world. If someone were to be sent to prison for "defaming" someone else's religion, wouldn't that be the real human rights violation?

Yes, that would be the real human rights violation, but that is exactly the point. Many of the nations that spearheaded this effort (e.g., Pakistan, Saudi Arabia) have anti-blasphemy laws. This resolution helps them to place a human right violation in the shroud of human rights. (By the way, Communist nations used to do the same thing.)

This is just like the anti-defamation-of-homosexuals treaty Bush declined to sign, but Obama signed.

First, a slight dissent here.

We enjoy an uncommon amount of freedom of speech in this country. I know of no other country where one can say, at a political rally, that some other racial group should be the subject of genocide and then hide behind freedom of speech to avoid prosecution(read Brandenburg v. Ohio).

I think that there is a human right which is more fundamental than unrestricted freedom of speech, and that is collective self-determination. I may think that the laws in Saudi Arabia are repressive, but in the end that is the responsibility of the Saudis to change this, not my responsibility. IMO this must come with a reasonable commitment to equal protection of the law as well (with persecuted ethnic groups being the primary indicator).

So while I may say that the solution to a lot of Europe's problems are more free speech rather than less, I would add that this is fundamentally the responsibility of Europeans rather than Americans.

One element here which I find striking is the insistence that freedom of speech can be abridged to protect "public morals." I find this standard one which I do not want to see adopted by the US even if in some cases it is (for example, re. obscenity law). So as an American I do not ever want to see something like this govern us. However, I also feel that every other country of the world needs to have their own right to act differently.

The big thing though is it highlights one of the real problems with the whole concept of world government in that it undermines regional self-determination.

The problem is that everybody wants to suppress something. And we can't suppress Internet gambling and then criticize China for suppressing political speech.

Sorry, that makes as much sense to me as saying we can't ban polygamy and then criticise pre-colonial India for suttee.