Volokh Conspiracy: Hate Speech and The European Court of Human Rights: An Overview of My New Book

By Natalie Alkiviadou 

In a series of guest blog posts at The Volokh Conspiracy, Natalie Alkiviadou summarized key ideas in her new book, Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights.

Part 1: Hate Speech and The European Court of Human Rights: An Overview of My New Book

July 15, 2015

The European Court of Human Rights has drifted away from its original free speech principles by embracing a vague, low-threshold approach to hate speech that allows criminal penalties for speech that merely offends or stereotypes. The Court has engaged in doctrinal inconsistencies, ideological double standards, and relied too heavily on moral judgments rather than empirical evidence of harm. We need to return to a principled, high-threshold standard that protects dissent and strengthens democratic discourse.

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Part 2: Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights: Hate Speech, Its Effects and the Question of Regulation

July 15, 2025

The European Court of Human Rights too often accepts vague claims about the harms of hate speech without rigorous empirical evidence, justifying sweeping restrictions that risk undermining democratic discourse. While hate speech can cause real harm in specific contexts, legal bans often backfire—driving hate underground, chilling dissent, and empowering governments to police unpopular ideas. We need to confront the structural conditions that allow hate to thrive, not empower courts to silence offensive speech in the name of abstract values.

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Part 3: Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights: The Low Threshold Hatred Paradigm—When “Offence” Is Enough to Restrict Speech

July 16, 2025

The European Court of Human Rights has embraced a troubling trend: allowing criminal penalties for speech that merely insults, offends, or ridicules, especially when aimed at protected groups. This low-threshold approach discards the Court’s own Handyside principle and treats emotional discomfort as sufficient justification for censorship, even in political and electoral contexts. We need to restore a coherent, principled standard that protects controversial expression, demands concrete evidence of harm, and resists the creeping influence of viewpoint-based suppression.

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Part 4: Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights: Article 17, Memory Politics, and the ECtHR’s Selective Silencing

July 17, 2025

The European Court of Human Rights has weaponized Article 17—the “abuse clause”—to selectively silence disfavored viewpoints, especially around contested historical events. Instead of applying a consistent threshold for incitement or harm, the Court has created a hierarchy of suffering, protecting some narratives while criminalizing others based on political sensitivities. To preserve the integrity of free expression, we need uniform standards that reject ideological favoritism and uphold the right to dissent—even when history is uncomfortable.

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Part 5: Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights: Towards a Principled Approach

July 18, 2025

The European Court of Human Rights has adopted an expansive and inconsistent approach to hate speech, often restricting expression without clear evidence of harm. To safeguard democratic values, the Court must ground its jurisprudence in a principled, evidence-based framework that demands a high threshold for limiting speech—one that rejects vague notions of offensiveness and engages seriously with academic research. Without reform, the Court risks entrenching selective silencing and undermining the very freedoms it was created to protect.

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