Another U.N. Official Demanding Speech Restrictions, and Faulting Denmark for Protecting Free Speech Too Much

Eugene Volokh

It also reminds me of the danger posed by the recent movement supporting the use of international law to influence U.S. constitutional norms. As Prof. Peter Spiro, a supporter of the movement (and one of the leading U.S. international law scholars) has written, treaties can, in the long run, "insinuat[e] international law" that would create "a partial displacement of [U.S.] constitutional hegemony" -- for instance, with "an international norm against hate speech ... supply[ing] a basis for prohibiting [hate speech], the First Amendment notwithstanding." "In the short term," he argued, international norms would and should be "relevan[t] ... in domestic constitutional interpretation." And "[i]n the long run, [this tendency] may point to the Constitution's more complete subordination."