Unintended consequences of prohibiting advocacy of hatred and regulating campaign finance: The weakening status of freedom of speech in Israel

Author(s):  
Barak Medina

Abstract A central dilemma in human rights law is how to reconcile the government’s duty to respect freedom with its obligation to protect individuals that might be harmed by the exercise of said freedom. Intolerance toward the dissemination of certain illiberal positions may have adverse social and political unintended results. One central concern is that such a policy would create a common culture that does not appreciate the critical importance of a vibrant public discourse. As such, it might enable governments, in terms of popular legitimacy, to curtail speech beyond the limits of justifiable infringements. Recent developments in Israel illustrate this concern. In recent years, normatively legitimate antiracism legislation was unjustifiably expanded by imposing sanctions on expressions that were deemed harmful to national sentiments or questioning the legitimacy of Israel’s Constitutional Identity as a Jewish state. Similarly, laws against the support of terrorism were followed by prohibitions on advocating boycotts against Israel. This Article proposes to halt the sociological slippery-slope trend of curtailing speech far and beyond the permissible scope of such a policy, by implementing rules-based legal doctrines that may foster a stronger public pressure on the government to protect free speech; restricting the scope of “harm-in-one-step” approach; and providing a clearer definition of the requirement of state neutrality in the context of regulating speech.

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (13) ◽  
pp. 138
Author(s):  
David Hewitt

<p>The Government intends to replace the Mental Health Act 1983, and the most recent of its proposals were contained in the Draft Mental Health Bill published in June 2004.</p><p>The 1983 Act is now very different to the statute introduced at the end of 1982. Parliament and the courts have made a number of significant changes over the last 20-odd years, and they have brought us a lot closer to the next Mental Health Act than many people – and possibly even the Government – suppose. In fact, those changes may have brought us rather close to the Draft Mental Health Bill. That will be an uncomfortable thought for many people.</p><p>This paper will consider five key aspects of the Draft Mental Health Bill:</p><p>• the provisions dealing with risk and treatability;</p><p>• the notion of compulsion in the community;</p><p>• the status of the Code of Practice; and</p><p>• the abolition of the Approved Social Worker.</p><p>The paper will ask whether, because of the changes of the last two decades, the current Mental Health Act has already arrived at much the same point. In addition, the paper will consider the position of incapable patients. Although the Draft Bill contains precious few proposals about them, the paper will ask whether recent developments have made a broad definition of mental disorder all but essential.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (s1) ◽  
pp. 560-585
Author(s):  
Max Hänska ◽  
Ahmed Bahiya ◽  
Fernanda Amaral ◽  
Yu Sui

AbstractThrough the examination of recent developments in Iraq, Brazil and China, this paper explores the role of public communication in a) generating, corralling, and buttressing political legitimacy, and b) negotiating, demarcating, and reproducing collective identities. The transformation of Iraq’s public sphere after the fall of the Ba’ath regime saw it shift from a tightly controlled and unified communication space to unencumbered yet fragmented spheres split along ethno-sectarian lines, buttressing sectarian politics and identities. The emergence of subaltern publics in Brazil’s favelas empowered residents to express public dissent, assert their voice, and develop pride in their community. Chinese efforts to control online public discourse provide the government with ways of managing its perceived legitimacy and foster patriotic fellowship online. Legitimation and the affirmation of identity interact and support one another in public discourse, as we illustrate.


Author(s):  
Henderson Christian

This chapter discusses internal strife and insurgency. The terms ‘internal strife’ and ‘insurgency’ encompass a range of situations from peaceful and violent protests and demonstrations to rebellions against the government to full-blown armed conflicts. Such situations may either occur entirely between the governmental forces of a State and a non-State armed group (or between two such groups) or, as is more often the case, may be fuelled by third States or even involve them directly. The chapter then provides a broad yet concise overview of the international legal frameworks that regulate internal strife and insurgency, with particular focus on international human rights law (IHRL) and the applicability of the law of armed conflict, and the ways that these frameworks interact. What is more, from a global security perspective, it is the possibility of outside intervention and the attendant frameworks and rules of international law that are arguably most pertinent and controversial. There have been several recent developments potentially impacting the international law governing internal strife and insurgency and the chapter explores these and some of the recent situations that illustrate them.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 407-424
Author(s):  
Jamaluddin Jamaluddin

Indonesian reformation era begins with the fall of President Suharto. Political transition and democratic transition impact in the religious life. Therefore, understandably, when the politic transition is not yet fully reflects the idealized conditions. In addition to the old paradigm that is still attached to the brain of policy makers, various policies to mirror the complexity of stuttering ruler to answer the challenges of religious life. This challenge cannot be separated from the hegemonic legacy of the past, including the politicization of SARA. Hegemony that took place during the New Order period, adversely affected the subsequent transition period. It seems among other things, with airings various conflicts nuances SARA previously muted, forced repressive. SARA issues arise as a result of the narrowing of the accommodation space of the nation state during the New Order regime. The New Order regime has reduced the definition of nation-states is only part of a group of people loyal to the government to deny the diversity of socio-cultural reality in it. To handle the inheritance, every regime in the reform era responds with a pattern and a different approach. It must be realized, that the post-reform era, Indonesia has had four changes of government. The leaders of every regime in the reform era have a different background and thus also have a vision that is different in treating the problem of racial intolerance, particularly against religious aspect. This treatment causes the accomplishment difference each different regimes of dealing with the diversity of race, religion and class that has become the hallmark of Indonesian society.


2014 ◽  
Vol 155 (21) ◽  
pp. 822-827
Author(s):  
Ágnes Váradi

The question of electronic solutions in public health care has become a contemporary issue at the European Union level since the action plan of the Commission on the e-health developments of the period between 2012 and 2020 has been published. In Hungary this issue has been placed into the centre of attention after a draft on modifications of regulations in health-care has been released for public discourse, which – if accepted – would lay down the basics of an electronic heath-service system. The aim of this paper is to review the basic features of e-health solutions in Hungary and the European Union with the help of the most important pieces of legislation, documents of the European Union institutions and sources from secondary literature. When examining the definition of the basic goals and instruments of the development, differences between the European Union and national approaches can be detected. Examination of recent developmental programs and existing models seem to reveal difficulties in creating interoperability and financing such projects. Finally, the review is completed by the aspects of jurisdiction and fundamental rights. It is concluded that these issues are mandatory to delineate the legislative, economic and technological framework for the development of the e-health systems. Orv. Hetil., 2014, 155(21), 822–827.


Author(s):  
Edgars Rencis ◽  
Janis Barzdins ◽  
Sergejs Kozlovics

Towards Open Graphical Tool-Building Framework Nowadays, there are many frameworks for developing domain-specific tools. However, if we want to create a really sophisticated tool with specific functionality requirements, it is not always an easy task to do. Although tool-building platforms offer some means for extending the tool functionality and accessing it from external applications, it usually requires a deep understanding of various technical implementation details. In this paper we try to go one step closer to a really open graphical tool-building framework that would allow both to change the behavior of the tool and to access the tool from the outside easily. We start by defining a specialization of metamodels which is a great and powerful facility itself. Then we go on and show how this can be applied in the field of graphical domain-specific tool building. The approach is demonstrated on an example of a subset of UML activity diagrams. The benefits of the approach are also clearly indicated. These include a natural and intuitive definition of tools, a strict logic/presentation separation and the openness for extensions as well as for external applications.


Author(s):  
Olga Mykhailоvna Ivanitskaya

The article is devoted to issues of ensuring transparency and ac- countability of authorities in the conditions of participatory democracy (democ- racy of participation). It is argued that the public should be guaranteed not only the right for access to information but also the prerequisites for expanding its par- ticipation in state governance. These prerequisites include: the adoption of clearly measurable macroeconomic and social goals and the provision of control of the processes of their compliance with the government by citizens of the country; ex- tension of the circle of subjects of legislative initiative due to realization of such rights by citizens and their groups; legislative definition of the forms of citizens’ participation in making publicly significant decisions, design of relevant orders and procedures, in particular participation in local referendum; outlining methods and procedures for taking into account social thought when making socially im- portant decisions. The need to disclose information about resources that are used by authorities to realize the goals is proved as well as key performance indicators that can be monitored by every citizen; the efforts made by governments of coun- tries to achieve these goals. It was noted that transparency in the conditions of representative democracy in its worst forms in a society where ignorance of the thought of society and its individual members is ignored does not in fact fulfill its main task — to establish an effective dialogue between the authorities and so- ciety. There is a distortion of the essence of transparency: instead of being heard, society is being asked to be informed — and passively accept the facts presented as due. In fact, transparency and accountability in this case are not instruments for the achievement of democracy in public administration, but by the form of a tacit agreement between the subjects of power and people, where the latter passes the participation of an “informed observer”.


Author(s):  
Asha Bajpai

The chapter commences with the change in the perspective and approach relating to children from welfare to rights approach. It then deals with the legal definition of child in India under various laws. It gives a brief overview of the present legal framework in India. It states briefly the various policies and plans, and programmes of the Government of India related to children. International law on the rights of the child is enumerated and a summary of the important judgments by Indian courts are also included. The chapter ends with pointing out the role of civil society organizations in dealing with the rights of the child and a mention of challenges ahead.


Author(s):  
Farouk El-Hosseny ◽  
Patrick Devine

Abstract The intersection between foreign investment and human rights is gaining attention, as is evident from an increasing number of investment treaty awards analysing legal issues relating to human rights. In the recent International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration of Bear Creek v Peru, Philippe Sands QC posited, in a dissenting opinion, that the investor’s contribution to events—ie protests against its allegedly adverse environmental impact and disregard of indigenous rights, namely resulting from its ‘inability to obtain a “social licence”’—which led to the unlawful expropriation of its investment, was ‘significant and material’. He further noted that the investor’s ‘responsibilities are no less than those of the government’ and found that damages should thus be reduced. Last year, the Netherlands adopted a new model bilateral investment treaty (BIT), which allows tribunals to ‘take into account non-compliance by the investor with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises’ when assessing damages. These recent developments shed light on how states and tribunals, as part of their decision-making process, can take into account human rights in practice, and crucially in respect of damages analyses. By first dissecting the concept of contributory fault, then shedding light on the intersection of investment treaty law and human rights, as elucidated in recent jurisprudence, this article questions whether there now exists a gateway for human rights obligations (soft or hard) in the investment treaty arbitration realm through the concept of contributory fault.


Biomolecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 513
Author(s):  
Yan Gu ◽  
Hui Xu ◽  
Damu Tang

Membranous nephropathy (MN) is an autoimmune disease of the kidney glomerulus and one of the leading causes of nephrotic syndrome. The disease exhibits heterogenous outcomes with approximately 30% of cases progressing to end-stage renal disease. The clinical management of MN has steadily advanced owing to the identification of autoantibodies to the phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R) in 2009 and thrombospondin domain-containing 7A (THSD7A) in 2014 on the podocyte surface. Approximately 50–80% and 3–5% of primary MN (PMN) cases are associated with either anti-PLA2R or anti-THSD7A antibodies, respectively. The presence of these autoantibodies is used for MN diagnosis; antibody levels correlate with disease severity and possess significant biomarker values in monitoring disease progression and treatment response. Importantly, both autoantibodies are causative to MN. Additionally, evidence is emerging that NELL-1 is associated with 5–10% of PMN cases that are PLA2R- and THSD7A-negative, which moves us one step closer to mapping out the full spectrum of PMN antigens. Recent developments suggest exostosin 1 (EXT1), EXT2, NELL-1, and contactin 1 (CNTN1) are associated with MN. Genetic factors and other mechanisms are in place to regulate these factors and may contribute to MN pathogenesis. This review will discuss recent developments over the past 5 years.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document