Countering online sexist hate speech in the European legal context: Between present commitment and future challenges
1. Preliminary remarks In our societies new technologies ‘can play an important role in empowering women and girls to exercise all human rights, including the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and in their full, equal and effective participation in political, economic, cultural and social life’.[1] Women’s emancipation, therefore, is strengthened through the promotion...
Regulation of online gender-based hate speech and international human rights law: Current status and challenges
1. Preliminary remarks Discussions of the merits and feasibility of regulating gender-based hate speech – at the domestic and international level – have come to the fore with the expansion of the Internet. Hate speech in general, and sexist speech in particular, has escalated exponentially with the development of the social web.[1] While gender inequality...
Eliminating online hate speech against women: Universal versus regional approaches
Introduced by Flavia Zorzi Giustiniani The ever-widening utilization of Internet and social networks, magnified as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing restrictions on freedom of movement applied all over the globe, has had, among its perverse effects, that of spreading online hate speech. New technologies and Internet platforms, which were initially viewed...
An advisory opinion on climate emergency and human rights before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
1. Introduction On 9 January 2023 the Republic of Chile and the Republic of Colombia, both State parties to the American Convention on Human Rights (‘the Convention’),[1] jointly filed a request for an Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights (‘The Request’) before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (‘The Inter-American Court’ or...
The advisory proceedings on climate change before the International Court of Justice
1. Introduction Climate change, a crisis of unprecedented magnitude, is presenting novel challenges to the edifice of international law, and law more broadly. Legal scholars and practitioners worldwide are engaged in a complex exercise of reimagining and sometimes reviving legal norms to address this crisis. These efforts are most visible in the numerous judgments resulting...
The climate change advisory opinion request at the ITLOS
1. Climate change at the ITLOS Successfully addressing climate change and its consequences constitutes one of the major challenges of current times. Moving beyond the initial normative approach, which has resulted in the adoption of the UNFCCC[1] and the Paris Agreement,[2] states and other actors are now turning to national and international courts. This article...
Advisory opinions on climate change: Leading from the bench?
Introduced by Annalisa Savaresi While the prospect to instigate an inter-state dispute alleging State responsibility for a breach of an international obligation concerning climate change has been the subject of intense scholarly speculation,[1] no such litigation has materialized to date. Instead, after much debate on their respective utility and desirability,[2] three parallel advisory proceedings on...
Inter-legality and the challenge of democracy
1. Introduction In a lengthy review essay on The Challenge of Inter-legality,[1] the always insightful Neil Walker suggested that the very idea of inter-legality might have to overcome some serious challenges.[2] Some of these are empirical in nature: is it really the case that courts generally are in the business of applying inter-legality, and how...
The quest for equilibrium: Democracy, International Law and Metamodernism
1. Introduction In perusing di issue of democracy vis-à-vis international law as well as in the extra-State space, I would keep on the forefront the question regarding the role that law can play in a complex and transformative setting where a large number of political and normative authorities intersect by crosscutting territorial borders: whether ‘democracy’...
Is democracy a challenge to inter-legality?
Introduced by Antonello Tancredi The scientific project on ‘inter-legality’ has at least three different dimensions: descriptive, ontological and prescriptive. As far as the descriptive dimension is concerned, the project is based on a new understanding of legal pluralism. The concept of inter-legality, as is well known, was coined by the Portuguese legal sociologist Boaventura...
