The Human Rights Act requires courts to decide cases in conformity with the rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights in so far as possible. Employees must bring a claim under UK employment law and then the rights, whether at common law or under statute, should conform to the Convention rights such as the right to respect for private life, freedom to manifest a religion, and freedom of expression.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of disinformation in the digital era and its implications for freedom of expression. It explores how the rapid dissemination of false, manipulated, and misleading information – termed a ‘disinfodemic’ – poses threats to human rights, democracy, and public trust. The chapter outlines the historical roots of disinformation, the technological factors that enable it, and the responses by public and private actors to mitigate its harmful effects. The chapter differentiates between disinformation (intentional), misinformation (unintentional), and malinformation (genuine information used to harm), while highlighting their diverse forms, such as fake news, deepfakes, and conspiracy theories. Disinformation erodes public trust, affects electoral integrity, threatens public health, and harms individuals’ rights to information and privacy. The chapter emphasises the necessity of finding a balance between combating disinformation and preserving freedom of expression.

The rise of microtargeted online disinformation (MOD) has raised concerns over its harms to democracy and human rights. Debates over the regulation of MOD crystallise around Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to freedom of expression, and its limited capacity to regulate disinformation. As the chapter demonstrates, the effects of disinformation are compounded by microtargeting techniques. These facilitate the surgical spread of information to homogeneous groups, based on the analysis of people’s personal data. The chapter contends that human rights protection has shifted from human rights law to other legal regimes. They centre on the protection of personal data, the regulation of online platforms and search engines and the technological systems that propel them, and the use of targeted political advertising. The chapter demonstrates this claim with reference to selected European Union legal instruments, discussing their capacity to address the harmful effects of MOD. It will be argued that the broadening of human rights protection beyond human rights law should be welcomed, but it also has significant limitations, including enforcement gaps and wide-ranging scope for exemptions.

This chapter analyses the evolving role of states in safeguarding freedom of expression within the digital environment, particularly on social media platforms. It highlights how states have both negative obligations (to avoid undue interference) and positive obligations (to actively protect and ensure the right to freedom of expression). The European Court of Human Rights and other international bodies emphasise that states must create a favourable environment for public debate, protect speakers from harm, and ensure media pluralism. These obligations extend to relations between private parties, including users and internet intermediaries. The chapter emphasises that freedom of expression in the digital age requires states to actively safeguard rights while balancing regulation and accountability. It warns against reliance on private platforms for enforcing speech limitations and underscores the importance of transparent, rights-based governance.

This chapter canvasses more than 400 decisions across some twenty IATs where references to international human rights instruments have appeared. Interestingly, it emerges that the vast majority of cases in which such instruments are cited concern three substantive areas: non-discrimination, due process rights and economic rights. The chapter therefore focusses on these three areas. It then reviews citations to human rights instruments in a variety of other substantive areas, including privacy rights, expression related rights, the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of nationality, and the right to just and favourable conditions of work. The chapter concludes that while IATs now regularly refer to international human rights instruments, their treatment of this body of law is inconsistent, ranging from some judgments refusing to acknowledge its direct applicability at all to other judgments considering it hierarchically superior to other sources of law.

Defending a particular vision of the freedom of expression rooted in its history and culture, the European Union has, in recent years, significantly increased its interventions in internet law. However, it has often refrained from taking a clear stance on the issue of the global or regional reach of its legal framework. This situation indirectly fosters a form of digital imperialism and provokes tension with many digital stakeholders who have adopted an American perspective on freedom of expression. Such a situation could potentially have disastrous consequences for the future of the internet. This chapter explores the causes of this conflict and suggests possible directions for solutions, highlighting the need to redefine the protection of online freedom of expression.

Fashion upcycling offers unprecedented opportunities for the sustainable reuse of clothing: using second-hand garments as raw materials for new creations, upcyclers can transform used pieces of clothing into new fashion products that may become even more sought-after than the source material. Considering the overarching policy objective to ensure a circular economy, the use of trademark-protected fashion elements for upcycling purpose can be qualified as a particularly important form of artistic expression. The reference to products of the original trademark owner is made for the socially valuable purpose of providing a vision of better, more sustainable production and consumption practices.

This chapter examines the evolution of freedom of expression doctrines in the context of digital media. It focuses on how the European Court of Human Rights has adapted traditional doctrines, rooted in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to address challenges in the new media environment. The authors explore how freedom of expression, vital to democracy, must balance individual rights, societal interests, and the regulation of disinformation and hate speech in the digital age. The Court’s defence of democracy has evolved from responding to authoritarian threats in Europe’s past to addressing new risks in the digital realm. Principles such as proportionality, the prohibition of abuse of rights (Article 17), and preventing the misuse of democratic freedoms (Article 18) guide limitations on expression, ensuring they are justified and not misused for political suppression. Social media has expanded the concept of ‘public watchdogs’ beyond traditional media to include non-governmental organisations, bloggers, and activists. This evolution demands rethinking the liability and freedom of expression doctrines for platforms.

This chapter examines the development of a right to privacy against the press in Article 8 ECHR and the legal principles that apply in such cases. It considers the obligations that Article 8 imposes in respect of the activities of private actors, the criteria for balancing competing rights, and the role of the margin of appreciation and the ECtHR in that process. The chapter then considers the impact of Articles 8 and 10 on domestic law and the development of the tort of misuse of private information. This offers important insight into the ways in which the Convention rights and the HRA have shaped the common law. Finally, the chapter concludes with observations on prospects for the future and proposals to limits privacy rights.

Article 10 ECHR protects freedom of expression, but this is not absolute, and States can prohibit hate speech. There is, however, no definition of ‘hate speech’ and while this reflects its context-specific nature, the latitude that this affords gives rise to concern. It is also difficult to know where lines should be drawn and what role human rights law should play. This chapter thus begins by considering free speech theory and why using law to tackle hate speech is contested. It then examines the ECHR framework where hate speech sits at the interface between Articles 8, 10, 14 and 17 ECHR. It observes that although the initial case law concerned the compatibility of domestic restrictions on hate speech, the Court has since held that States have positive obligations to protect those who are targeted by hate speech. This raises several challenges, not least that it becomes more pressing to know what constitutes ‘hate speech’ when States are obliged to address it. The latter part of the chapter examines domestic law where hate speech laws have come under immense scrutiny in recent years and where proposals have been made for reform.

Article 9 ECHR protects the right to freedom of thought, conscience and belief. Traditionally the volume of case law has been low, but in recent years it has expanded significantly. The ECtHR has, however, been criticised for failing to engage with why religious freedom is important, thus leaving the right vulnerable to being displaced by other rights and interests. Difficult questions arise as to whether the ECtHR adequately protects Islam and how the Court deals with conflicts between religious beliefs and the rights of the LGBTQI+, as well as the Article 10 ECHR rights of those who wish to espouse views critical of faith. Given contemporary political discourse it is likely that there will be further case law in the future. In the UK the enactment of the HRA 1998 has resulted in Article 9 ECHR being upheld on some occasions, but the courts have also adopted a narrow approach to what constitutes an interference with the right, and it is questionable whether this is in line with Strasbourg. It is therefore likely that there will also be further domestic case law on the ambit of the right.

This chapter explores political rights under international human rights law. It covers the right to self-determination, freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of association and assembly, electoral rights, and the right to participate in public affairs. The chapter examines the legal frameworks and standards for protecting these rights, the obligations of states to ensure their effective exercise, and the role of international bodies in monitoring and enforcing compliance. It also highlights the challenges in promoting political rights in different political and cultural contexts and the importance of fostering inclusive and participatory governance.

How should a constitutional state – one that respects subjects’ basic rights – treat civil disobedients? This chapter presents and critically engages with some of the most prominent answers legal scholars, political theorists, and philosophers have given to this question. On what I call punitive approaches, which I present in section 1, civil disobedience is first and foremost an act of resistance that threatens the constitutional order, and thus a public wrong worthy of punishment. Theorists of civil disobedience have challenged this approach since the 1960s, especially by conceiving of civil disobedience as a kind of dissent, which liberal democratic societies ought to and can ‘make room’ for. Sections 2 and 3 examine these ‘constitutionalizing’ approaches, with section 2 focusing on the case for leniency, and section 3 on the case for broad accommodation. Section 4 examines the costs of constitutionalizing approaches and reclaims the understanding of civil disobedience as a kind of resistance, alongside its uncivil counterparts, that is sometimes justified and even necessary in constitutional democracies.

Impartiality as a property of government is central to many of the major constitutional concerns of liberal democracy. This essay tersely considers the nature and implications of impartiality in three main areas: the rule of law; the distinction between the right and the good; and freedom of speech. Because of constraints of space, each of the discussions in this paper is no more than a sketch of the complex matters that are at issue in debates over impartiality.

This chapter examines both the regulatory and judicial aspects of artistic expression in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in an attempt to illustrate the fragility of the rule of law pertaining to art and culture in theory and practice. The chapter provides a brief historic overview of censorship since the 1979 Revolution, capturing the relative fluctuations in the application of the law over time, depending on the approach of the individuals in charge. In order to demonstrate the nature of the judiciary’s verdicts in light of the defendants’ artistic expression, the chapter also introduces examples of the cases of artists and writers prosecuted for their work both offline and online. Overall, the chapter highlights the multifaceted nature of the regulatory limitations on cultural and artistic expression and creativity.

This chapter discusses how AI technologies permeate the media sector. It sketches opportunities and benefits of the use of AI in media content gathering and production, media content distribution, fact-checking, and content moderation. The chapter then zooms in on ethical and legal risks raised by AI-driven media applications: lack of data availability, poor data quality, and bias in training datasets, lack of transparency, risks for the right to freedom of expression, threats to media freedom and pluralism online, and threats to media independence. Finally, the chapter introduces the relevant elements of the EU legal framework which aim to mitigate these risks, such as the Digital Services Act, the European Media Freedom Act, and the AI Act.