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global frameworks
This
page explores global frameworks and practice regarding
censorship and free speech.
It covers -
introduction
There is no detailed
global framework regarding censorship, for example no
comprehensive international convention prohibiting creation
and distribution of pornographic material.
The absence of all-encompassing treaties reflects -
- the ongoing significance
of nation states (and of regional groupings such as
the European Union), which have been reluctant to surrender
powers to international bodies or merely to each other
- fundamental disagreement
about what should be censored, how it should be censored
(eg civil or criminal penalties, co-regulation by industry
or active intervention by officials?) and the priorities
for action
- the wariness of key
states (and advocacy bodies) about the ambitions of
some international agencies and potential misuse of
bilateral or multilateral agreements to change cultural
and political relationships within a particular nation,
eg to restrict criticism that is perceived as legitimate
or to permit expression that is offensive.
Contrary to claims that
new technologies such as radio broadcasting, satellite
television or the internet have critically weakened the
power of the state to enforce rules (and the willingness
of citizens/subjects to abide by those rules), censorship
and free speech remain largely local.
The few government attempts to facilitate global censorship
have been essentially bureaucratic, concerned with encouraging
information exchange between official agencies in different
nations rather than developing and implementing detailed
rules for a consistent global identification and suppression
of content.
frameworks
In conceptualising censorship
One point of entry is provided by Malcolm Shaw's International
Law (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2002). More detailed
references are provided in the Governance
guide elsewhere on this site.
mutual support or mutual indifference?
[under development]
international agreements
International agreements
regarding cooperation in restricting pornographic material
include -
- International Agreement
for the Suppression of the Circulation of Obscene Publications
1910
- International Convention
for the Suppression of the Circulation of and Traffic
in Obscene Publications 1923
- Protocol to the
Agreement for the Suppression of the Circulation of
Obscene Publications 1949
The 1910 Agreement, as
amended through the 1949 Protocol, centres on an undertaking
by participating states to establish or designate an agency
responsible for
1 centralizing all information
which may facilitate the tracing and suppression of
acts constituting infringements of their municipal law
as to obscene writings, drawings, pictures or articles,
and the constitutive elements of which bear an international
character;
2 supplying all information tending to check the importation
of publications or articles referred to in the foregoing
paragraph and also to insure or expedite their seizure
all within the scope of municipal legislation;
3 communicating laws that have already been or may subsequently
be enacted in their respective states in regard to the
object of the Agreement.
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