• Examines highly topical issues raised by extreme speech in liberal democracies such as incitement to terrorism, homophobic speech, Holocaust denial, veiling controversies and the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet
• Confronts difficult philosophical and political questions faced by democracies in their commitment to equality and fight against hate speech
• Includes interdisciplinary approaches from law, philosophy, history, psychology, and literature
• Provides comparative perspectives from several countries including the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and Hungary

Readership: Academics, scholars, and advanced students of Human Rights; Comparative Human Rights; Freedom of Information & Freedom of Speech; Media, Information, & Communication Industries; Censorship; Extreme Speech & Hate Speech

Edited by Ivan Hare, Barrister, Blackstone Chambers and a former Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge., and James Weinstein, Amelia D. Lewis Professor of Constitutional Law, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University

"'...the contributors include many of the illustrious names in contemporary free speech scholarship, and the quality of the contributions is on the whole high"" - Lawrence R. Douglas, Times Literary Supplement

"What are the appropriate limits to freedom of expression in societies that wish to be democratic, multi-cultural, and committed to the human rights of all? Ivan Hare and James Weinstein, a UK human rights practitioner and a US academic, have assembled a dazzling array of talent from a variety of disciplines, jurisdictions, and viewpoints to explain and debate a controversy that is intellectually complex, politically explosive, and as current as today's news. Extreme Speech and Democracy is a mine of information and argument that will be quarried for years to come. This is quite simply the most sophisticated, penetrating, and ambitious study of these issues available." - Christopher McCrudden, FBA, Professor of Human Rights Law, University of Oxford

"The papers in this book bring a penetrating scholarship to the law relating to extreme speech-and to the political philosophy which is the subject's real challenge. Whether you believe in free expression warts and all, or in censorship for the sake of public tranquillity, you will find these contributions a major intellectual resource." - Lord Justice Laws

"compendious, thoughtful, learned and very well produced and laid out. The topic is both provocative and important, being no less than the future of our liberal culture and the task it faces in accommodating itself to the challenge of extremism without destroying all that is good about itself in the process...The book is one to be read through from start to finish or enjoyed in bite-sized chunks grabbed as the opportunity arises...The book's many contributors have various responses to the issue of controlling as well as celebrating speech but it is a tribute both to themselves and to the editors that few deny that the issue is one which needs properly to be addressed. The book is all the better as a defender of free speech (and liberal values) for taking its opponents so seriously." - Conor Gearty, London School of Economics, Entertainment Law Review, Volume 20, issue 8, 2009

Foreword by Ronald Dworkin
James Weinstein and Ivan Hare James Weinstein: General Introduction: Free Speech, Democracy, and the Suppression of Extreme Speech Past and Present
Part I: Introduction and Background
1: Dieter Grimm: Freedom of Speech in a Globalized World
2: James Weinstein: Extreme Speech, Public Order, and Democracy: Lessons from The Masses
3: Ivan Hare: Extreme Speech under International and Regional Human Rights Standards
4: James Weinstein: An Overview of American Free Speech Doctrine and its Application to Extreme Speech
5: Sir David Williams QC: Hate Speech in the United Kingdom: An Historical Overview
6: Maleiha Malik: Extreme Speech and Liberalism
Part II: Hate Speech
7: Robert Post: Hate Speech
8: C. Edwin Baker: Autonomy and Hate Speech
9: Stephen J. Heyman: Hate Speech, Public Discourse, and the First Amendment
10: Eric Heinze: Wild-West Cowboys versus Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Some Problems in Comparative Approaches to Hate Speech
11: L.W. Sumner: Incitement and the Regulation of Hate Speech in Canada: A Philosophical Analysis
12: Pascal Mbongo: Hate Speech, Extreme Speech, and Collective Defamation in French Law
13: Peter Molnar: Towards Improved Law and Policy on 'Hate Speech'- The 'Clear and Present Danger' Test in Hungary
14: Eric Heinze: Cumulative Jurisprudence and Hate Speech: Sexual Orientation and Analogies to Disability, Age, and Obesity
Part III: Incitement to Religious Hatred and Related Topics
15: Ivan Hare: Blasphemy and Incitement to Religious Hatred: Free Speech Dogma and Doctrine
16: Ian Cram: The Danish Cartoons, Offensive Expression, and Democratic Legitimacy
17: Amnon Reichman: Criminalizing Religiously Offensive Satire: Free Speech, Human Dignity, and Comparative Law
Part IV: Religious Speech and Expressive Conduct That Offend Secular Values
18: Carolyn Evans: Religious Speech that Undermines Gender Equality
19: Ian Leigh: Homophobic Speech, Equality Denial, and Religious Expression
20: Dominic McGoldrick: Extreme Religious Dress: Perspectives on Veiling Controversies
21: John Finnis: Endorsing Discrimination between Faiths: A Case of Extreme Speech?
Part V: Incitement to and Glorification of Terrorism
22: Eric Barendt: Incitement to, and Glorification of, Terrorism
23: Tufyal Choudhury: The Terrorism Act 2006: Discouraging Terrorism
24: Sara Savage, Jose Liht: Radical Religious Speech: the Ingredients of a Binary World View
Part VI: Holocaust Denial
25: David Fraser: : Some Comparative Aspects of Holocaust Denial on the WWW
26: Michael Whine: Expanding Holocaust Denial and Legislation Against It
27: Dieter Grimm: The Holocaust Denial Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
28: Patrick Weil: The Politics of Memory: Bans and Commemorations
Part VII: Governmental and Self-Regulation of the Media
29: David Edgar: Shouting Fire: From the Nanny State to the Heckler's Veto: The New Censorship and How to Counter It
30: David J. Bodney: Extreme Speech and American Press Freedoms
31: Jacob Rowbottom: Extreme Speech and the Democratic Functions of the Mass Media

The CST Blog - Read an article on extreme speech on The CST Blog by Dave Rich