Law Commons^™

What Is Injustice?, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

Throughout Western history, theorists have explained injustice by starting with some idea of justice. They have made justice fundamental, and the notion of injustice merely derivative of it. Since, after 2500 years of theory, we lack any consensus about what justice is, it would be easy to conclude that injustice is equally indeterminate.

However, injustice is not the sheer “opposite” or “negation” of justice. Plato set the stage for two millennia of justice theories by identifying “harmony” as justice’s essential attribute. Aristotle refined that project by adding the element of “measurement,” which has continued to structure programmatic justice theories through …

Wild-West Cowboys Versus Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Some Problems In Comparative Approaches To Extreme Speech, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

All European states ban some form of hate speech. US law precludes such bans. In view of the political and symbolic importance of free speech, it becomes tempting to assume that trans-Atlantic differences towards hate speech reflect deeper cultural divisions.

However, we must pay attention to comparative methodology before drawing ambitious conclusions about cross-cultural social and political differences that derive solely from differences in formal, black-letter norms. In this volume, Robert Post claims that formal, constitutional requirements of content-neutral regulation reflect a freer public sphere in the US, in contrast to the European public sphere.

Yet a legal-realist approach casts …

Cumulative Jurisprudence And Hate Speech: Sexual Orientation And Analogies To Disability, Age And Obesity, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

Non-discrimination norms in human rights instruments generally enumerate specified categories for protection, such as race, ethnicity, sex or religion, etc. They often omit express reference to sexual minorities.

Through open-ended interpretation, however, sexual minorities subsequently become incorporated. That ‘cumulative jurisprudence’ yields protections for sexual minorities through norms governing privacy, employment, age of consent, or freedoms of speech and association.

Hate speech bans, too, are often formulated with reference to traditionally recognised categories, particularly race and religion. It might be expected that the same cumulative jurisprudence should therefore be applied to include sexual minorities. In this article, that approach is challenged. …

Public Awareness Of Human Rights: Distortions In The Mass Media, Eric Heinze, Rosa Freedman

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

This article examines distortions of human rights reporting in the mass media. We examine human rights coverage in four of the most influential newspapers, two from the US and two from the UK. The US papers are The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The British papers are The Financial Times and The Guardian.

Most current scholarship on international human rights draws its information from specialized sources, such as the published reports of intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. Wholly absent has been any systematic study of the mass media. To date, no one has examined the dominant media agencies, …

Book Review, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

Book Review of: MURRAY DRY. Civil Peace and the Quest for Truth: The First Amendment Freedoms in Political Philosophy and American Constitutionalism. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2004. x, 307 pp. $88.00 (cloth); 29.95 (paper). Murray Dry attempts to draw a number of links between the ‘speech’ and ‘religion’ clauses of the First Amendment. Unfortunately, he fails in a number of respects. He confuses core elements of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses, and fails to examine Freedom of Speech within the context of fundamental controversies that have arisen throughout the post-World War II era. The errors he makes stand as …

The Status Of Classical Natural Law: Plato And The Parochialism Of Modern Theory, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

The concept of modernity has long been central to legal theory. It is an intrinsically temporal concept, expressly or implicitly defined in contrast to pre-modernity.

Legal theorists sometimes draw comparisons between, on the one hand, various post-Renaissance positivist, liberal, realist or critical theories, and, on the other hand, the classical natural law or justice theories of antiquity or the middle ages, including such figures as Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine or Aquinas. Many theorists, however, while acknowledging superficial differences among the various classical theories, fail to appreciate the variety and complexity of pre-modern thought. Unduly simplifying pre-modern understandings of law, they end …

Epinomia: Plato And The First Legal Theory, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

In comparison to Aristotle, Plato’s general understanding of law receives little attention in legal theory, due in part to ongoing perceptions of him as a mystic or a totalitarian. However, some of the critical or communitarian themes that have guided theorists since Aristotle already find strong expression in Plato’s work. More than any thinker until the 19th and 20th centuries, Plato rejects the rank individualism and self-interest which, in his view, emerge within democratic legal culture. He rejects schisms between legal norms and community values, institutional separation of law from morals, intricate regimes of legislation and adjudication, and a culture …