Brandenburg and the United States' War on Incitement Abroad: Defending a Double Standard

Abstract

The United States has expressed justifiable pride over the protection Brandenburg v. Ohio extends to the speech of political dissidents. Nonetheless, the United States has actively called for the suppression of speech in foreign media that falls far short of the incitement standards set forth in Brandenburg. This Article explores whether the US should support censorship of incitement abroad that falls short of true incitement as defined by Brandenburg. More fundamentally, the Article attempts to show that Brandenburg both assumes the existence of, and helps constitute, a distinctively American marketplace of ideas that makes its standards unfit for export to many other countries.

Keywords: First Amendment, incitement