Legal Form and Legal Legitimacy: The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism As a Case Study in Censored Speech

Law Culture and the Humanities, Forthcoming

48 Pages Posted: 19 Jun 2018 Last revised: 7 Mar 2019

See all articles by Rebecca Ruth Gould

Rebecca Ruth Gould

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London; Harvard University - Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

Date Written: May 14, 2018

Abstract

The challenge posed by legal indeterminacy to legal legitimacy has generally been considered from points of view internal to the law and its application. But what becomes of legal legitimacy when the legal status of a given norm is itself a matter of contestation? This article, the first extended scholarly treatment of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s new definition of antisemitism, pursues this question by examining recent applications of the IHRA definition within the UK following its adoption by the British government in 2016. I show how the document reaches beyond its self-described status as a “non-legally binding working definition” and comes to function as what I call a quasi-law, in which capacity it exercises the de facto authority of the law, without having acquired legal legitimacy. Broadly, this work elucidates the role of speech codes in restricting freedom of expression within liberal states.

Keywords: Free Speech, Academic Freedom, Censorship, Speech Codes, Hate Speech, Legal Indeterminacy, Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Studies, Political Theory, Universities, Israel/palestine

Suggested Citation

Gould, Rebecca Ruth, Legal Form and Legal Legitimacy: The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism As a Case Study in Censored Speech (May 14, 2018). Law Culture and the Humanities, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3178109

Rebecca Ruth Gould (Contact Author)

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

SOAS University of London 10 Thornhaugh Street, Ru
London, WC1H 0XG
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/rebecca-gould

Harvard University - Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies ( email )

1730 Cambridge Street, 3rd Floor
Cambridge, 02138
United States

HOME PAGE: http://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/about-us/people/rebecca-gould

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