Public Regulation of Non-Commercial Speech in the United States and United Kingdom: A Comparison

Abstract

This paper compares notions of free speech in the United States and the United Kingdom. The United States has a written constitution and an evolving jurisprudence that values free expression so as to limit both federal and state limitations. For the last half-century there have been extensions of the notion of free expression to commercial speech and to acts that symbolize expression. The United Kingdom on the other hand values parliamentary sovereignty and is thus more flexible on the regulation of expression. Indeed Parliament and many voters favored Brexit in order to free the country from European Union limitations on parliamentary control of speech and the European Court of Human Rights.

This paper traces the regulation of non-commercial expression in those two countries and considers limitations on speech in the United Kingdom while that country was part of the European Union.