General Recommendation 35 on combating racist hate speech

This chapter offers a brief reflection on the term 'racist hate speech'. It introduces relevant provisions of International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), paying particular attention to Article 4, which has traditionally been the default provision for combating racist hate speech. The chapter explains the context in which General Recommendation 35 (GR 35) was adopted, before examining its ambition and objectives, as well as its concrete provisions and textual emphases. It assesses the initial impact of GR 35 and offers a tentative prognosis of how it will fare in the future. The task of drafting GR 35 provided Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) with an ideal opportunity to mount a critical examination of its own positioning on relevant issues in the past.