The International Nuremberg Principles Academy conducted an interdisciplinary project in 2022 that situated hate speech in the context of international criminal law (ICL). This project resulted from exploratory work undertaken throughout 2020–2021, assessing how the Academy could advance the discussion of hate speech and ICL. Mindful that there was no clear concept of 'hate' speech in ICL, the Nuremberg Academy began to explore how a better understanding of 'hate speech' in ICL would help define the role of ICL in either preventing the commission of, or addressing accountability for, core international crimes. The project reviewed several international criminal law cases to gain a deeper understanding of how "hate speech," understood through a novel multidisciplinary analysis, could guide the reading of case law.

This research had been unique in its bridging of law and science. The project formed two groups: one worked on a multidisciplinary analytical framework and one guided the legal understanding of hate speech-related cases, their scope, and impact. The report's authors then combined the two working products into a prototype of the Multi-Dimensional Knowledge Framework (MDKF) that looked at direct and public incitement to genocide in multidisciplinary detail. This undertaking provided a deeper and holistic understanding of hate speech, incitement, and an inciter's criminal conduct, especially regarding mens rea, group identification and influence, and how hate speech was proliferated. It also highlighted the necessity to understand the relationship between an individual defendant, their ideology, their identification with a group, and its effect on the individual's conduct. Incitement was by nature a group phenomenon and it was unsurprising that group-level factors had permeated the findings.

The project concluded by presenting the MDKF as applied to the crime of direct and public incitement to genocide. This prototype framework was a helpful frame of reference formulated from multidisciplinary knowledge and methodologies. It could assist in gaining a deeper understanding of hate speech within the context of ICL. It also concluded by noting relevant observations arising from the research and comparative analysis, including further research suggestions. Moreover, the project contributed to the field of ICL by providing (1) a detailed analytical framework of identified multidisciplinary hate speech dimensions and (2) a targeted and comprehensive definitional table that broke down the legal elements of criminal cases that had involved hate speech in the context of ICL.

Data was collected in two main stages. The Analytical Framework and the Definitional Table were developed in the first stage, which concluded in mid-2022. Their outputs were reviewed by two working groups of experts. The second stage involved the review and analysis of cases that had involved hate speech. The review and analysis were guided by the developed frameworks. Further data comparison was conducted to finalise the outcomes of the research. The third stage in early 2023 involved quality assurance and refinement of analyses and findings.

The experts who provided strategic oversight to the research were:

• Professor Lasana Harris, Experimental Psychology, University College London

• Toby Mendel, Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Democracy

• Professor Richard Ashby Wilson, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Intellectual Life, Gladstein Chair and Professor of Anthropology and Law, University of Connecticut School of Law

Working group experts were:

• Professor Mohamed Elewa Badar, Professor of Comparative and International Criminal Law & Islamic Law, Northumbria University Law School, Newcastle

• Lisa Biersay, ICL expert, formerly ICTY 

• Professor Predrag Dojčinović, Adjunct Professor and Research Affiliate at the Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut

• Dr Matthew Gillett, Senior Lecturer, Essex Law School

• Professor Gregory Gordon, Professor of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong, formerly ICTY 

• Dr Jordan Kiper, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham 

• Professor Jutta Lindert, Professor of Public Health, University of Emden/Leer 

• Dr Samantha Moore-Berg, the Emile Bruneau Postdoctoral Researcher and the director of the Peace and Conflict Neuroscience Lab at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania

• Stephen Rapp, former Ambassador, lead prosecutor at the ICTR Media case, and Fellow of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for the Prevention of Genocide

• Dr Wibke K. Timmermann, Lawyer, Legal Aid Western Australia.

 
Please find the full report here.