Eric Heinze
United Kingdom
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Articles by Eric Heinze
Trump, Europe and the battle over who controls free speech
Who should decide what people can say online, what opinions they are allowed to express and which subjects are fair game for public discussion? Donald Trump, for one, appears to believe that Washington should have a considerable say in the matter, including when those discussions are taking place thousands of miles beyond American shores.
Is the Current Era of Free Speech Over?
Essays Oct 7, 2025 6 minutes In November of 2024, President-elect Donald Trump sued CBS News for $10 billion, later increasing the claim to $20 billion. He complained that the network had manipulated a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris to bolster her presidential campaign. And, in July of this year, Paramount, which owns CBS News, settled the lawsuit for $16 million to be donated toward the eventual construction of President Trump’s presidential library.
The Attack on Democracy
Trump’s torrents of disinformation have become so routine that we might be forgiven for tuning them out. Yet even by his own standards of creative fact-finding, he again stunned the world, this time with a foray into tocology, by announcing that pregnant women should avoid paracetamol (known in the U.S under the brand name Tylenol) to prevent autism in newborns. The retorts poured in predictably and instantaneously.
Who Pays for "Free" Speech?
Essays Aug 25, 2025 4 minutes Journalism Commentary Poetry Merion West is an independent publisher, celebrating the written word since 2016. Join Now $3/month Free If unable to pay, click here.
England’s new free speech law comes into force - what it means for universities
By Eric Heinze, Professor of Law and Humanities, Queen Mary University of London The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 comes into force throughout England on August 1 2025. Designed to stop universities from censoring controversial or unpopular ideas, the law gives the Office for Students responsibility for ensuring institutions comply. This law will mean that many universities will have to change the way they approach free speech. When it… Read complete article © The Conversation -
England’s new free speech law comes into force – what it means for universities
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England’s new free speech law comes into force – what it means for universities
Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock This law will mean that many universities will have to change the way they approach free speech. When it comes to adopting campus speech policies, educational establishments have always had three choices. One option has been to follow the law, permitting whichever messages the law already allows, while banning whichever messages the law already forbids.
England’s new free speech law comes into force - what it means for universities Original
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 comes into force throughout England on August 1 2025. Designed to stop universities from censoring controversial or unpopular ideas, the law gives the Office for Students responsibility for ensuring institutions comply. This law will mean that many universities will have to change the way they approach free speech. When it comes to adopting campus speech policies, educational establishments have always had three choices.
Why the left must also take responsibility for some of history’s greatest crimes Original
On Sept. 15, 1963, a bomb exploded in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls. In 2023, on the 60th 60 anniversary of this tragedy, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson returned to commemorate the KKK barbarity: “We have to own even the darkest parts of our past, understand them, and vow never to repeat them. We must not shield our eyes. We must not shrink away lest we lose it all.” Her plea was not new.
The Guinness World Record of Self-Sabotage
Down goes the Dow. Published April 5, 2025 Siri misogyny meets trade policy, while Howard Lutnick’s idiocy fuels debates on markets and democracy. Jonah Goldberg clamors for liberal democratic capitalism supremacy and says a prayer for the global economy, as public-choice theory explains our collective hypocrisy. Show Notes: —Worship at the church of Scott Lincicome —Dominic Pino for National Review: “The Heritage Foundation Was One of Free Trade’s Strongest Supporters”
The Amnesiac Politics of American Leftists Original
Politics To credibly critique the right, leftists need to critique themselves. Published April 5, 2025 Scroll to the comments section Audio versions are only available to subscribers of The Dispatch. Join Today! to listen to this post. Editor’s Note: This essay is adapted from Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left by Eric Heinze (The MIT Press, 2025) with permission of the publisher.
Theorizing law and historical memory: Denialism and the pre-conditions of human rights
Ayuda Buscar en la ayuda Buscar en la ayuda Theorizing law and historical memory: Denialism and the pre-conditions of human rights [1] Professor of Law and Humanities, Queen Mary University of London Localización: Diritto Penale Contemporaneo: Rivista trimestrale, ISSN-e 2240-7618, Nº. 4, 2018, págs.
What Progressives Need to Do
“No, not everyone on the Left supported these tyrannies, yet what progressives cannot escape is that much of the Left lent political legitimacy to regimes that destroyed and damaged tens of millions of lives, leaving festering wounds that still bleed today.” ver since President Donald Trump’s re-election in November, autopsies of the Left have become every pundit’s pastime. Democrats lost because they ignored the working class. They forgot the kitchen-table issues.
Censorship, abortion and the ‘threat within’: what a free speech expert thinks of J.D. Vance’s remarks to Europe Original
Donald Trump is famous for his attacks on journalists and the media. He has banned critical reporters from official events, threatened them with lawsuits, and branded mainstream outlets the “enemy of the people”. Since last year, the US has dropped ten notches on the World Press Freedom Index. Now in 55th place, the country trails far behind many European and other democracies.
Censorship, abortion and the ‘threat within’: what a free speech expert thinks of J.D. Vance’s remarks to Europe
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[New publication] The global debate on hate speech and its criminalisation
A new publication entitled ‘Criminalising Hate Speech: A Comparative Study’ (Asser Press), edited by Eric Heinze, focuses on the complex and urgent issue of hate speech. This is the world’s first publication to offer detailed, country-by-country studies from international experts in free speech and human rights. The criminalisation of hate speech has long been a contentious issue.
Israel-Gaza protests have cost police at least £25 million so far - but can you put a price on free speech?
“ In a democracy, we expect clarity about public spending, but the costs arising from the scope and frequency of these recent marches have triggered doubts about the price of political protests. A recent UK Government report has tallied the costs for policing demonstrations about the Gaza war since last October. The first two months alone topped £25 million nationally, and the protests have continued, attended by tens of thousands of marchers.
International Law, Self-Defense, and the Israel-Hamas Conflict
Abstract This article examines the international law of self-defense as it applies to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict to determine whether the October 2023 attacks by Hamas against Israel can be interpreted under Article 51 of the UN Charter as an “armed attack” that gives Israel the right to use military force in self-defense against non-state actors.
Israel-Gaza protests have cost police at least £25 million so far - but can you put a price on free speech?
By Eric Heinze, Professor of Law, Queen Mary University of London A recent UK government report has tallied the costs for policing demonstrations about the Gaza war since last October. The first two months alone topped £25 million nationally, and the protests have continued, attended by tens of thousands of marchers. In a democracy, we expect clarity about public spending, but the costs arising from the scope and… Read complete article © The Conversation -
Israel-Gaza protests have cost police at least £25 million so far - but can you put a price on free speech?
A recent UK government report has tallied the costs for policing demonstrations about the Gaza war since last October. The first two months alone topped £25 million nationally, and the protests have continued, attended by tens of thousands of marchers.
V-c: Jo Phoenix case ‘astounding indictment of UK universities’
The Jo Phoenix case exposed a “shocking failure of leadership in the sector”, according to an academic leading a government-ordered review of the use of sex and gender questions in research, prompting a vice-chancellor to agree the case was “an astounding indictment of British higher education”.
Why the death penalty is incompatible with democracy
By Eric Heinze, Professor of Law, Queen Mary University of London In the Athens of 399BC, a public assembly voted to put one of the city’s outstanding citizens to death: Socrates, one of the fathers of western philosophy. They convicted Socrates on trumped-up political charges, yet he accepted this sentence because it was democratically adopted by a majority of his fellow citizens. Today’s democracies were designed precisely to avoid such miscarriages.
Why the death penalty is incompatible with democracy
In the Athens of 399BC, a public assembly voted to put one of the city’s outstanding citizens to death: Socrates, one of the fathers of western philosophy. They convicted Socrates on trumped-up political charges, yet he accepted this sentence because it was democratically adopted by a majority of his fellow citizens. Today’s democracies were designed precisely to avoid such miscarriages.
The Most Human Right
A bold, groundbreaking argument by a world-renowned expert that unless we treat free speech as the fundamental human right, there can be no others. What are human rights? Are they laid out definitively in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the US Bill of Rights? Are they items on a checklist—dignity, justice, progress, standard of living, health care, housing? In The Most Human Right, Eric Heinze explains why global human rights systems have failed.
When the Establishment No Longer Calls the Shots in Writing History
“What you can’t do is go around seeking to change our history retrospectively,” proclaimed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in January 2022, “or to bowdlerize it or edit it in retrospect.” The prime minister was reacting to a jury verdict acquitting four protesters who had joined a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Bristol, England, in June 2020. The four were prosecuted for toppling a public statue of the 18th-century philanthropist and slave merchant Edward Colston.
Twitter: Not Even Elon Musk Is Wealthy Enough to Bring Absolute Free Speech to the Platform
This feeds into wider concerns around the ever-increasing privatisation of public spaces. In the online age, the fact that we spend so much of our time in private spaces earning advertising revenues for billionaires is seen by many as an affront to human dignity. The Twitter deal may only move ownership from one set of private hands to another, but the fact that the world’s richest (and controversial) billionaire is involved seems to make it worse.
Twitter: not even Elon Musk is wealthy enough to bring absolute free speech to the platform – here's why
Elon Musk is the planet’s number one billionaire. If anyone can turn cyberspace into a heaven – or hell – of free speech “absolutism” via a US$44 billion (£35 billion) Twitter takeover, then surely he’s the man. Right? When free-market elephants like Musk or Jeff Bezos (who bought the Washington Post in 2013) take charge of major mass-media outlets, concerns are raised about the direction of free speech, which remains the essential ingredient of democratic participation.
The Most Human Right
Why Free Speech Is Everything By Eric Heinze A bold, groundbreaking argument by a world-renowned expert that unless we treat free speech as the fundamental human right, there can be no others. Overview Author(s) Praise Summary A bold, groundbreaking argument by a world-renowned expert that unless we treat free speech as the fundamental human right, there can be no others. What are human rights?
Global libertarianism: how much public morality does international human rights law allow?
Hostname: page-component-5959bf8d4d-km8cc Total loading time: 0.93 Render date: 2022-12-09T08:09:15.141Z Has data issue: true Feature Flags: { "useRatesEcommerce": false } hasContentIssue true Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2021 Rights & Permissions[Opens in a new window] Abstract International human rights specialists and libertarian philosophers have rarely pursued meaningful exchanges, but this paper probes some of their common ground.
Israel, no-platforming - and why there’s no such thing as ‘narrow exceptions’ to campus free speech
If there’s one place where students are sure to spend time rehearsing arguments against Israel, then it’s SOAS, the London-based School of Oriental and African Studies (although plenty of universities run a close second). So you’d expect them to salivate at the chance to tear some juicy bites out of anyone representing Israel – not least a prize catch like Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, who served as government spokesman during the 2014 Gaza conflict.
Free Speech Debates Are More Than ‘Radicals’ vs ‘Liberals’
“Whenever anyone dares mention the insensitivity of promoting speakers whose invitation risks legitimising such social ills as prejudice, racism or rape,” wrote Conrad Landin in The Guardian in 2013, “the same defence is given: free speech.” The journalist and activist was objecting to a controversial offer extended to France’s right-wing Marine Le Pen to address the Cambridge University debating society. Within university walls, but also far beyond them, it’s an old controversy.
UC Berkeley, Donald Trump and the muddled ethics of no-platforming
“Sounds like someone I should get to know,” one observer quipped after he heard that Brietbart’s deputy editor, Milo Yiannopoloulos had been no-platformed by students at UC Berkeley. The university, which traditionally had a reputation for free-speech activism had just cancelled a campus address by the right-wing journalist after protesters mounted violent protests on campus. Instead of silencing him, the no-platformers instead handed Yiannopoloulos the most coveted platform of all.
UC Berkeley, Donald Trump and the muddled ethics of no-platforming
“Sounds like someone I should get to know,” one observer quipped after he heard that Brietbart’s deputy editor, Milo Yiannopoloulos had been no-platformed by students at UC Berkeley. The university, which traditionally had a reputation for free speech activism had just cancelled a campus address by the right-wing journalist after protesters mounted violent protests on campus. Instead of silencing him, the no-platformers instead handed Yiannopoloulos the most coveted platform of all.
Free speech debates need to go beyond the ‘radicals’ vs ‘liberals’ divide
“Whenever anyone dares mention the insensitivity of promoting speakers whose invitation risks legitimising such social ills as prejudice, racism or rape,” wrote Conrad Landin in The Guardian in 2013, “the same defence is given: free speech.” The journalist and activist was objecting to a controversial offer extended to France’s Right-wing Marine Le Pen to address the Cambridge University debating society. Within university walls, but also far beyond them, it’s an old controversy.
Bans on Holocaust denial don’t help Jews
When the silencing of debate about free speech follows from the spirit of Holocaust commemoration, then something has gone wrong. ‘I’d rather not think about how horrible Germany would be’, exclaimed Stephan J. Kramer, General Secretary of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, ‘if Holocaust denial were lawful’. What else could he say? The Holocaust had almost extinguished Germany’s Jewish community. Numbers have revived since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but remain tiny.
Labour in meltdown - but what is antisemitism?
Simmering tension within the British Labour Party over claims of antisemitism has boiled over. First MP Naz Shah was suspended; now the party’s former London mayor, Ken Livingstone has joined her. It’s an ideal moment to consider what antisemitism actually is. Many probably – perhaps secretly – gave up puzzling over antisemitism long ago. They’ve moved on to some other issue, like battery hens, where the oppressors are shamefaced and the victims can’t speak.
A Poggean Approach to Mass Atrocities: Addressing Indeterminacy and Failures of Political Will for Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect
A Poggean Approach to Mass Atrocities: Addressing Indeterminacy and Failures of Political Will for Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect Abstract Humanitarian intervention and R2P have been plagued in practice by a pervasive lack of political will to action. To overcome this situation and supply determinacy for international responses to global manifestations of mass atrocities, a two-stage approach is required.
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