I Book Review: The Prohibition of Propaganda for War in International Law
| Date | 01 June 2010 |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934411002800212 |
| Published date | 01 June 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Part C: DocumentationI Book Review |
I Book Reviews
Netherlands Q uarterly of Human R ights, Vol. 28/2 (2010) 283
Michael G. Kearney, e prohibiti on of propaganda for war in international law,
Oxford University Press, Ox ford/New York, 2007, 274 p., ISBN-13: 9 78–0–19–
9232 45–1*
Considering that ‘the rst casualty when war comes is truth’,1 it is surprising how little
academic and other public discourse ha s been devoted to the law on war propaganda.
ough legal issues around ‘hate speech ’ more generally are awarded considerable
attention, the prohibition of propaganda for war in international law ‘has languished as
a footnote in academic literature’, as Michael Kearney demonstrates in this impressive
study. e author a ims to ll t his vacuum by e stablishing the mea ning and scope of
the prohibition of propaganda for war in international law and the rationale behind it,
drawing on many historic al and primary sources.
Arguably the most well-k nown provision on war propaganda in international law
can be found in A rticle 20(1) of the International Covenant on Civ il and Political
Rights (ICCPR), which simply states that ‘any propaganda for war sha ll be prohibited
by law’. ‘War’ in this review is taken to mea n ‘an act of aggression or breach of the
peace contrary to the Charter of the United Nations’;2 thus advocating the use of
force in self-defence or for the purposes of sel f-determination in accordance with t he
Charter a re not prohibited, and neither is propaganda for civil war as long as it does
not develop on an international scale. ough States have been less t han enthusiastic
to implement the provision so far, the di scussion on propaganda for wa r might gain
new relevance now t hat the International Crimi nal Court (ICC) wil l consider a legal
denition of the crime of aggression during its review conference in June 2010. In this
study, Kearney suggests t hat a dis tinct crime of incitement to aggression should be
included in the Rome Statute, modelled aer the exi sting crime of direct and public
incitement to genocide.
Before turning to internat ional human rights law and international crim inal
law, the author rst considers the roots of the prohibition of war propaganda in
international law (Chapter 1), i ncluding bilater al treat ies, eorts by the League of
Nations and case-law of the Internat ional Milita ry Tribunals. Chapter 2 covers the
United Nations (UN) General Assembly ’s attempts to deal with propaga nda for
war a nd concludes that ‘although the UN Genera l Assembly clea rly established the
existence of a state obligation to refrai n from propaganda for war, evidenced through
repeated Resolutions and D eclarations, enthusiasm for the pr inciple was always
weak on the par t of the Western liberal democracies, and appears to have completely
dissipated since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the C old War’ (p.
* Marloes van Noorloos, Ph.D. Candidate, Willem Pompe Institute for Crimina l Law and Criminology,
Utrecht University, the Net herlands.
1 US Sena tor Hiram Johnson, 1917.
2 ICCPR General Comment No. 11 (1983): Prohibition of propagand a for war and inciting nationa l,
racial or relig ious hatred, para . 2.
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