Can Their Free Speech Violate Your Human Rights? The Case for Criminalizing Holocaust Denial in Brazil

Dr. Milena Gordon Baker analyzes Holocaust denial in Brazil from the perspective posed by intolerance and hate speech, specifically in the context of penal law. Using these concepts and contexts, she investigates which legal approach should be used to confront Holocaust denial and appropriately respond to the core issues raised. Leveraging the perspective of international penal law supported by local legislation, she asks whether Holocaust denial should be criminalized in Brazil, making existing constitutional guarantees effective in order to repudiate racism and actively combat hate speech.

“The publication of Milena Gordon Baker’s thesis could hardly have come at a better time. By coincidence, at the precise moment when I was reviewing her text, the construction of the Holocaust Monument in the city of Rio de Janeiro had just started. Like other cities in Brazil that boast major Holocaust memorials and museums, my city too is finally fulfilling its promise to raise a worthy monument to the victims. Steps to preserve and pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the unspeakable genocide go hand in hand in many countries—as Dr. Baker demonstrates—with making it a crime to deny the Holocaust. The book you are about to read provides important food for thought on this subject…”
—Ellen Gracie Northfleet, Former Brazilian Supreme Court Justice