La libertad de expresión (en tiempos de guerra): un análisis desde Zechariah Chafee

• Autores: Leopoldo García Ruiz
• Localización: Persona y derecho: Revista de fundamentación de las Instituciones Jurídicas y de Derechos Humanos, ISSN 0211-4526, Nº. 76, 2017, págs. 51-69
• Idioma: español
• DOI: 10.15581/011.76.51-69
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Freedom of Speech (in War Time): an Approach from a Text by Zechariah Chafee
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen
  • español

    El presente estudio explora la regulación que la Espionage Act estadounidense de 1917 realiza del derecho humano a la libertad de expresión, de la mano de un texto de Zechariah Chafee que abordó la aplicación inicial de esa ley. A juicio de Chafee, la consagración de la libertad de expresión en la Primera Enmienda de la Constitución americana no impide que los poderes ejecutivo y legislativo puedan establecer legítimamente ciertas medidas en tiempo de guerra conducentes a limitarla. Con todo, tanto la redacción como la interpretación de esas medidas deben alejarse del empleo de las doctrinas de la causación indirecta y de la intención implícita, que nunca son adecuadas para determinar si una afirmación debe ser amparada (algo que no tuvo en cuenta la reforma de la Espionage Act de 1918, ni la mayor parte de la jurisprudencia del momento). Para Chafee, la libertad de expresión debe quedar desprovista de censura y de posterior sanción salvo que dé claramente lugar a una interferencia directa y peligrosa en relación al curso de la guerra.

  • English

    The present study deals with the human right to freedom of speech as regulated in the Espionage Act of 1917. The study relies mostly in a text by Zechariah Chafee which analyzes the Act’s early application. To Chafee’s mind, the fact that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution consecrates freedom of speech should not prevent neither the Government nor the legislative power from stablishing certain limiting measures to it. However, both the wording and the interpretation of these measures must stay away from the doctrines of indirect causation and constructive intent, which are never appropriate in order to stablish whether a statement should be protected or not as freedom of speech (the reform of the Espionage Act in 1918 did not respect this boundary, and the majority of the American courts at the time went along the same path). In Chafee’s view, speech should be unrestricted from censorship or punishment unless it is clearly liable to cause a direct and dangerous interference with the conduct of war.

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