Eric Heinze is Professor of Law and Humanities at the School of Law
Queen Mary, University of London
, mottoeng = With united powers
, established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College
, type = Public researc ...
. He has made contributions in the areas of
legal philosophy
Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of law and law's relationship to other systems of norms, especially ethics and political philosophy. It asks questions like "What is law?", "What are the criteria for legal vali ...
,
justice theory,
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
, and
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
. He has also contributed to the
law and literature
The law and literature movement focuses on connections between law and literature. This field has roots in two developments in the intellectual history of law—first, the growing doubt about whether law in isolation is a source of value and mean ...
movement.
Legal Theory
In ''The Concept of Injustice'', Heinze examines what he calls the 'classical' style of justice theory, running from Plato to Rawls. Classical justice theorists, Heinze argues, depart from notions of '
injustice
Injustice is a quality relating to unfairness or undeserved outcomes. The term may be applied in reference to a particular event or situation, or to a larger status quo. In Western philosophy and jurisprudence, injustice is very commonly—but n ...
' on the seemingly obvious assumption that 'justice' and 'injustice' are logical opposites. For Heinze, 'injustice', in ancient and modern Western languages, is a sheer etymological happenstance. 'Justice' and 'injustice' do appear as opposites within conventional, already pre-defined contexts, in which certain norms are uncritically assumed. Outside of such assumptions, however, the relationship between the two terms becomes far more complex.
In order to overcome that recurring error, Heinze proposes a notion of 'post-classical' justice theory, using literary texts as examples. That project continues Heinze's earlier publications in
''Law & Literature''. In an article in the journal
''Law & Critique'', the feminist scholar Adrian Howe examines how Heinze has innovated within
critical theory
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...
to offer alternative readings of
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. Citing the example of
The Comedy of Errors
''The Comedy of Errors'' is one of William Shakespeare's early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. It ...
, Howe explains how, well into the 20th century, scholars often thought that Shakespeare would not have sought to convey a serious socio-legal critique in a seemingly frivolous play. Heinze, according to Howe, uncovers a "range of socio-legal dualisms; master–servant, husband–wife, native–alien, parent–child, monarch–parliament, buyer–seller. The Comedy,
einzeargues, deploys concepts of 'comedy' and 'error' to reflect problematic socio-legal relationships that are based on traditional but changing models of socio-legal domination and subordination."
Howe adds that, on Heinze's reading, "it is the viewpoint of the privileged male that is challenged in the play." In ''The Concept of Injustice'', Heinze amplifies those themes. He reviews classical theories of justice, from
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
to
Rawls, challenging their assumptions of a seemingly logical opposition between the concepts of 'justice' and 'injustice'.
Free speech
In the area of human rights, Heinze has frequently challenged Western European restrictions on
freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
, as embodied in so-called "
hate speech
Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
" bans. Heinze argues that a modern
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
has more effective and more legitimate ways of combating social intolerance, without having to restrict speech within the
public sphere
The public sphere (german: Öffentlichkeit) is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning th ...
. According to the free speech expert
Eric Barendt
Eric M. Barendt is the Goodman Professor of Media Law at University College London. After graduating with a BCL and an MA degree at Oxford, Barendt was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn. He began lecturing in law as a fellow at St Catherine's Colleg ...
, Heinze identifies further problems of coherence within hate speech bans. Barendt writes that the bans, according to Heinze's critique, "are often justified as necessary to prevent discrimination against the targeted racial or other groups. But in fact they themselves discriminate between the groups protected by hate speech laws (
racial, ethnic, religious groups and gays) and those left unprotected (other cultural groups, the physically and mentally
disabled
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, se ...
,
transsexuals
Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignm ...
)."
In his book ''Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship'' Heinze reviews ongoing debates about the legality of dangerous, provocative or offensive speech. He concedes that some democracies may be unstable enough to require bans, but one that has crossed a discernible threshold to become what Heinze calls a ‘longstanding, stable and prosperous democracy’ (LSPD) can only legitimately curtail expression within public discourse on ‘viewpoint-selective’ grounds under independently reviewable criteria of a ‘state of exception’ constituting a national security emergency.
Heinze acknowledges that hate speech has led to violence in Rwanda, the German Weimar Republic, the immediate post-Cold War Yugoslavia, and other weaker democracies. None of these, Heinze notes, were LSPDs. Full-fledged democracies, by contrast, have more legitimate and effective ways of combatting violence and discrimination without having to punish persons who hold provocative views.
‘Central to the LSPD model’, according to Lesley Abdela, ‘it can be shown that western democratic states have taken moral and symbolic stands—not always perfectly or without contradiction— but certainly in more than peripheral, lip-service ways. Measures including non-discrimination laws, pluralist primary education (and bans on individually targeted stalking, harassment, or ‘fighting words’) convey the state’s moral and symbolic messages against intolerance or violence.’
In ''The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech Is Everything'', Heinze argues that internationally recognized human rights have collapsed in part because of institutional failures to distinguish between human ''rights'' and human ''goods''. Heinze argues that many traditions throughout history have recognised essential human goods, so if human rights are to play any distinct role, they must do something more than just restate human goods. Scrutinising the concept of a right, Heinze argues that it is only through free speech that human goods can become the objects of human rights, which entails the further conclusion that outside democracy the concept of human rights makes no sense – and simply collapses, at best, into a concept of human goods.
Writing in his regula
Irish Times‘Unthinkable’ Series, columnist Joe Humphreys summarises Heinze’s argument as follows: ‘If a sufficiently democratic environment does not exist, then the thing you are seeking as a “right” is merely a “good”, something desirable which a government may or may not provide.’ As of Spring 2022 ''The Most Human Right'' has been nominated for ‘The Next Big Idea’
Season 18(non-fiction published from February - July 2022). Reviewing the book for the Swedis
''Dixicon''site the international human rights exper
Hans Ingvar Rothadds: “it is no coincidence either that many authoritarian leaders throughout history have always first focused on that very right before they started to threaten the others too.”
Sexuality
Heinze has also written on problems of
sexuality
Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
and human rights. James M. Donovan summarises some of Heinze's criticisms of
international organisations
An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states an ...
. Donovan notes that, in Heinze's view, "the failure to include
sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
within the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
human rights agenda, by the late 20th century, had resulted not merely in the exclusion of sexual orientation, but in a further mystification of it, which in turn was used to justify its continued exclusion. For Jennifer Wilson, Heinze's view in particular explains "the exclusion of transgender people from anti-discrimination laws." The Norwegian historian of religion
Dag Øistein Endsjø Dag Øistein Endsjø (born 11 November 1968 in Ann Arbor, Michigan) is a Norwegian professor of religious studies at the University of Oslo, Norway. He's been published in thirteen languages.
Career
Endsjø research focuses on the continuity betw ...
contends that, according to Heinze, the absence of any specific reference to sexual orientation or identity in earlier international human rights instruments "does not mean that
exual minorities'fundamental rights are excluded from protection by these conventions." Simon Obendorf argues that "homosexual rights are indeed worthy of protection at
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
", but questions "Eric Heinze's calls for a treaty-based instrument to codify and enforce principles of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in international law." Obendorf challenges the concept of "sexual minorities" which Heinze, in his book ''Sexual Orientation: A Human Right'', defines as "people whose sexual orientation derogates from a dominant heterosexual norm." Susan Sterett draws greater attention to Heinze's view of fluid and contingent sexual identities and orientations. Heinze, according to Sterett, "maps the discourse of sexual orientation onto postmodernist forms of knowledge, which emphasize the fragmentation of the legal subject." Conway Blake and Philip Dayle further explore Heinze's view "that sexual minorities have become pawns in what
einzecalls the international 'sensitivity game'.
[Conway Blake and Philip Dayle, Beyond cross-cultural sensitivities: international human rights advocacy and sexuality in Jamaica, in Corinne Lennox & Matthew Waites (eds.) (2013) ''Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in The Commonwealth'' (London: School of Advanced Study, University of London), p 465.] Blake and Dayle continue:
::In this game, post-colonial regimes bolster their domestic authority by promoting nationalist campaigns based on ideas about sexuality, which depict minority sexual orientations as manifestations of Western decadence. Resistance to any programme of tolerance towards homosexuality is said to be rooted in 'ancient' and 'indigenous' traditions. Heinze also notes the tendency of western states to eagerly demonstrate that they are not imposing a 'first world' agenda on 'traditional' societies. As a consequence, there has been a self-censoring forbearance in challenging southern states, as a kind of deference to indigenous cultural beliefs. In short, Heinze complains that many western states have been willing to tolerate human rights relativity in the context of sexuality.
Politics of International Human Rights
Heinze's criticisms of international law and institutions have also reached beyond the specific issues of free speech and sexuality. In other writing, he examines how inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations become politicised, therefore failing to adhere to their own professed mandates. According to Rosa Freedman, Heinze explains how state members of the
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...
, as well as its predecessor, the
UN Human Rights Commission
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of t ...
, have used
bloc voting to ensure an entrenched and systemic "sidelining" of attention away from the gravest human rights situations.
Contrary to writers who advocate political compromise and piecemeal approaches, Heinze argues that the criterion of universally even-handed application of norms and standards necessarily inheres within any concept of human rights. He further warns that, insofar as human rights are designed to apply universally to all states, irrespective of political system, they by definition never fully satisfy the requirements of a democratic state.
In ''The Most Human Right'' Heinze argues that the concept of human rights has become so diluted within international law and organizations as to carry little if any meaning. Heinze argues that governments and international organizations have failed to distinguish adequately between the concept of human rights and the concept of human goods. Many things are good, such as not being tortured, or having access to enough food, but these goods only manifest as objects of human rights when citizens are sufficiently able to agitate openly and candidly for them, including extensive opportunities to criticize their governments. Otherwise we are left, at best, with nothing but state-monopolized, managerial regimes of human goods, which, Heinze argues, are the arch-opposite of citizen-directed regimes of human rights.
Career
After receiving his
Licence
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
and
Maîtrise from the
Université de Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
, Heinze enrolled as a
DAAD scholar at the
Freie Universität Berlin
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...
. He received a
Juris Doctor
The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law
and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...
from
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each class ...
, and, following a
Fulbright fellowship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
at the
University of Utrecht
Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...
, completed a
Doctorate in Law at the
University of Leiden
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...
.
Heinze's other awards include grants from the
Nuffield Foundation
The Nuffield Foundation is a charitable trust established in 1943 by William Morris, Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motors Ltd. It aims to improve social well-being by funding research and innovation projects in education and social pol ...
; an Obermann Fellowship (Center for Advanced Studies,
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
); a Chateaubriand fellowship (French Ministry of Education); a Sheldon fellowship (
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each class ...
); an Andres Public Interest grant (Harvard Law School); and a C. Clyde Ferguson Human Rights Fellowship (Harvard Law School).
Before his appointment at the
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
, Heinze completed work for the
International Commission of Jurists
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is an international human rights non-governmental organization. It is a standing group of 60 eminent jurists—including senior judges, attorneys and academics—who work to develop national and inte ...
in Geneva and the United Nations Administrative Tribunal in New York. Heinze has advised the human rights organisations
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
,
Liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
, and the Media Diversity Institute. He also serves on the Editorial Board of ''The International Journal of Human Rights,'' and serves on the Advisory Boards for
Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica' (journal of the Italian Society of Political Philosophy) (2021 – present),
Heliopolis: Culture Civiltà Politica' (2020 – present), and
University of Bologna Law Review' (2018 - present).
Publications
Heinze is the author of several books on legal theory and philosophy, including:
* ''Sexual Orientation: A Human Right'' (Kluwer 1995) (Russian translation, Idea Press Moscow 2004)
* ''Of Innocence and Autonomy: Children, Sex and Human Rights'' (editor, Ashgate 2000 / Routledge 2017)
* ''The Logic of Liberal Rights'' (Routledge 2003 / Routledge 2017)
* ''The Logic of Equality'' (Ashgate 2003 / Routledge 2017)
[See Douglas Grob, at /www.gvpt.umd.edu/lpbr/subpages/reviews/heinze1005.htm/ref>
* ''The Logic of Constitutional Rights'' (Ashgate 2005 / Routledge 2017)
* ''The Concept of Injustice'' (Routledge 2013)
* ''Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship'' (Oxford University Press 2016)
* ''The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything'' (The MIT Press, 2022)
]
References
External links
* /www.law.qmul.ac.uk/staff/heinze.html Queen Mary, University of London: Professional Web-page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heinze, Eric
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Harvard Law School alumni
Legal writers
Human rights activists