The Burka Ban: Divergent Approaches to Freedom of Religion in France and in the U.S.A.

Six years after prohibiting the wearing of headscarves by students in public schools, the French state passed a law prohibiting the wearing of burkas in public places. Compared to France, in the United States there is more tolerance for wearing signs of religious affiliation. The difference in legal responses can be understood in reference to a different background understanding of the fundamental presuppositions of republicanism in the two legal and political orders, which also define their conception of secularism. The law enacted in France can be understood in a general frame of a paternalistic state, which is seen as permitted to dictate the proper exercise of their reason to the citizens. In the United States, the dominant understanding of republicanism attempts to reconcile the natural rights philosophy with the conception of the common good. The trust in the use of collective power and the legislature dominant in France can be opposed to the distrust towards the same elements in the United States

The Digital Services Act and the EU as the Global Regulator of the Internet

This Essay discusses the Digital Services Act (DSA), the new regulation enacted by the EU to combat hate speech and misinformation online, focusing on the major challenges its application will entail. However sophisticated the DSA might be, major technological challenges to detecting hate speech and misinformation online necessitate further research in implementing the DSA. This Essay also discusses potential conflicts with U.S. law that may arise in the application of the DSA. The gap in regulating the platforms in the U.S. has meant that the platforms adapt to the most stringent standards of regulation existing elsewhere. In 2016, the EU agreed with Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube on a code of conduct countering hate speech online. As part of this code, the platforms agreed to rules or Community Guidelines and to practice content moderation in conformity with them. The DSA builds on the content moderation system by enhancing the internal complaint-handling systems the platforms maintain. In the meantime, some states in the U.S., namely Texas and Florida, enacted legislation prohibiting the platforms from engaging in viewpoint discrimination. Two federal courts of appeals that have examined the constitutionality of these statutes under the First Amendment are split in their rulings. This Essay discusses the implications for the platforms’ content moderation practices depending on which ruling will be upheld

Protection with Hesitation: On the recent CJEU Decisions on Religious Headscarves at Work

The CJEU's Achbita and Bougnaoui decisions on workplace bans of Islamic headscarves are disappointing as they are not providing enough guidance to the national courts concerning the criteria that they need to take into consideration in their attempts to find a balance between the rights in conflict. The judgments do not provide any criteria for the admissibility of dress codes other than that they should be neutral and objectively justified. Even those terms though are not analysed by the court in a sufficient manner