Even before the Google controversy started earlier this year, academics and advocates argued that World Trade Organization dispute-settlement could be used to promote free speech and access to information in China and beyond. The idea would be to target Internet censorship as a trade barrier.

A seminar titled “Limits of the WTO as a Promoter of Freedom of Speech” is scheduled for July 21 in the K.K. Leung Building at the University of Hong Kong. It begins at 1 p.m.

Speaker Dr Tomer Broude, a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and academic director of the Minerva Center for Human Rights, will take a skeptical view of such claims. Instead, he will argue that trade cases about censorship are indifferent to freedom of expression and ultimately promote economic interests.

Public Affairs Office
University of Hong Kong

(July 20, 2010)


Tomer Broude:
a skeptical view.

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