Humor is often at the center of complex legal cases regarding freedom of expression and its limits. How can judges navigate the gray areas between satire and defamation, provocative jokes and incitement to discrimination, or parody and copyright violation? How do international free speech standards protect the rights of cartoonists, comedians and ‘ordinary’ social media users, in this respect?

These issues lie at the center of the toolkit What's in a Joke? Assessing Humor in Free Speech Jurisprudence, whose first edition has just been published by the Forum for Humor and the Law and Columbia Global Freedom of Expression. The toolkit was authored by Alberto Godioli (University of Groningen), Sabine Jacques (University of Liverpool), Jennifer Young (University of Groningen) and Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández (University College Dublin), in dialogue with experts from UNESCO, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, ARTICLE19 and several free speech organizations.

Dowload the toolkit here.

This publication is primarily intended for judges and other legal professionals, with the aim of facilitating a well-balanced approach to humorous expression in light of both human rights law and academic work on humor and satire. At the same time, it might also be of interest to humor creators of all types, by raising awareness of current trends and existing free speech provisions.