Thailand’s Obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD): A Study of Online Hate Speech in Context of the Computer-Related Crime Act (No. 2) B.E. 2560 (2017)

Authors

  • คณาธิป ทองรวีวงศ์ คณะนิติศาสตร์

Keywords:

Hate speech, Online hate speech, non-discrimination law, Computer Crime Act B.E. 2560

Abstract

Since Thailand Cabinet Resolution in2016has revoked the reservation for Section 4 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), Thailand has been under the legal obligations of international laws to introduce the regulations against “the propaganda and dissemination of racial hatred concept” in relation to “Hate Speech” concerning “Racial Causes”. However, according to the analysis of current effective laws, the author found that Thailand had no specificaw concerning “Hate Speech”, but there levant law scould be applied to the case. The focus of this article is to analyze the implementation of the Computer-Related Crime Act (No. 2) B.E. 2560 (2017) on hate speech in the context of online communication. The author found that the off enses stipulated in Section14 and 16 there of could be applied to certain cases of online hate speech, but the sections failed to cover all kinds of cases relating to online hate speech.

However, according to the comparative analysis of Thai and foreign laws, the author found that the regulations of online “Hate Speech” did not appear in the computer-related crime laws but they were under other scopes of laws, in particular, human right laws.

Consequently, the application of Thailand’s Computer-Related Crime Act for “Hate Speech” cases failed to conform to the international principles on “Hate Speech”. The author suggests the amendment of offenses in the Computer-Related Crime Act (No. 2), (2017) to exclude the “Hate Speech” case and the enactment of specific law on “Hate Speech” in particular the scope of human right laws in accordance with the obligations under CERD.

References

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Published

2018-12-11

How to Cite

ทองรวีวงศ์ คณาธิป. “Thailand’s Obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD): A Study of Online Hate Speech in Context of the Computer-Related Crime Act (No. 2) B.E. 2560 (2017)”. Law and Local Society Journal 2, no. 2 (December 11, 2018): 111–141. accessed January 3, 2026. https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/llsj/article/view/148400.

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Section

Academic Article