Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

70 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 4:27
tinue to achieve results slowly and surely but with occasional setbacks and
disillusionment. The process is abetted by the trend in international law by
which the idea of the classic rights and immunities of sovereign states not to
be interfered with is giving way to ideas of good and global governance.
Sometimes contending with antisemitism turns into a Sisyphean task, especially
today, when hate speech can circle the globe massively and instantaneously.
Notoriously, as history attests many times over, governments can
readily evade even the most stringently drawn laws and sabotage the best
intentioned regulations. Signature of a treaty or convention is not self-executing:
it does not ensure that the nation’s jurisprudence will accommodate
treaty provisions or that those provisions will be enforceable in the country’s
courts until implementing legislation is enacted. Without effective
enforcement, laws that prohibit or outlaw antisemitism or incitement of
racial hatred proverbially carry little weight; as has been observed, law
devoid of means of enforcement is “not law properly so-called.” 63 For all its
shortcomings and uncertainties, however, it is law that will serve our purpose
as the instrument and palladium to restrain antisemitism: as Raphael
Lemkin would vehemently remind us, “Only man has law. Law must be
built. . . . You must build the law!” 64
In recent years, non-state actors have become highly visible abusers of
human and minority rights, perhaps eclipsing the sovereign state, for which
international law and organizations are handicapped since they are geared
essentially for dealing with state rather than non-state or “partialitarian”
actors. The Internet complicates matters still further. Given its strength and
protean character, and its extraordinary capacity over many centuries to
adapt itself to almost any kind of setting, antisemitism will not be abolished
in the foreseeable future. Under international law, antisemitism, and hate
speech generally, are neither protected nor criminalized. Yet it can be morally
and intellectually discredited and legally contained, and thereby limited
in the harm it causes. Over time, it is hoped, the nexus of international,
regional, national, non-governmental and local organizations and institutions
will grow more integrated as they learn to cooperate ever more closely
in their work together in enforcing a comprehensive body of international
humanitarian law that is set forth in nearly a 100 international and regional
human rights treaties. ICCA, though only three years old, may indeed be a
welcome sign of the times.
63. Richard Goldstone, “Advancing the Cause of Human Rights,” quoting John
Austin in Samantha Power and Graham Allison, eds., Realizing Human Rights:
Moving from Inspiration to Impact (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 198.
64. Quoted in Samantha Power, “A Problem from Hell,” 55.