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This Article provides a comparative critique of hate speech jurisprudence in New Zealand and the United States by building on insights from Critical Race Theory (CRT) scholars.  My main argument is that neither of these liberal democracies protect the right to freedom of expression/speech as they claim, but in fact dishonestly protect a right to “freedom of expression of racism” or “freedom of racist speech.”  They do this by telling lies that inflate the value of free expression/speech and diminish and dismiss the harms that hate speech inflicts on marginalized groups.  To move towards honest hate speech laws in both jurisdictions, I propose a communications strategy that seeks to reframe hate speech from a free speech issue to a public health issue.  This is in order to push for reforms that will enable the courts to better protect people of color from the physical, mental, psychological or spiritual harms of racist hate speech.

The recent decision by the UN Human Rights Committee in Ioane Teitiota v. New Zealand was celebrated in the media as a "landmark" and "historic" decision for people in the Pacific Islands and around the world facing realities of climate change-related displacement. However, in adopting a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens, this Article offers a critique that examines the racism underpinning the Committee's reasoning in doing so. My central thesis is that the Committee's decision, and the decisions of the New Zealand courts it affirmed, should be understood as an instance of racist climate change law. Specifically, I argue that in these decisions, racism manifested when the white privilege of the predominantly white decision-makers (which I refer to as "judicial white privilege") led them to impose poor standards of living for Black, Indigenous, and people of color, adopt inadequate and empty lines of reasoning to justify their judicial inaction, and obscure the racist colonial roots of vulnerabilities to climate change in the Pacific Islands. In considering the implications of this racism, this Article then confronts the tension between the apparent need to find legal solutions to climate changerelated displacement and long standing calls by people in the Pacific Islands for wealthy states to fulfil their obligations to reduce their emissions and support climate change adaptation measures in the Pacific Island region. In opting to support the latter and in being inspired by the relationship between racism and climate change in the Pacific, this Article proposes that climate justice movements consider adopting a racial justice framing of climate change in the Pacific. The Article suggests that this racial justice framing may effectively change the hearts and minds of lawmakers to make meaningful strides in mitigating climate change and helping Pacific Islanders and other Black, Indigenous, and people of color to adapt to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on anticipating racism which will dissolve in lifetimes as it is not an inescapable reality but so long as racial inequity persists there will remain the need for Critical Race Theory. It discusses that the racism which was always fundamental in Europe's dispossession of Indigenous Peoples has been perhaps its most redefined and denied reality.