The U.S. Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights on Freedom of Expression.

This paper compares the case law of the U.S. Supreme Court with that of the ECHR by examining the similarities and differences between the U.S. Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. It analyzes the United States and Europe on freedom of expression on the assumption that 'the American approach [to freedom of speech], as compared with that which prevails elsewhere, is largely a function of experience, and of the increasing array of cases and challenges that come from time.' The substantive case analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court on the First Amendment and of the ECHR on Article 10 is the main focus of this paper. Critical attention is paid to those key free speech areas such as prior restraint, defamation, obscenity, and commercial speech: a large body of case law in these areas has been accumulated, and a significant trend can be more easily discerned for comparison. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]