Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 52 (2020)
Crime as Cognitive Constraint:
Facebook’s Role in Myanmar’s
Incitement Landscape and the
Promise of International Tort
Liability
Jenny Domino 1
Table of Contents
Table of Contents.......................................................................... 143
Introduction ................................................................................... 144
I.
Background ............................................................................. 150
II.
Gap .......................................................................................... 163
A. Prohibited speech under international law ...................................... 164
1. International human rights law ....................................................... 164
2. International criminal law ............................................................... 165
B. Legal responsibility for direct and public incitement to commit
genocide ................................................................................... 166
1. State responsibility .......................................................................... 166
2. Individual (criminal) responsibility ................................................. 167
C. Corporate responsibility ............................................................... 168
III. Critique ................................................................................... 173
A. Corporate criminal liability .......................................................... 175
B. Crime as cognitive constraint: Facebook as a “useful instrument”
for hate speech in Myanmar........................................................ 178
IV. The Promise of Tort ............................................................... 183
A. Rationale ................................................................................... 185
1. Sanction and criminal law’s design ................................................. 186
B. Cause of action .......................................................................... 188
1. To whom the duty applies: the public-private flip ......................... 189
2. Duty ................................................................................................. 191
3. To whom the duty is owed; causation ............................................ 193
C. Design ....................................................................................... 194
V.
Conclusion ............................................................................... 196
1.
Satter Fellow (2018-2019), Harvard Law School. Thanks to Duncan
Kennedy, Karen Engle, Raul Pangalangan, Noah Feldman, V.S. Khanna,
Malcolm Rogge, Ian Seiderman, Carlos Lopez, Guido Acquaviva, Karen
Simbulan, Jonas Nilsson, and Evelyn Douek for their helpful comments.
I am also grateful to the organizers of CWRU School of Law’s Conference
on Law and Atrocity Prevention, my co-panelists David Sloss and
Rebecca Hamilton, and the editors of CWRJIL. All errors and views are
my own.
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