Excerpt: “The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) is the principal institution of the OSCE responsible for the human dimension and is mandated to provide assistance to participating States in their efforts to implement their commitments in the area of hate crimes. To this end, ODIHR has designed and implemented capacity-building and practical assistance programmes and resources for law enforcement, prosecutors and civil society. These support a comprehensive approach to responding to hate crime for the benefit of victims and communities throughout the OSCE region. In the course its work on hate crime, ODIHR has found significant gaps in practitioners’ understanding of the correct application of hate crime laws, as evidenced by the misapplication of ‘hate speech’ laws to prosecute hate crimes. This guide supplements existing ODIHR guidance on prosecuting hate crime by: 1) Outlining the legal and conceptual differences between hate crime and criminalized ‘hate speech’; 2) Outlining the consequences of misapplying ‘hate speech’ provisions to prosecute hate crime, providing practical guidance on how to avoid this; and 3) Making recommendations on how to improve practice at the national level.” (footnotes omitted)
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