Global Freedom of Expression

Tarlach McGonagle

Dr. Tarlach McGonagle is a senior researcher/lecturer at the Institute for Information Law (IViR). He is Coordinator of the specialised masters programme, Informatierecht; coordinates and lectures on a number of the programme’s compulsory and elective modules and is the programme’s dissertations coordinator.

He specialises in a broad range of topics relating to international and European human rights law, especially the rights to freedom of expression and religion; minority rights; participatory rights, and cultural and linguistic rights. His other main area of expertise is international, European and comparative media law and policy. Themes such as pluralism, diversity, tolerance and “hate speech” have a central place in his research.

Dr. McGonagle was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Amsterdam (2008) for his thesis examining the interface between freedom of expression and minority rights under international law. He also holds an LL.M. degree in International Human Rights Law (University of Essex, 2001) and a B.A. International in Law and French (National University of Ireland, Galway, 1998).

He regularly writes expert reports for various branches of the Council of Europe, OSCE and other IGOs and NGOs. He is a member and Rapporteur of the Council of Europe’s Committee of experts on protection of journalism and safety of journalists (MSI-JO). He was an invited expert speaker at the Thematic Discussion on “Racist Hate Speech” organised by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2012. In Spring 2013, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS), Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania and a Visiting Fellow at the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy and Law (RIIPL), Rutgers School of Law – Camden, New Jersey.

He is an associate member of the (Netherlands) School of Human Rights Research. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the European Audiovisual Observatory.