Ojos que sí ven: La regulación de la publicidad estatal: Lecciones desde el Perú y el derecho comparado

How should the State purchase advertising in mass/digital media? What selecting and transparency standards should the State meet for choosing media outlets insofar as it needs to guarantee the efficient allocation of State resources and to avoid indirect censorship on the press? Among others, these questions are addressed by the authors of this comparative study which includes the very few countries in America with a special legislation for public advertising, such as Peru, Canada, Uruguay and Mexico. The Peruvian case is an emblematic starting point for the study, given the special situation that occurred in 2018. In that year, the Peruvian Congress passed a new law that outright forbade public advertising expenditure in private media outlets, a law that was later repealed by the Constitutional Tribunal. The best and worst national practices are later compared with the “Principles on Regulation of Official Advertising and Freedom of Expression” of the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and their findings are presented schematically. The findings are used to propose alternatives of public policy regarding the supervision of State advertising.