Balancing Free Speech and Reputation

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter examines American concerns about libel judgments issued by British courts against American authors and publishers. British courts became attractive sites for suing Americans whose publications had little connection with Britain—a phenomenon labeled “libel tourism”—because of the plaintiff-friendly attitude of British defamation law. In 2010, Congress enacted the SPEECH Act, which instructs a U.S. court to enforce a foreign libel judgment only if it determines that the foreign defamation law provided adequate protection for freedom of speech consistent with the First Amendment. This legislation followed from the advocacy campaign of an American author who was sued in a London court by a Saudi billionaire she had described in her book as a financier of terrorism. This case demonstrates how a personal story of hardship can elicit ethnocentric concerns about foreign law.