Wall Street Journal: "Libel Tourism" Threatens Free Speech
Washington, D.C., partners David Rivkin and Bruce Brown co-authored an article, "'Libel Tourism' Threatens Free Speech," which was published in the Opinion section of the January 10, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal.
According to Rivkin and Brown, "The farce of foreigners suing Americans for defamation in overseas forums, where the law does not sufficiently protect free speech, is so well-known that it has a fitting nickname: libel tourism. And London is its hot destination. Particularly since 9/11, foreign nationals have cynically exploited British courts in an attempt to stifle any discussion by American journalists about the dangers of jihadist ideology and terrorist supporters. At long last, U.S. politicians are waking up to the dangers posed by libel tourism, which threatens both the First Amendment and American national security. The trouble is that their efforts, though well-intentioned, are relatively toothless and constitutionally problematic."
The authors discuss the nation's first anti-libel tourism law, passed in New York State, and the constitutional risks they believe it carries. The law allows state courts to assert authority over foreign citizens based solely on a libel judgment they have obtained abroad against a New Yorker. "It is a mistake to respond to libel tourism by seeking to catch foreign plaintiffs with no U.S. contacts in our jurisdictional net. This smacks of the same legal one-upmanship that makes libel tourism itself so odious," state Rivkin and Brown.
Rivkin and Brown continue: "It is high time for a strategy that would stop libel tourists dead in their tracks, without sacrificing constitutional values. The answer lies not in stretching claims of personal jurisdiction, but in federal legislation that would enable American publishers to sue for damages, including punitive damages, for the harms they have suffered. A proper federal libel tourism bill would punish conduct that takes place overseas—in this case, the commencement of sham libel actions in foreign courts—by utilizing the well-recognized congressional authority to apply U.S. laws extraterritorially when compelling interests demand it."