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UK Libel Law Is a Global Threat To Web Free Speech
uctpjac writes "London media lawyer Emily MacManus argues that UK libel law has three features which make it the 'defamation tourism' capital of the world and a serious threat to Web free speech. First, there is no free speech presumption in the UK as there is, for example, in the US. Second, every access of a Web page is considered to be a separate act of publication in the UK (unlike the US, where 'original publication' holds). Third, 'no-win-no-fee' libel litigation is now allowed in the UK. If any blog, anywhere, publishes something you'd like taken down, threaten libel action in the UK: no one except the super-rich can afford to even take these cases to court, so media lawyers advise publishers to 'take it down, take it down quickly, take it down again.' There's not much chance that the judges will move the law any time soon because they just aren't seeing the cases that could cause them to set new precedent."
Within the EU, this is relatively straightforward. The Brussels Regime provides a framework for one member state to enforce the judgement of the Courts in another member state.
Within the US, there is also (in most cases) a mechanism for the enforcement of a foreign (i.e. UK) monetary judgements, but this isn't automatic by any means and is dependent on state law.
It should be noted that, in both cases, such judgements won't be honoured if the appeal process is still ongoing.
The Brussels Convention - http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:41968A0927(01):EN:HTML
Uniform Foreign Money Judgments Recognition Act 1962 - http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/fnact99/1920_69/ufmjra62.pdf