Can't Sue for Libel in US? Take Your Beef to Britain, Libel Capital of the World

Next time you visit London, if you have an hour or two after visiting London Bridge, Westminster Palace and Big Ben, drop by a solicitor's office and sue someone for libel. It will more than pay for the cost of your vacation.

When you do, you'll be participating in the blood sport known as libel tourism, a legal ploy so appalling that victims have described it as a form of terrorism.

What's it all about? "Unlike in the United States, where plaintiffs have to prove that the defendant's statement is willfully false and defamatory," writes Salil Tripathi in Wall Street Journal Europe, "the burden of proof is reversed in Britain. According to U.K. libel laws, the plaintiff has to show only that the statement harms his reputation -- which is the case with almost any accusation, true or false. It is the defendant who must then prove that his allegations were not libelous."

Because of this radical difference between the British (guilty until proven innocent) and American (innocent until proven guilty) approaches to libel, American authors and publishers and their lawyers have deliberately withheld UK publication rights to many books that might give offense to rich and/or powerful persons or entities that might bring a lawsuit in a British court. If you have any doubts that this is a sword hanging over the neck of every author and journalist, some examples will erase them. You can find them in Tripathi's article or this one in the New York Times, Britain, a destination for "libel tourism" by Doreen Carvajal.

If you're wondering why I've refrained from identifying the plaintiffs it's because, frankly, I'm afraid of being sued. This blog is read worldwide and it's all too likely that some litigious bastard who objects to being called - well, a litigious bastard - would take offense and haul me into a British court, tie me up for years and bankrupt me with legal bills (including the plaintiff's) and damages.

So, you see, this cruel, stupid and toxic provision of English law has done its job on me, just as it will do on you should you venture over the line. And what does "venture over the line" mean? It means that if even a single copy of your US edition finds its way to English soil, you're potentially liable.

Recently, two New York State officials proposed a bill that would render foreign libel judgments unenforceable "unless," as it was reported, "the country in which they are made had free speech protections similar to the First Amendment." And the New York Times ran an editorial supporting such a measure. "If authors believe they are too vulnerable," the editorial concluded, "they may be discouraged from taking on difficult and important topics, like terrorism financing, or from writing about wealthy and litigious people. That would not only be bad for writers, it would be bad for everyone."

The citizens of our nation have made terrible sacrifices, include the shedding of their blood, to defend our Constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech. That a foreign country, let alone the very one in which the foundations of democracy were forged, could have a license to reach into our homes and workplaces and deprive us of our most sacred right is intolerable and unconscionable. I wish I could say it is also unimaginable, but in fact this outrage is being perpetrated on our countrymen - on your fellow authors - as I write this. Every writer, agent and publisher organization must combat it. The British laws that foster this disgrace must be repealed. What is the Authors Guild, the American Publishers Association, the Association of Authors' Representatives, the American Civil Liberties Union, PEN and other rights organizations doing about it?

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.