It’s not really about romance but it’s fascinating nonetheless from a legal and a literary perspective: the New York Senate passed unanimously (take a look at that sequence of words for a minute. Holy smoke!) a new bill that will “protect the state’s writers and publishers from so-called libel tourism.”
Given the almost hyperbolic title of The Libel Terrorism Protection Act, the law was “introduced after the New York Court of Appeals ruled in December that the state’s laws did not protect Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author, from a possible bid by a Saudi Arabian businessman to enforce a summary judgment issued by the High Court in London.”
The new law extends the state court’s jurisdiction to allow for rulings that international court judgments against New York authors and publishers are unenforceable if the court decides that the libel law of the pursuing country’s judicial system is at odds with U.S. protections of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
The law came to the NY State Senate when “the state’s laws did not protect Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author, from a possible bid by a Saudi Arabian businessman to enforce a summary judgment issued by the High Court in London.”
From the Times UK Online:
Dr Ehrenfeld claimed her book, Funding Evil, in which she makes a series of allegations about the charitable activities of wealthy Saudi businessman Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, was protected under the freedom of speech section of the US constitution.
But in a 17-page ruling by Judge Ciparick in December, the New York Court of Appeals in Albany ruled that it did not have jurisdiction over Mr Mahfouz as they found he had not carried out any business in the state.
The Sheikh has always vehemently denied any link with terrorism, or terrorist support or funding, and claimed that the book was defamatory in suggesting that he supported al-Qaeda and terrorism either directly or indirectly.
Amid proclamations from state senators that “New York is the free speech capital of the world” (which prompts me to add, “Yeah?! I GOT YER FREE SPEECH RIGHT HERE!” because I am immature) Senator Martin Golden explained that “writers and journalists would have foreign defamation suits declared unenforceable in New York unless the foreign law provides the same free speech protections guaranteed under our Constitution.”
Dr. Ehrenfeld has described Mr. Mahfouz as a “serial libel tourist.” He’s scored several victories against other authors in the UK who have published similar allegations about his financial activities, and Cambridge University Press withdrew all copies of a book entitled Alms for Jihad by J. Millard Burr and Robert O.Collins.
Currently there’s one copy of Alms for Jihad on Ebay US, and the starting/buy it now price: $150.00. Some American libraries have “refused to withdraw the book from their shelves.” Searches of the New York Public Library catalog reveal two copies, both of which are listed as “lost.”
What I find most curious is how a court in New York will evaluate another country’s libel laws against the US protections of freedom of speech and of press so as to allow a potential suit to be declared unenforceable.
While I’m not sure this has direct links to romance, per se, despite the prevalence of sheikhs in each month’s category issues, I’m fascinated by the New York State ruling – particularly since many, if not most, major publishing houses are located in Manhattan.
Isn’t New York the same place that tried to ban the word “bitch?” How is THAT the “free speech capital of the world?”
It’s an interesting case, and I hope some of the lawyers who hang here will chime in.
Hey, is Candy looking for a senior thesis for law school? Next to plagiarism and ferrets (always a winning topic), this one’s got some good stuff going for it.
This just strengthens all of my reasons for writing in the ‘fantasy’ genre, and creating the settings and cultures for my stories from scratch.
moving19 = when i was, i did.
I’m so glad to hear this. When the story first appeared in the news, I was so infuriated.
I’m thrilled that the New York legislature gave the big “fuck you” to people who think that a change of international venue can force Americans to abdicate rights we hold to be inalienable.
So if Candy writes a totally untrue book about how I’m a really nasty terrorist-type, and publishes it in New York, and it’s then published in the UK, and my parents are upset – I wouldn’t be able to sue her in the UK?
Or is it that I’d only be able to sue her in the UK if I was already a UK resident?
Take this out of the terrorism field. Let’s say that you write a book published in New York State that says, without proof and with malice, that I’m a serial killer. The book is also published in Canada and as a resident of Alberta I sue you in Court of Queen’s Bench and win.
This law means my judgment is worthless in the US. Why? Because Canada has legislation that prevents people uttering violent threats or instigating violent crimes against identifiable groups – it’s often called “hate crime legislation”.
But you can instigate murder verbally in the US against an identifiable group all you want. There are no laws in the US against calling for all the Jews or Muslims or gays or women in America to be lined up against a wall and shot. Therefore our freedom of speech laws aren’t up with yours. So I lose my case, and you can call me a serial murderer, with malice and without proof, unless I can somehow scrape together the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would cost to sue you in the US.
Marianne McA—if the book is published in the UK, you can be sued in the UK, no problem. The situation with this particular book was that it was published in the USA but then the sheik sued in the UK. There was no UK publisher of the book. The suit was based purely on copies that a few individuals had imported for personal reading, not for resale.
That’s crap, in my book, and I’m glad the NY legislature’s response is, in essence, “Sue all you want, but we won’t enforce the judgement on our soil.”
Charlene said:
But you can instigate murder verbally in the US against an identifiable group all you want. There are no laws in the US against calling for all the Jews or Muslims or gays or women in America to be lined up against a wall and shot.
—>AAAANK! Thanks for playing. Nice try at the giant strawman/appeal to outrage fallacy, but you need to get your facts straight. It is in fact totally, totally illegal to call for the murder of anyone in the USA, and it is a hate crime if the speech targets a specific group. Hate crimes carry an extra five years on the sentence.
Now then, I could call you a serial killer here in the US. You as a private individual have much heavier protection under US law than a “public figure.”
Contrary to the wild rumors that seem to abound in the rest of the world, Americans can’t just say anything they want about anyone at any time. Many people and entities are sued and lose.
The difference is one of philosophy. The principle in the US Constitution is that if people are afraid of being slapped with nuisance suits, they will be afraid to speak the truth. Imagine if Woodward and Bernstein were afraid of Richard Nixon hitting them with a libel suit in 1972?
Is it a perfect system? Of course not. But neither is the British system, which allows many malfeasors to get away with nonsense much longer because they have the money to batter their accusers. This is a pick-your-poison situation, and the most fundamental law of the US has chosen to protect speakers and writers more than anyone else.
We kicked a monarchy out of our country. This is 100% an anti-monarchist philosophy.
The U.K. tends to have tougher laws regarding libel than the States does, so the same publication might be found libelous in the U.K. and not libelous in the U.S., so it makes sense why Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz filed where he did.
I understand the New York Senate’s rationale for the Act but it does seem a bit hinky to proclaim that other country’s laws can’t be enforced if they’re not exactly the same as those of New York.
(And yes, I appreciate there’s a great range for legal abuse with foreign judgments; see Beals v. Saldanha for a nightmare story involving lawsuits in foreign jurisdictions.)
—E, thanks. (Though you lost me at the end, because I think the Queen has been a great Head of State. You may have inalienable rights, but we get to feel motherly about Prince Harry.)
British libel laws are notorious for favouring the plaintiff, with the result that a lot of people will, given the faintest excuse, sue for libel in the UK rather than the more logical country. (Ehrenfeld’s case was brought because something like three copies of her book were imported to the UK.)
Of course, because legal aid isn’t available for libel cases, the end result is that British libel laws protect the rich and powerful, while everybody else is left out to dry.
There’s a movement to change the libel laws but I can’t see it succeeding any time soon.
Antigone said: I understand the New York Senate’s rationale for the Act but it does seem a bit hinky to proclaim that other country’s laws can’t be enforced if they’re not exactly the same as those of New York.
—>That is standard international law.
Imagine if the Saudis could enforce their laws in the USA. (You were out with a man who is not your relative. We have scheduled your beating for next Thursday.)
No country is obligated to recognize the laws of another country outside of the country’s actual borders. (Diplomatic immunity is a different, though somewhat related, situation.)
So, for instance, when scads of Americans ran north of the border to avoid the draft in the 1960s, the Canandians didn’t stir themselves to hunt them down and deport them because Canada didn’t have a draft, and as such didn’t recognize the actions of those Americans as illegal.
Should Ms. Ehrenfeld enter the UK, they may enforce the judgement against her. Personally, I don’t think the British courts should ever have agreed to hear the case in the first place, but they did. The action in New York amounts to a statement that they don’t recognize the authority of the British judgment, and will not assist in any attempts to enforce the judgment against Ms. Ehrenfeld.
Marianne: it’s an anti-monarchist principle from back when the monarchy was a stronger power. I meant nothing against the current royals. 🙂
I need to correct a paragraph I wrote earlier and skipped a step in the logic chain. I said:
Now then, I could call you a serial killer here in the US. You as a private individual have much heavier protection under US law than a “public figure.â€
It should say (emphasis is new sentence):
Now then, I could call you a serial killer here in the US. And you could sue me, and very likely win, depending on what damage you could demonstrate you suffered. “Public humiliation” is a viable claim. You as a private individual have much heavier protection under US law than a “public figure.â€
Bah! Bad tagging. I fail at cheap HTML.
That is standard international law.
Imagine if the Saudis could enforce their laws in the USA. (You were out with a man who is not your relative. We have scheduled your beating for next Thursday.)
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Let me rephrase…
It does seem a bit hinky to proclaim that a valid judgment in Country A’s court can’t be enforced in Country B if the laws of Country A are not exactly the same as those of Country B.
In the example you gave of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia would have no jurisdiction over what someone did in the United States because their laws don’t apply. (Although I note that some countries have introduced sex tourism laws which allow them to prosecute crimes that are committed on another country’s soil, so the line can get a bit blurry.)
In the libel tourism case a British court found against Ehrenfeld. Now, I agree that the fact the case was argued in the UK rather than the US was dubious, but suppose the book *had* been published in the UK, would you have felt it wrong for New York to say, no, this British judgment can’t be enforced because the British libel laws are not identical to ours?
I do have sympathy with Ehrenfeld, but I think refusing to uphold foreign judgments *simply* because the law is not identical can lead to a lot of abuse, most probably by the entities who already have the most powers/resources. Corporations already go forum shopping for the jurisdictions most favourable to them; can you imagine what it would be like if they could choose a jurisdiction and then argue that a judgment from that jurisdiction *shouldn’t* be enforced because the law was different from the United States?
Antigone said: Now, I agree that the fact the case was argued in the UK rather than the US was dubious, but suppose the book *had* been published in the UK, would you have felt it wrong for New York to say, no, this British judgment can’t be enforced because the British libel laws are not identical to ours?
—>I don’t know. It would depend on the specifics of the request. If the Brits wanted to seize her assets in the UK (say, all the income from sale of the book in the UK) then obviously that would be within their rights.
I agree that it’s not a clean issue. A similar case is the inability of whatshisface the movie director, who can’t return to the US because he was convicted of statutory rape here, but the French aren’t turning him over to us (and we’re no aggressively pursuing it).
But to put the Saudi example more in line, imagine a Saudi woman, in Saudi Arabia, has been convicted of being out with a man she isn’t related to. Somehow, she gets away and flees to the US. Perhaps she’s already here and is tried in absentia in Saudi Arabia.
Do we return her to her country? She committed a crime there, she’s Saudi national, and she was duly convicted under their legal system.
It’s a different situation, yes. But then we have to ask what is the difference between “human rights” and fundamental legal rights?