- Hertz drops libel lawsuit against investor research outfit that claimed its solvency was at risk [Crain's New York, earlier]
- Report: New Jersey blogger jailed for threats against federal judges was on FBI informant payroll [AP]
- “Bentley Photos Are Props in Willie Gary’s High School Motivational Speech” [ABA Journal]
- Australian personal injury lawyers evade ad ban [Sydney Morning Herald]
- Scott Rothstein’s alleged Ponzi scheme “targeted people who invested in law suits” [Steele/Legal Ethics Forum] “Two Inside Looks at Rothstein’s Firm, Lifestyle” [Ambrogi/Legal Blog Watch]
- O’Quinn driving nearly twice speed limit on rainy pavement at time of crash [Chron]
- “Support for UN religious defamation rule drops” [Media Watch Watch] On the other hand? “Envoy’s Speech Signals Softening of U.S. Hostility to International Court” [AP]
- Rudely titled new book on how to avoid getting sued [Instapundit]
Posts tagged as:
United Nations
- Transportation Security Administration detained comic book artist based on art he was carrying with him [Popehat]
- More unease over Federal Trade Commission move to regulate bloggers’ freebies [Citizen Media Law, CEI "Open Market", earlier] “I could care less that Milly the Yarn Spinner at millysworldofyarn.com is getting free samples of yarn to review on her blog.” [John Dvorak, PC Mag]
- “Judge Calls Frivolous Suits Against Attorneys a ‘Disturbing Trend’” [NYLJ; Staten Island, N.Y.]
- Sad news: Excellent online music service Pandora, unable to negotiate rights affordably, shuts down for customers outside the U.S. [Prefixmag, earlier]
- Joseph Stiglitz says the UN has a key role to play in “reforming the global financial and economic system”, which “is a bad idea. It is a very bad idea.” [Tyler Cowen]
- All assemble for trial: more installments in White Coat’s saga of his malpractice case [Emergency Physicians Monthly, parts seven and eight]
- Netherlands: site gets sued because of the way Google indexed it [TheNextWeb.com]
- Phone company faces grievance after disallowing workers’ metal facial jewelry as electricity-conducting risk [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
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From the Federalist Society, which is among the sponsors of the D.C. event tomorrow, along with the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and other groups:
Lawfare is the use of the law and legal institutions to achieve military, political or strategic objectives. In recent years, lawfare has come to include libel litigation aimed at suppressing public dialogue about radical Islam and terrorism. Parties with financial means have been filing lawsuits, in American courts and abroad, against people who speak out against or write critically about radical Islam. Defendants include authors, researchers, journalists, politicians, and human rights advocacy groups.
“Libel Tourism,” is a form of forum shopping, where plaintiffs bring actions against American citizens in foreign jurisdictions that lack the free speech protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution. As a result New York State has passed the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, and the U.S. government is considering the Free Speech Protection Act, both of which operate to nullify said foreign libel judgments.
Our conference will address these fundamental issues: What does freedom of speech truly mean? Is U.S. legislation prohibiting the enforcement of foreign libel judgments necessary? What should be the role of the European Union and the United Nations in addressing these issues?
Some further reading: Brooke Goldstein/Family Security Matters, Aaron Eitan Meyer/New Majority.
Canada’s speech-tribunal censorship, writ large? “A coalition of Islamic states is using the United Nations to enact international ‘anti-defamation’ rules”. Among entities to protected from such “defaming”: religions.
Susan Bunn Livingstone, a former U.S. State Department official who specialized in human rights issues and also spoke to the July 18 congressional gathering, said the developments at the UN are worrisome. “They are trying to internationalize the concept of blasphemy,” said Livingstone at the panel. She contrasted “the concept of injuring feelings versus what is actually happening on the ground — torture, imprisonment, abuse.” And, she added, “They are using this discourse of ‘defamation’ to carve out any attention we would bring to a country. Abstractions like states and ideologies and religions are seen as more important than individuals. This is a moral failure.”
The fact that the resolutions keep passing, and that UN officials now monitor countries’ compliance, could help the concept of “defamation of religions” become an international legal norm, said Livingstone, noting that when the International Court of Justice at The Hague decides what rises to the level of an “international customary law,” it looks not to unanimity among countries but to “general adherence.” “That’s why these UN resolutions are so troubling,” she said. “They’ve been passed for 10 years.”
(Luisa Ch. Savage, Maclean’s, Jul. 23, via Rick Sincere). More from the author at her Maclean’s blog, with hundreds of reader comments, and from Somin @ Volokh.
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