An intense lobbying campaign has been ongoing in the United States in support of legislation aimed at blocking the enforcement of UK libel judgments in the US. This has resulted in the passing of the Libel Terrorism Protection Act in New York state and a more measured Libel Tourism Bill by the House of Representatives.

As the legislation is now approaching consideration by the Senate and various state legislators, most recently California, we have to ask what has prompted probably the most successful lobbying campaign since that initiated by the tobacco industry several decades ago.

On initial consideration, the reason, or rather necessity, for this legislative intervention is certainly not clear. During the course of the 30 years I have practised as a media lawyer, I have never once had to seek enforcement of a UK libel judgment in the American courts, nor indeed has Khalid bin Mahfouz, the claimant who received a six-figure damages award against the author Rachel Ehrenfeld in the case that prompted this aggressive lobbying campaign in the first place. Indeed, those who gave supporting evidence at a recent Senate judiciary hearing were unable to cite even one example of attempted enforcement.

However, full credit has to be given to the tenacity, and indeed powerful political contacts, of Ehrenfeld, who has singlehandedly initiated a legislative process which appears to be not only totally unnecessary, but also represents a blatant attempt to undermine the laws of another country. So much for the ‘special relationship’ between the UK and US!

Apart from the fact that US legislators, in their expressions of disdain for our libel laws, have conveniently overlooked the fact that their common law originally emanated from English law, we have a situation here where the lobbyists are not even prepared to trust their own courts (Ehrenfeld’s initial applications to the New York state and federal courts were thrown out) to adjudicate on any enforcement applications. The irony is that any such application would have been fraught with difficulties in any event owing to the requirement that a US court will only enforce a judgment that would have been in accordance with US law.

By the time the lobbyists had directed their campaign towards Congress, they had garnered the full support and financial might of the US publishers’ associations. Now an even more draconian bill is in the offing. This bill threatens to penalise any American having the temerity to sue a US publisher in the UK courts with the possibility of a countersuit for triple the damages awarded and costs as a penalty, thereby delivering a deterrent, and another snub to UK courts.

Where is this all going to end? Will the lobbyists now seek to cherry-pick other laws that do not meet with their approval? How do US legislators distinguish between the acknowledged right of a US citizen to sue for damages for personal injuries suffered in a road traffic accident in the UK, as opposed to what is surely a similar right to sue for injury to reputation?

The main losers, so far as the libel tourism legislation is concerned, are US citizens whose reputations are undermined by the media in the UK and who, if they are deterred from taking legal action by this legislation, will be treated as fair game by the more unscrupulous sections of the press. In being singled out this way by their own legislators, any allegations, however outrageous, against US nationals will be assumed to be true as a result of their failure or inability to seek the protection of the law as would otherwise be their entitlement in our jurisdiction.

Further salt has been rubbed into a sore wound by the persistent refusal of the US press to publish the other side of the argument, as a counter to what has effectively been one-sided and somewhat self-interested propaganda. I am sadly of the view that I have a better chance of having a right of reply published in the Zimbabwe Herald!

In contrast, I believe that the UK broadsheets are among the most credible in the world, due in no small measure to the balanced reporting encouraged by our very effective libel laws.

Paul Tweed is senior partner at Johnsons Solicitors, which has offices in Belfast, Dublin and London