The New York state has recently introduced the starkly named Libel Terrorism Prevention Act which, according to Geoffrey Wheatcroft, is intended to protect writers and publishers who neither live, work nor publish in the UK from falling foul of Britain’s ridiculously repressive libel laws.

In recent decades, “libel tourism” has become a lucrative trade for London lawyers. Foreign celebrities turn up to sue British papers or US magazines with insignificant British circulations. The late Telly Savalas was one of the first, winning an action here that he couldn’t even have begun in the US. Roman Polanski was allowed to give evidence from France to London by video link when he sued Vanity Fair, a New York magazine. Since he’s wanted in California, he couldn’t set foot in London for fear of being extradited.

But what has brought this to a head are several even more grotesque cases. The powerful Saudi businessman Sheikh Kalid bin Mahfouz sued over a book by two Americans which alleged he was associated with the funding of Islamic militants: hence the lurid name of the New York law. Only a few copies were sold in the UK, but damages were paid and the remaining copies were pulped.

Our libel law has always been heavily weighted in favour of the plaintiff. Unlike the defendant in a criminal case or other civil suits - or in a US libel action - he is assumed to be in the wrong, and must prove that “the words complained of” are true. Under “no win, no fee”, the plaintiff is gambling someone else’s money, while the defendant is on a hiding to nothing. “True as to fact or fair as to comment” are the classic defences, but fair comment is subjective, and any attempt to justify or prove truth can be held to aggravate the gravity of the libel. And a defendant is at the mercy of the caprice of juries and the malice of judges.

Libel tourism is an embarrassment and one that exerts a chilling effect on freedom of speech in general and investigative journalism in particular. Wheatcroft is calling for a scrapping of the existing law and a completely new libel act.

This would provide a statutory defence of public interest. It would remove the burden of proof from the defendant. It would end the nonsense of a person from one foreign country suing in London a person from another over something published in a third country. And better still, it would assimilate libel to slander, where the plaintiff must show actual material damage suffered.

Such a change is long overdue.

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