Speaker Bio: Andrew Scott

Andrew Scott

“THEATRE OF THE ABSURD?: DEFAMATION AND FREE SPEECH IN THE US AND UK”

Friday, April 7, 2023
11 am – 12:30 pm

Johnny Depp, Sarah Palin and footballers’ wives and girlfriends: are we (all) getting it wrong on defamation?

The US is often understood as the ‘home of free speech’, a conception undergirded – in the defamation context – by the seminal decision in New York Times v Sullivan. In contrast, the ‘chilling effect’ of defamation has been a pronounced feature of the British public sphere, to the point where the federal SPEECH Act of 2010 was legislated to prevent the enforcement of foreign – read ‘English’ – defamation judgments.

Yet, while initiatives to address the perceived problems of English law continue, there is increasing political pressure in the US for the Supreme Court to renege on Sullivan so as better to respect the individual and public interests in reputation.

This talk charts these converse moves in the two jurisdictions, but also seeks to pose a deeper question: whether the courtroom is really a suitable forum for the resolution of public sphere disputes?

Speaker Bio

Andrew Scott is a law professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He teaches courses on freedom of speech, constitutional law, and media law, while his research is focused on the constitution of the public sphere. He is an author of the leading English law texts on defamation and on newsgathering, and has advised Governments and legislators in several jurisdictions on freedom of speech and the reform of defamation law.