World Territory
Dependencies
AND
Territories
of
The World
Worldatlas
The modern political world includes (58) territories and/or dependencies. All of these are listed in alphabetical order with capital city and country of dependency reference.
Dependencies and Territories of the World
November 20, 2015
Mapping
Every Disputed Territory
In the World
RUSSIA vs. JAPAN
Some of the biggest geopolitical events in the world are centered around disputed territories, land whose sovereignty is claimed by more than one nation / occupying power.
The Kurils are a string of islands stretching from the north of Japan to the southern tip of Russia‘s Kamchatka Peninsula. Because of a ongoing dispute over the islands’ sovereignty, Japan and Russia still haven’t signed a peace treaty to end World War II.
Prior to WWII, the situation was clear.
Japan owned the four southern islands and the Soviet Union owned everything else. During the war, the Soviets invaded Japan, annexed the islands, and have controlled them ever since.
Russia’s claim: In the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which Japan signed in 1951, Japan agreed to give up all claims to the Kuril Islands, making Russia the rightful owner.
-
Japan’s claim: The Soviet Union never signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty, so Russia’s claims are void. Additionally, the Treaty does not specify which islands the Kuril Islands include. And Japan claims that some of the disputed islands are not actually part of the Kurils.
Related fact: The U.S.S.R. didn’t actually declare war on Japan until August of 1945, a month before the Japanese surrender, and after the U.S. had already dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Arunachal Pradesh is internationally recognized as a state of India, and it has been since its borders were agreed to in the 1914 Simla Accord.
China was among the countries in attendance, however it ultimately rejected the Accord. And to this day, China recognizes the region as South Tibet, part of its own territory.
I include this dispute not because the conflict itself is particularly novel, but because, as pointed out in this post from last year’s Knight-Mozilla-MIT hackday, it is an example of how the borders shown by Google Maps can differ depending on who’s looking at them.
China also requires that Google Maps apply a form of geographic encryption to its territory, causing everything in China to appear slightly offset from its true location.
This strange Chinese coordinate system, known as GCJ-02 (sometimes called”Mars coordinates”), even causes some geographic features to disappear entirely from the map. Case in point, note the disappearing river in the image below.
Because they have yet to settle their dispute over the Kuril Islands, Japan and Russia have not yet signed a WWII peace treaty, and are technically still at war
Mapping Every Disputed Territory in the World
Australia vs. Timor
Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the Australian embassy in Dili on Tuesday, accusing the Australian government of “illegally occupying” Timor Leste territory by refusing to renegotiate maritime boundaries over oil and gas reserves.
The two countries have been locked in dispute over the maritime boundary, which was agreed to in 1972 between Australia and Indonesia before Timorese independence, and which had an impact on how oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea were split in a 2006 treaty between Australia and Timor Leste.
There is now no permanent boundary agreement, and the protesters demanded on Tuesday that one be set at the median boundary between the two countries, in line with the usual practice in international law under the 1982 UN convention on the laws of the sea (UNCLOS).
Timor Leste is now engaged in maritime boundary negotiations with its other neighbour and former occupier, Indonesia.
The activist group Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (MKOTT) accused Australia of “illegally occupying Timor-Leste’s maritime territory” to take their resources.
“As a big and powerful country in this region, Australia shouldn’t be using its power to continue to steal our future from the Timor Sea,” the MKOTT coordinator Juvinal Dias said.
Australia illegally
occupying maritime territory of Timor-Leste, protesters say
Nagorno-Karabakh
Isn't Disputed Territory
It's Occupied
Kamal Makili-Aliyev
May 10, 2016
It's actually very simple. Contrary to the statements made in the mass media when it covers the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, this mountainous region of Azerbaijan is not disputed in any way; it is occupied. So says the international judicial body the European Court of Human Rights.
Despite the allegations of Armenia (that have in fact occupied sovereign territory of Azerbaijan) that the remaining ethnically Armenian population of the region has exercised the right to self-determination, it has been proven false again and again.
For once, Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh are not "people" in the sense of rights that are provided by a UN Charter.
Armenians have already exercised that right in Armenia, where they have an internationally recognized state.
Thus, making them a national minority on the territory of Azerbaijan and not "Nagorno-Karabakh people". Otherwise, Armenians would have a right to self-determination in U.S., Russia, France and other countries where they have large communities, creating a horde of small states. This is simply illogical.
No state, including Armenia, has recognized the separatist entity in Nagorno-Karabakh, nor has Armenia laid claim to it. So there is no dispute on the attribution of the region, and the European Court of Human Rights has actually incorporated these facts into international jurisprudence.
On June 16, 2015 Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights passed two judgments on the reciprocal cases Chiragov and Others v. Armenia and Sargsyan v. Azerbaijan. Both cases seemed to have very close and even balanced judgments and that Court intended not to stir political side of the dispute.
However, closer examination shows that this is far from reality and it was impossible for the Court to escape some very serious issues related to the status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Please Click To This Link:
Nagorno-Karabakh Isn't Disputed Territory
—It's Occupied
PACE
Called For
The withdrawal of Armenian armed forces
And other irregular armed forces
FROM
Nagorno-Karabakh
And the other occupied
territories
of
Azerbaijan
04 November 2015
In a draft resolution approved today, the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has called for “the withdrawal of Armenian armed forces and other irregular armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan, and the establishment of full sovereignty of Azerbaijan in these territories", in the framework of the OSCE Minsk process.
The committee also called for "the convening of a plenary meeting of the Minsk Group to establish an interim status for Nagorno-Karabakh guaranteeing security and internal self-governance, with an agreed corridor linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, and other confidence-building measures, including an access corridor to Nakhchivan".
Strongly condemning the deliberate targeting of civilian settlements close to the line of contact, the committee said it regretted that the Nagorno-Karabakh problem has been side-lined by other major international crises. "Further procrastination only complicates the settlement of this 'un-frozen' conflict which has claimed over a hundred human lives since the beginning of 2014, and which may escalate into a real war between two Council of Europe member States", it added.
Recalling that both Armenia and Azerbaijan committed themselves, when joining the Council of Europe in 2001, to use only peaceful means for settling their conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the committee urged both governments to refrain from using armed force.
The committee also called for the establishment by the OSCE of an international peacekeeping force to maintain security within Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories and to ensure the safe return and resettlement of displaced persons, as well as the creation of a mechanism to investigate ceasefire violations.
The draft resolution, based on a report by Robert Walter (United Kingdom, EC), is due to be debated by the Assembly at its January 2016 session.
Committee calls on Armenia to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh
Denis Rancourt
Boycotts
His Own Trial For Libel
Citing 'Kangaroo Court'
France: Strict defamation and privacy laws limit free expression. The Union of French Jewish Students threatened to bring the social media giant to court. [2]
Alabama Court Jails Blogger Who Exposes Corruption. An Alabama judge imposed a 90-day sentence this week on corruption-fighting Alabama blogger Roger Shuler. Authorities have jailed Shuler indefinitely for alleging a sex scandal involving a prominent attorney.[4]
Don Butler
Ottawa Citizen
May 16, 2014
Denis Rancourt is refusing to participate in a defamation trial in which he is accused of libelling Joanne St. Lewis, a University of Ottawa law professor, by suggesting in two postings on his blog in 2011 that she acted as a “house Negro”.[1]
Judge Michel Charbonneau advised the six-member jury Friday that Rancourt, who is representing himself, had let the know court that “he would not continue to participate in this trial. So we will continue the trial in his absence.” Charbonneau offered the jury no explanation of Rancourt’s reasons for withdrawing from the proceedings, which had started Thursday.[1]
But in an interview, Rancourt — a former physics professor who was fired by the University of Ottawa in 2009 — cited a “reasonable apprehension of bias” on Charbonneau’s part and the judge’s decision Thursday to disallow a key legal defence as reasons for his decision to boycott the trial.[1]
“This is the only option I have that does not legitimize something this egregious,” said Rancourt, who likened the trial to proceedings in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era.[1]
Before the trial began, Rancourt said he asked Charbonneau to recuse himself because he’s a University of Ottawa graduate and donates money to its scholarship funds, but the judge declined.[1]
On the trial’s first day, Rancourt was explaining to the jury that one of his three legal arguments would be an “abuse of process” defence when Richard Dearden, St. Lewis’s lawyer, raised objections. Dearden has also acted as counsel for the Citizen for many years.[1]
Though Rancourt cited a precedent for the abuse of process defence in Britain, Charbonneau told him it didn’t exist in Canadian courts and he could not raise it during the trial.[1]
“To strike out a pleading is a Draconian measure,” Rancourt said, adding that the judge’s ruling effectively gutted his defence strategy and created “a fake process where I’m gagged.[1]
“That, to me, is absurd. It’s insane,” he exclaimed. “It’s the opposite of what should happen in a fair process. I’m not going to participate in that kind of kangaroo court.” [1]
Rancourt acknowledged that his absence will put the jury in a “very difficult position” when it has to decide whether he defamed St. Lewis, who is claiming $1 million in damages. “This poor jury is not going to hear the whole story.” [1]
But he said he would not reconsider his decision to withdraw from the trial. Asked what he will do if the jury finds in St. Lewis’s favour, he replied: “I haven’t thought that far ahead.” [1]
Meanwhile, in Rancourt’s absence, St. Lewis testified Friday about her evaluation of a 2008 report by the university’s Student Appeal Centre (SAC) that found there was systemic racism in the processes the university uses to deal with alleged academic fraud by students.[1]
It was that evaluation, which found serious methodological problems with the report, along with emails later released under freedom of information laws, that prompted Rancourt to refer to St. Lewis as he did.[1]
Rancourt made the allegation even though Mireille Gervais, then SAC’s director, later wrote that St. Lewis’s recommendations — including that the university conduct an independent review to determine whether racism played any role in its academic fraud process — echoed those in the report. [1]
St. Lewis testified that she had no contact with university president Allan Rock while she was writing her evaluation. Nor did she read any of the emails between Rock and other university officials about the issue until she started her litigation against Rancourt in 2011, she said.[1]
In one email, Rock raised concerns about St. Lewis’s recommendation for an independent review. St. Lewis said that when she finally read the email years later, “it was news to me that he had that concern.” [1]
How Do You Prove Libel and Slander?
France:
Strict Defamation & Privacy Laws
LIMIT
Free Expression
By Index on Censorship
19 August 2013
France has some of the toughest hate speech laws in the EU. The number of legal actions for hate speech have multiplied after the 1881 Law on Press Freedom was amended to introduce the offence of inciting racial hatred, discrimination, violence, or contesting the existence of crimes against humanity, which has been very broadly interpreted as the right not to be offended or criticised. Some civil society groups have even managed to force the cancellation of public debates in order to prevent potentially libellous or racist remarks.* [2]
* Source: Loi n° 2004-228 du 15 mars 2004 encadrant, en application du principe de laïcité, le port de signes ou de tenues manifestant une appartenance religieuse dans les écoles, collèges et lycées publics [Law of 15 March 2004, forbidding signs and clothing showing religious affiliation such as headscarves, Jewish skullcaps and oversized Christian crosses in public primary, secondary and higher education]
Another challenge for media freedom in France has been state intervention to prevent the exposure of corruption. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, former President Nicolas Sarkozy used the security services to identify the sources of leaks around the 2010 Liliane Bettencourt affair. In addition to accessing the phone records of a Le Monde journalist, journalists from major newspapers were also investigated. Not only did the chief of intelligence violate the confidentiality of journalistic sources, but he questioned the journalist’s right to investigate public corruption.[2]
In October 2012, a French court ruled that Twitter should provide the identities of users who tweeted jokes deemed to be offensive to Muslims and Jews. This was after the Union of French Jewish Students threatened to bring the social media giant to court. During the course of the case, French Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira said that it is a punishable offence to make racist or anti-Semitic comments online. There is pressure to reframe the 1881 Law on Press Freedom, which many consider “no longer adapted to new technologies”.[2]
How to Handle a Cease-and-Desist:
Don't Freak Out!
- Ad Age Mini Law Lesson
Don't Freak Out!
- Ad Age Mini Law Lesson
A Libel Battle Over ‘Kangaroo Court’ Claim
By Times Online and agencies
July 5 2006
The Independent was today ordered by the High Court to pay a judge undisclosed damages over a claim that he had presided over a “kangaroo court”.[3]
Jack Bayliss, an Assistant Judge Advocate-General since 1996, brought libel proceedings against the newspaper over an article attacking the judge’s handling of the court martial of Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, who was sentenced to eight months in jail and dismissed from the Royal Air Force for refusing to serve in Iraq.[3]
Ethical Basis of the Law of Defamation
Yale Law School
Legal Scholarship Repository
Fowler V. Harper
1-1-1926
Ethical Basis of the Law of Defamation,
31 Dickinson Law Review 63 (1926)
That there is a wide discrepancy between the law and first class ethical principles is the general assumption of the lay public and the not infrequent admission of the legal profession. [5]
The layman speaks of one's actions as being "just within the law," and the inference therefrom is not ildisguised. It is meant to be anything but complimentary.[5]
It immediately suggests that the person indicated is unscrupulous and derelict in his duty, as measured
by the ethical canon of the speaker.[5]
It is, in fact, the frequent aspersion cast upon the law that the moral principles of our jurisprudence constitute no worthy pattern of conduct for the decent, self-respecting citizen.[5]
In short, the failure of the law to coincide with what is generally conceded to represent the highest moral doctrine of the time and place, is assumed to be the shortcoming of the law.[5]
High minded men pride themselves upon the breadth of the margin between their conduct and that upon which the law fixes its penalty, and he who is content to comply only with the letter of the law, incurs their righteous indignation and just censure.[5]
In treating the matter of defamation, the law was early brought face to face with a moral problem of great delicacy.[5]
The solution which has been worked out slowly and cautiously, while not infallible, may not compare unfavorably with the axioms of many who regard their own moral dogma with scrupulous exactness. [5]
Fundamentally, at least, the rights and duties which the law has provided to protect one's interest
in his reputation have not been inconsistent in theory with sound moral doctrine, albeit the method adopted
by the law to meet the situation may differ from the method of ethics.[5]
Certain defamatory words have been flatly prohibited by the law, being regarded as actionable per se. The specific kinds of remarks which constitute defamation per se may be largely due to historical accident, but the theory of such words seems sound enough. To falsely accuse one of crime has always been regarded as a wrong which the law would redress with proof of naught but the defamatory words.[6]
To accuse one of having a foul or contagious disease is actionable on its face, when false, for the reputation is so injured that ostracism from society is assumed to follow. Thus the court, in an early case, held that the publication of a doggeral accusing one of having the "itch" and "stinking of brimstone" was a libel, for, said the court, "nobody will eat, drink or have any intercourse with a person who has the itch and stinks of brimstone."[7]
So also it is actionable per se, for similar reasons, to employ language charging a want of chastity ( See*); language calculated to injure one in his business, trade or profession; and words tending to hold one up to disgrace and ridicule before his friends.[8] Thus, it is actionable per se to call one a thief ;[9] a murderer;[10]an embezzler ;[11] a perjurer ;[12]to say of one that he is affected of a foul and loathsome
disease;[13] to say of one that he is a fornicator ;[14] that a woman is a prostitute;[15] that a minister was drunk ;[16] that a merchant uses false weights ;[17] that a white man is a negro.[18]All these have been held actionable as being defamatory per se.[5]
* Source:Barnett vs. Ward, 36 Ohio St. 107 (1880). The rule was otherwise at an earlier stage of the common law. Roberts vs. Roberts. 5 B. & S. 384; 122 Eng. Rep. 874 (1864). See also Douglas vs. Douglas, 4 Idaho 193; 38 Pas. 934 (1895) . In all states where the particular acts charged are made punishable by the criminal law, the words charging the acts are defamatory per se,as imputing the crime. See Newell, Slander and Libel, 140 (th. ed.).[5]
I received a cease and desist letter
from my from my employee
should I respond? Am I obligated?
The theory in holding such language actionable without proof of utterance, is that it has actually injured the reputation. [5]
The law seeks only to redress actual wrong, but as the experience of mankind has warranted some insults
are regarded as so outrageous that the law assumes that they cannot fail to injure the reputation, so the defamed person will not be required to show how he hall been injured, which, in some instances, might conceivably be hard to do.[5]
On the other hand, words with less discourteous import have not been construed by the law to so shock the sense of decency that injury will be presumed to necessarily attend their utterence, and in this type of defamation, the injured party must show how and to what extent he has actually suffered, for the words are not actionable per se.[19]
This distinction is based upon the theory, sound enough it would seem, that the law is in no sense
a petty weapon which one may employ at his pleasure to retaliate for every provocation which he may suffer
in his dealings with others.[20]
If there be no actual damage to his reputation, he must stay out of court. Consequently to call one a "bluffer" has been adjudged not actionable per se.[21]
It is true that one may not feel distinctly flattered to be called a "bluffer," but the expression is not
so oprobrious that the law can assume that the reputation is materially injured thereby. Many men are notorious bluffers and enjoy enviable reputations in their community. Neither has it been adjudged as slanderous per se to say of one that he is a "bogus peddler;[22]or to accuse one engaged in an ordinary calling of being drunk ;[23] or to say of one that he has had consumption.[24]
No moral turpitude or degradation is hereby connoted to an extent justifying an assumption that the person has suffered an injury to his reputation, so proof of such an injury is required to warrant a recovery in damages. [5]
Just where the line is to be drawn is, in theory, partly a matter of policy and partly
one of accurate application of legal principles. The latter is in no sense a moral issue. Of the former we shall have more to say later.[5]
All this is, of course, perfectly well known law. [5]
distinction between words actionable per se and those requiring proof of special damages is significant here to indicate the real moral basis of the law with respect to defamation.[5]
Morally, perhaps, men should not say unkind things about their neighbors. [5]
Surely they should not say unkind things which operate to actually injure the reputation unless they are prepared to justify them.[5]
The law prohibits the latter, i. e. the actual injury to reputation.[5]
The advantages of undue litigation preclude the law from forbidding remarks of a mere discourteous import.[5]
The line must be drawn somewhere, so the law has flatly prohibited certain language, the effect of which may reasonably be expected to produce injury, by making them actionable on proof of utterence alone.[5]
Any other language must be shown to result in actual injury before the law will undertake to redress.[5]
In all cases, the effect of liability for defamation is to lend particular emphasis to that excellent
admonition of scriptural morality-judge not lest ye be judged.[5]
Of more ethical significance is the attitude of the law toward the immemorial practice of gossip-monging. To
report what someone else has said, for what it is worth, is often justified by the most circumspect gossipers, as a perfectly ethical pastime. More critical moralists, however, condemn it, as does the law. The law does not free from culpability him who but reports the defamatory language of another [25]
It has been invariably held that each repetition of a slanderous or libellous statement amounts to a fresh publication.[26]
By repeating it, one thereby makes the defamatory matter his own. Perfectly logical, of course, is this rule, for it must be remembered that in every case the law is redressing an injury to reputation.[5]
Surely the broadcasting by continued repetition of injurious language affects the reputation quite as much,
if not more than the original publication. [5]
rule is well fixed in this regard, so that ingenuity in the manufacture of defamatory rumor is no more culpable than perseverance in repeating it.[5]
The rule is undoubtetdly in accord with the highest ethical principles and its development has
been influenced by purely moral considerations.[5]
Of more significance, perhaps, than this clipping of the wings of gentle Fama, is the matter of truth as a defense in actions for defamation. Here a tremendous moral problem is presented, and the solution which has been worked out would seem to reflect singular credit to the law. Formerly the truth of the statements charged was regarded as a complete defense.[27]
As observed by a court in one of the older cases in this country, "no general principles of right
to damages can be founded in a publication of the truth, from the consideration that the reason for awarding damages fails.The right to compensation ... is founded upon deception and fraud to the detriment of the plaintiff. If the imputation is true, there is no deception or fraud and no right to compensation."
[28]
This may ignore the essential nature of the action, but the rule of law stated is in strict
conformity with common law doctrine. [29]
from my from my employee
should I respond? Am I obligated?
Perhaps the sounder basis was expressed by another court, opining that "unless the charge made by the defendant against the plaintiff was false as well as malicious, the plaintiff has no right to recover damages from him. [29]
The falsehood of the charge is a necessary element in the plaintiff's case. He cannot complain of anyone for speaking of him nothing but the truth."[29]
Defamation is untruth that damages a reputation. Libel – Written or pictorial defamation. Slander – Spoken or verbal defamation (need not be spoken in a public setting). To qualify as defamation, the statement must be untrue.[30]
To be actionable as libel,
Five elements must be present:
1. Defamation
2. Identification
3. Communication (publication or broadcast)
4. Fault (malice or negligence)
5. Damage (or injury)[30]
Truth is the traditional defense against libel, but truth is hard to prove.[30]
Reports of official proceedings are privileged and cannot be charged with libel.[30
Fair comment – The privilege that insulates a reporter or publication against defamation.[30]
Fair comment is a recognized defense against a libel action, based on the argument that the statement was either true or privileged (taken from a public document).[30]
Libel has four defenses:
1. Truth.
2. Privilege.
3. Fair Comment.
4. Retraction. [30]
New York Times vs. Sullivan
Court case that ruled that since a public figure puts himself or herself out before the public, actual
malice must be proven by a public figure.[30]
Right of Privacy
This law ensures an individual’s right to be left alone and can be violated if name, likeness and/or
information is used for commercial purposes.[30]
Different from defamation – The publication through media outlets need only injure the feelings
of the person, even though it may have no effect on his or her reputation.[30]
Right of Privacy
Four kinds of damages to privacy exist:
1. Appropriation
2. Intrusion
3. Public disclosure of embarrassing private facts
4. False light [30]
Criminal Libel
MEDIA LAW AND ETHICS IN MAURITIUS. KEEP LIBEL LAW OUT OF SCIENCE.Sense About Science launched the Keep Libel Laws out of Science campaign in June 2009, calling for reform of the libel laws to protect open scientific discussion. [33]
Preliminary Report
Geoffrey Robertson QC
Letter to Prime Minister
April 2013
I consider that the crime of libel (section 288) should be reformed, at least in respect of the media. It is impossibly wide – any imputation "prejudicial to honour, character or reputation" may be prosecuted even if it is true and even where the subject of the criticism is dead. [31]
It is not a defence for the media to prove truth, as it is for civil libel:the media defendant must in addition prove that the publication was for the public benefit - a requirement which would certainly infringe the free speech guarantee of the European Convention.[31]
In my view, section 288 (which might have some use outside a media context, eg. To protect against harassment by ‘poison pen’ letters or blackmail) should at least be amended so that it complies with free speech principles. In the latter case, it would only be used to prosecute those who deliberately publish
serious allegations they know to be false with intent to injure.[31]
It would be for the prosecution to prove that the statement was false, that it was published intentionally,
and with deliberate intention to injure another person.[31]
Ontario-Canada
Libel and Slander Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L.12 ,
Libel and Slander Act, R.S.O. 1990, Chapter L.12 [32]
Limitation of action
6. An action for a libel in a newspaper or in a broadcast shall be commenced within three months after the libel has come to the knowledge of the person defamed, but, where such an action is brought within that period, the action may include a claim for any other libel against the plaintiff by the defendant in the same newspaper or the same broadcasting station within a period of one year before the commencement of the action. R.S.O. 1990, c. L.12, s. 6.[32]
Publication of name of publisher, etc.
8. (1) No defendant in an action for a libel in a newspaper is entitled to the benefit of sections 5 and 6 unless the names of the proprietor and publisher and the address of publication are stated either at the head of the editorials or on the front page of the newspaper. R.S.O. 1990, c. L.12, s. 8 (1). [32]
Newspaper libel, plea in mitigation of damages
9. (1) In an action for a libel in a newspaper, the defendant may plead in mitigation of damages that the libel was inserted therein without actual malice and without gross negligence and that before the commencement of the action, or at the earliest opportunity afterwards, the defendant inserted in such newspaper a full apology for the libel or, if the newspaper in which the libel appeared is one ordinarily published at intervals exceeding one week, that the defendant offered to publish the apology in any newspaper to be selected by the plaintiff. R.S.O. 1990, c. L.12, s. 9 (1). [32]
Archbishop Retains Law Firm
for 'Cease and Desist' Letter to Accuser
for 'Cease and Desist' Letter to Accuser
Broadcast libel, plea in mitigation of damages
(2) In an action for a libel in a broadcast, the defendant may plead in mitigation of damages that the libel was broadcast without actual malice and without gross negligence and that before the commencement of the action, or at the earliest opportunity afterwards, the defendant broadcast a full apology for the libel. R.S.O. 1990, c. L.12, s. 9 (2).[32]
Evidence in mitigation of damages
10. In an action for a libel in a newspaper or in a broadcast, the defendant may prove in mitigation of damages that the plaintiff has already brought action for, or has recovered damages, or has received or agreed to receive compensation in respect of a libel or libels to the same purport or effect as that for which such action is brought. R.S.O. 1990, c. L.12, s. 10.[32]
Consolidation of different actions for same libel
11. (1) The court, upon an application by two or more defendants in any two or more actions for the same or substantially the same libel, or for a libel or libels the same or substantially the same in different newspapers or broadcasts, brought by the same person or persons, may make an order for the consolidation of such actions so that they will be tried together, and, after such order has been made and before the trial of such actions, the defendants in any new actions instituted by the same person or persons in respect of any such libel or libels are also entitled to be joined in the common action upon a joint application being made by such new defendants and the defendants in the actions already consolidated. R.S.O. 1990, c. L.12, s. 11 (1).[32]
The Perfect Cease And Desist Letter
Assessment of damages &
apportionment of damages and costs
(2) In a consolidated action under this section, the jury shall assess the whole amount of the damages, if any, in one sum, but a separate verdict shall be taken for or against each defendant in the same way as if the actions consolidated had been tried separately, and, if the jury finds a verdict against the defendant or defendants in more than one of the actions so consolidated, the jury shall apportion the amount of the damages between and against the last-mentioned defendants, and the judge at the trial, in the event of the plaintiff being awarded the costs of the action, shall thereupon make such order as he or she considers just for the apportionment of the costs between and against such defendants. R.S.O. 1990, c. L.12, s. 11 [32]
What To Do When You Receive a Cease
and Desist Letter - Dr. Adli
and Desist Letter - Dr. Adli
The Libel Reform Campaign
Is seeking to ensure that
Edinburgh does not become
A new haven
For Libel Tourism
We encourage scientists to enter public debates on science and we support open discussion about scientific research so when we became aware that our libel laws were chilling scientific discussion, we knew we had to act. We objected to several high profile cases brought against scientists and were inundated with correspondence from hundreds of scientific researchers, patient groups, writers and publishers around the world about libel threats being used to silence scientific debate.[33]
Following a four year, people powered campaign, the libel laws in England & Wales have been reformed. The Defamation Act 2013 received Royal Assent on 25th April 2013 and came into force on 1st January 2014.[34]
However, the Libel Reform Campaign continues. Very few of the new provisions have been extended to Scotland, and none in Northern Ireland. This has left British citizens in those nations with fewer free speech protections than their neighbours in England & Wales. Worse, since most publishers operate throughout the UK, the jurisdictions with unreformed law could to chill free speech everywhere in the United Kingdom, and the Defamation Act 2013 could be undermined.[34]
what to do if you
get a cease and desist letter
