A Jurisdictional Tangle

A high-court ruling in Australia may make it possible to sue a publication for libel from halfway around the world. An Australian businessman sued the Dow Jones Company using the libel laws in his home state of Victoria, claiming that because he could access the Wall Street Journal website from Victoria, any libelous material on that website could be prosecuted under Victoria’s jurisdiction. The Dow Jones Company, based in the US, argued that the story in question was uploaded to the Internet in New Jersey and therefore should receive the protection of more liberal American libel laws. Dow Jones appealed a lower court’s ruling in favor of the man, but the higher Australian court reaffirmed the earlier ruling. If similar legal philosophy prevails in other courts, will national judicial boundaries become meaningless? – YaleGlobal