Eoin – Page 127 – cearta.ie

World Press Freedom Day is an appropriate day on which to consider the protection of journalists’ sources on the international plane. It is a protection that is embodied in many international instruments. For example, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has always had media freedom at the heart of its operations. Hence, in the Concluding Document of its 1986 Vienna meeting (pdf), principle 40 of the principles relating to Co-operation in Humanitarian and Other Fields commits the member states to

… ensure that, in pursuing this activity, journalists, including those representing media from other participating States, are free to seek access to and maintain contacts with public and private sources of information and that their need for professional confidentiality is respected.

Similarly, principle 3(d) of the Council of Europe Resolution on Journalistic Freedoms and Human Rights (adopted at the 4th European Ministerial Conference on Mass Media Policy, Prague, 7-8 December 1994) calls for

the protection of the confidentiality of the sources used by journalists.

…

World Press Freedom Day, 2009

3 May, 20094 May, 2009

| 1 Comment

| journalism, Media and Communications

Today is World Press Freedom Day. According to Koïchiro Matsuura, Director General of UNESCO [with added links]:

Every year, World Press Freedom Day provides an opportunity to affirm the importance of freedom of expression and press freedom – a fundamental human right enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On World Press Freedom Day 2009 UNESCO is highlighting the potential of the media to foster dialogue, mutual understanding and reconciliation …

The World Association of Newspapers has an excellent website for the day, on the theme of Journalists in the Firing Line:

As they investigate sensitive issues, unveil disturbing truths and question policies, journalists find themselves in the firing line of those directly or indirectly exposed by their reports. … On World Press Freedom Day, the World Association of Newspapers will present the story of many journalists whose work upsets and can sometimes undo the powerful. What do they report on, how and at what price? …

The position worldwide is disquieting. First Amendment Law Prof reproduces some sobering statisticss from the annual Freedom House report (pdf | html, from which the map of press freedom at the start of this paragraph is taken):

* 2009 marked the seventh straight year in declining press freedom worldwide;
* over 80% of the world’s inhabitants live in a country where the press is either “not free” or only “partly free” to operate;
* Israel, Italy and Hong Kong, fell to “partly free” because of increased threats to media independence and diversity;
* the U.S.

…

Ranking law journals

24 April, 20095 May, 2009

| 2 Comments

| Legal Education, Legal Journals and Law Reviews

The Australian Research Council has recently completed its consultation process to develop ranking tables for journals. Controversy led to the Humanities and Creative Arts list being unavailable for a time after publication, but it seems to be available now. The ranking is in four divisions: A*, A, B and C (and there is a nice explanation here). However unfortunate such a development may be, given the way in which university life is developing internationally, it is inevitable that such tables will be developed and will have an impact.

The law journals have been extracted from the humanities list by the ever-industrious Simon Fodden on Slaw. …

Where stands the Defamation Bill, 2006 on the Government’s legislative agenda?

23 April, 20096 May, 2009

| 2 Comments

| Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006

With all the coverage of Government ins and outs at Minister of State level, it was easy to miss yesterday’s announcement by Government Chief Whip Pat Carey of the Legislative Programme for the coming parliamentary session (Irish Times report | Government press release). According to the Dáil Éireann Order Paper for 22 April 2009 (pdf), this continues to include the long-delayed Defamation Bill, 2006. The Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, has recently stated his hope that the Bill would become law by the Summer, so its continuing inclusion on the Order Paper is to be welcomed. It is currently becalmed in the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women’s Rights. That committee completed its work on the Tribunals of Inquiry Bill, 2005 at its last sitting earlier this month, and is scheduled (pdf; see also here) to take up the Arbitration Bill, 2008 today. To stand any chance of enactment either side of the Summer, the Defamation Bill will have to be taken next. As to that, we shall have to wait and see.…

How to make Contract Law interesting?

22 April, 200921 April, 2009

| 1 Comment

| Cinema, television and theatre, Contract

This one, from Contracts Prof Blog, speaks for itself:

Relive your 1L Contracts class at home! With better looking people!

After what has seemed to most Contracts professors an unconscionably long time, the TV series The Paper Chase has finally come out on video. Technically, it's called "season one" although there was only one season on the original CBS program in 1978-79. Three additional seasons were run on Showtime starting in 1983, which allowed the protagonist, "Mr. Hart," to graduate Harvard in only four years.

On the Amazon web site (linked above) you can see a riveting clip dealing with (among other things) whether one who performs the service requested by a reward offer can recover if he was unaware of the reward. The growing tension among the students who offer different answers is . . . palpable.

It doesn't get any better than this.

[Frank Snyder; h/t Scott Burnham]

My previously declared interest is here.…

… or of the blogosphere?

22 April, 20096 August, 2009

| No Comments

| ECHR, Freedom of Expression, Journalists' sources

The First Amendment to the US Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; …”. Does that and similar declarations of press freedom extend to the blogosphere? The question is made more difficult in the context of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is a general protection of freedom of expression which contains no direct reference to the media at all, though the European Court of Human Rights has long extolled the “watchdog” role of the press as of especial value in Article 10 jurisprudence. The question is made more difficult still in the context of the Treaties establishing the European Union, where speech issues arise not as elements of a straightforward freedom of expression guarantee but in the context of the fundamental economic rights upon which the EU is founded, but even there the European Court of Justice has long acknowledged the importance of freedom of expression especially as regards the media. Over on contentandcarrier, Hans Peter Lehofer has spotted some interesting asides in recent judgments of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, signalling how those courts may be about to build on these developments and expand press freedom to non-traditional media, such as the blogosphere.…

Cowengate: no use crying over spilt milk

21 April, 20096 August, 2009

| 6 Comments

| Blogging, Censorship, ECHR, Freedom of Expression, Irish Society, Sedition

: Silvio Berlusconi and Mara Carfagna, though not by Filippo Panseca

Yesterday’s Times Online has a short piece which begins [with added links]

A scarf is the only thing protecting the modesty of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, in a painting of him and his Minister for Equal Opportunities, Mara Carfagna, 32, a former topless model, as angels. The work by Filippo Panseca is in a show at Savona on the Italian Riviera. Mr Panseca, 69, said that he wanted to pay tribute to the Prime Minister, 72, in the exhibition, which also includes a painting in similar style of Mr Berlusconi’s wife Veronica Lario.

The same story is also covered in The Independent, The Telegraph, and The Daily Mail. The inevitable comparisons with Cowengate were drawn by the Evening Herald, which adds that Panseca said that if

Berlusconi bought the paintings he would donate the money to the earthquake victims of Abruzzo. Mr Berlusconi has yet to comment. But he seems unlikely to buy the pictures: last year, he censored a bare nipple in a copy of a renaissance painting hung in the government press room.

More seriously, though, it seems that 144 people complained to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission about RTÉ’s coverage, 9 about the original report, and 135 about the apology; and Suzy has posted a copy of RTÉs response to the BCC regarding those complaints.…

Google, Amazon, Citron

21 April, 200917 April, 2016

| 2 Comments

| Cyberlaw

If you liked my posts about the gatekeeper responsibilities of search engines, then you’ll have loved last week’s furore over Amazon’s decision to disable search and sales ranking for “adult” material. I followed the controversy via John Naughton’s Memex 1.1 blog, here, here and here (pointing to his column in last weekend’s Observer). It has long been a source of worry that private actors such as Google and Amazon should retain so much personal data as to raise significant privacy concerns. More recently, the range of worry has broadened, with the realisation that such companies can not only manipulate their databases to target advertising at their users, but they can also manipulate them to prevent the users having access to data. Lawyers notoriously understand very little about internet reserach, and so have great difficulty in addressing the kinds of legal and regulatory issues that such manipulation reveal. I have recently blogged about articles by Oren Bracha and Frank Pasquale and by Emily B Laidlaw, arguing that actors such as Amazon and Google should come under common law duties analagous to those that govern public utilities.

More generally, over on Concurring Opinions, a rolling symposium, starting here, is considering Danielle Citron‘s seminal article “Cyber Civil Rights” 89 Boston University Law Review 61 (2009).…

cearta.ie

Author: Eoin

International instruments on the protection of journalists’ sources

World Press Freedom Day, 2009

Ranking law journals

Where stands the Defamation Bill, 2006 on the Government’s legislative agenda?

How to make Contract Law interesting?

Relive your 1L Contracts class at home! With better looking people!

… or of the blogosphere?

Cowengate: no use crying over spilt milk

Google, Amazon, Citron