Is it true in any first world countries? As far as I am aware publishing anything that is true is always fair game. The very definition of libel (and slander) is that something untrue has been published or said. I’m not aware of a first world/non-dictatorship that treats either libel or slander as a crime or where “it’s true” is not a defense [in a civil case].
While truth is still a defense, in the UK the burden of proof is on the defendant; this means that if you are accused of libel or slander in the UK, you have to prove that what you said is true in order to defend yourself. This can be very difficult; for example, how would your PROVE a hotel clerk said certain things to you?
In the US, the burden of proof is on the person suing for libel; they have to prove that what was said is false.
So in the UK, yes truth is a defense... but you can still be telling the truth and unable to prove it, which makes it not much help.
I’ll note that the UK has notoriously terrible defamation laws. They’re so bad that Congress passed a law to make defamation rulings from the UK unenforceable in America, just to stop the libel tourism.
There are two clearly distinct legal traditions: the common law in the anglo countries and civil law in the rest. Also USA and UK seem to have very different and each of them unique treatment in this matter.
So it's not a question of first world countries vs the rest. It's more of a USA vs UK vs the rest of democratic countries, not sure where other Commonwealth countries fall.
Edit: I feel I wasn't clear. Civil law countries mostly adhere to ancient legal doctrine, some coming from Roman Empire, some from middle ages tradition, some from Bonaparte, some from German theoreticians. This corpus is pretty consistent, grown through statutes, while common law tend to develop idiosyncratic variants following practice in every country.
The UK and USA both have common law systems, where judges have the freedom to establish precedence in regards to matters of law. I believe most of continental Europe operates on civil law systems where judges have much less room for interpretation.
On the matter of defamation the US is quite different from everywhere else though, because of the 1st amendment, and the 'actual malice' standards applied to 'public figures' in defamation cases. The confounding factors in the EU are the privacy clauses in the European Convention on Human Rights, so you see cases that would be related to defamation elsewhere being litigated on privacy in the EU.
That's a great visualization! Not only it represents a lot of information, but it shows the nuances, like the huge influence of Napoleon or the Germans.
A major difference is if defamation is considered a civil or criminal matter. In some countries such as Thailand, a defamation claim is a criminal matter, which can get you arrested, jailed etc., before going in front of a judge. It can and is used as a weapon, often in politics. In some other countries, a defamation claim first needs to be judged valid before arrest.
It's generally true in most countries, since libel laws extend to keeping private matters private since many things can damage a person's reputation even if they are true. For example, a British Lord's Nazi fetish.
In the US, the publication of private matters is a separate tort, invasion of privacy. For IOP, truth is not a defense.
Or another way of looking at it: libel is a narrower tort in the US than it is in the rest of the world.
Truth is an absolute defense to libel in the UK. And pretty much everywhere else in Europe, AFAIK.
Some European countries do have quite strict privacy laws, so a newspaper which obtained the material in a questionable way might have to be cautious (see the News International hacking scandal, for instance).
What case was this? Are you sure you're not talking about the Max Mosley (the former racing driver/FIA boss) case against News Group? Because that was a breach of privacy case, not a defamation one.
No, the other case happened around the same time or earlier but involved a member of the House of Lords with a fetish for Nazi-themed swingers' orgies.
It was a huge deal for a few weeks, and then it disappeared. I only remember it because my Torts professor brought it up in class during the defamation lecture as an example of the differences between US and UK defamation law.
Courts are not built to determine the truth, though, they're built to come to a verdict. In practice there are many countries that restrict the speech against the rich, including here in the US (ie the whole Peter Thiel/gawker debacle). I don't want to misstate the case, though, you are clearly much safer from these laws here in the US than in other ex british colonies.
Also, what does the cold war alignment have to do with this?
Ahh, so i take it russia, Brazil, and China are all first world countries now?
Economically, american citizens have much lower access to basic social services and we let people die on the street with vacant housing in the neighborhood. Does that make us second world or third world?
Australian defamation laws are horrendously bad, it needs to be in "public interest", doesn't matter in the slightest if it's the truth. Say a fact in public, and then you go bankrupt in court arguing over the semantics of whether it's in "public interest" for it to be said.
At least local journalists are waking up to how bad it is with the wealthy suddenly throwing their weight around and taking every paper in the nation to court over a few words.
A terrible import from the UK. Despite all the nastiness and bad words, protected free speech is what the US really did get right.
All laws can be used in a multitude of unintended ways, something lawmakers never really consider.
Actually, just because a crime is not a valid defence in my country. One must prove it satisfy the public welfare and truth.
Suppose you know a person who committed a crime and be punished years ago and there is no immediate threat of doing it again, revealing that fact is a defamation, unless a person is a public figure like the politician and revealing the fact is important for public welfare.
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That's common in many countries. "It's true" is only a valid defense if you're accusing someone of a crime.