International Media Law Committee

The International Law Committee addresses the issues that our members encounter when they publish and gather news abroad. It is the charge of this committee to keep our members and their counsel abreast of international developments, and to avail ourselves of any opportunities to be heard on issues that will affect member media organizations.

The committee holds regular web/telephone conferences on new legal developments throughout the world.  Recent calls have included discussion of the media law landscape in China; Internet freedom in Egypt; press freedom in Indonesia; and media law and privacy law developments in the UK and Europe.

MLRC, with input from the committee, has filed comments with UK Secretary of State for Justice, the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, and the House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee supporting libel law reform in the United Kingdom.  MLRC has also filed comments  with the European Commission on the proposed Rome II convention on jurisdiction and choice of law in international tort claims, and submitted an amicus curiae brief in a case involving jurisdiction over foreign publishers in Canada.

The International Law Committee also assists in organizing MLRC’s London Conference  on international legal developments that was first convened in 1998 and focuses on all forms of potential international liabilities for United States media organizations.  This committee also  sponsored a successful program with Ad IDEM, an organization of Canadian media lawyers very similar to our Defense Counsel Section, that focused on the fundamental differences between the two legal systems and potential for legal liability for media that reach audiences on both sides of the border.  The committee also helps organize the  international law sessions of the MLRC’s biennial  Media Law Conference in the U.S.,

We welcome the participation of anyone with interest in projects underway or with new ideas as to what we should be doing.

Committee Member List

To join this or any other committee, email us.