Elheru Aran wrote:Welf wrote:Coop D'etat wrote:[snip]
So to answer the OP. This isn't in the slightest like Saudi litigants applying US constitutional law to a Saudi case. Its an American court applying Israeli law to a case that took place in Israel but needs to be litigated in America for enforcement reasons.
[snip]
Huh. Explained that way this is a pretty boring case.
What about the implications though? If a country is enforcing their law in another country's jurisdiction? Say Israel wins the suit and Facebook has to censor itself; does that mean that other countries can use the same precedent to make Facebook self-censor in so many areas it becomes pointless as a free venue for public discourse?
Also, it's an Israeli case being tried under Israeli law in an American court? Or am I reading it wrong? Because I don't see why American law wouldn't apply in an American court, especially if the case is being tried by an American judge.
The rule is that a country's law applies for events which took place within its own jurisdiction (there can be exceptions to this, but its the general rule). This would be a case from a cause of action from events which took place in Israel, so Israeli law would apply. Rulings coming from a Israeli case can effect an entity in America, so they can ask an American court to rule on the matter for ease of enforcement. The American court is not obligated to take the case, but may elect to do so if they feel that they are an appropriate forum for the dispute purely at their own discretion. The trial then proceeds on the basis of applying the foreign law (known as the
lex causae) while the court will still use their own procedural rules to conduct the trial (known as the
lex fori). They may also decline to enforce foreign law even after hearing the case if they believe that it is too far away from local norms of justice to do so (this can be a fairly high bar, its not sufficient that the two legal systems come to different conclusions or handle matters differently, its for substaintial disagreements about what would be just).
The other method is to sue in the jurisdiction where the cause of action took place, get a judgment and then request that another jurisdiction enforce said judgment. This can end up being such an involved process that its easier to hold the first trial in that jurisdiction to ensure that said jurisdiction views the judgment as legitimate and thus would be more willing to enforce it, or it can just be easier from a procedural standpoint to do it that way.
For your specific questions, suits can be brought against Facebook in America from foreign jurisdictions to the extent they could be found to have violated the law in said jurisdiction. Notably, the state of said jurisdiction is not allowed to do so in such a matter because that would be considered a penal action and one of the rules states aren't allowed to enforce penal actions outside of their soveriegnty. Also, it would be a huge wrinkle to try to get an American court to enforce something that smacks of censorship as American courts tend view free speech in absolutist terms compared to other legal systems. From reading the cause of action in this case, there is ample reason to believe it would fail or get nowhere in New York Supreme Court, but the concept of asking said court to apply an Israeli civil cause of action under Israeli law isn't outrageous.
