Book Description

The law of group defamation is habitually confronted by objections on two fronts. First, in the tort of group defamation, the law requires that the member claiming injury is able to establish that the defamatory statement was "of and concerning" him personally, and thus that the prejudice was subjective and individualized by nature. Courts have traditionally refused to admit cause of action if the involved group was too large. The harm caused by such group-targeting expression is presumed to be somehow lessened by its generalized formulation, defaming the group as a whole as opposed to individual member(s). Therefore, it does not constitute sufficiently individualized harm to an identifying member of the group. Second, on a broader, constitutional level, group libel laws appear to contravene the very order of system of fundamental rights given the reverence freedom of expression commands in democratic societies. The present thesis argues otherwise. The study opines that the harm in group defamation that degrades fundamental characteristics such as race or ethnicity can indeed give rise to individual prejudice because it is a form of harm to identity. In doing so, the study first critically reexamines laws on (group) defamation, related relevant laws, and their constitutional treatment in the American and Canadian legal systems. The thesis offers a new way of reconceptualizing harm in group defamatory speech grounded on an identity-based framework.