"Libel tourism" describes the act of bringing a defamation suit in a country with plaintiff-friendly libel laws, even though the parties might have had relatively few contacts with the chosen jurisdiction prior to the suit. Libel tourism, like "forum shopping," may be negatively associated with plaintiffs who attempt to strategically manipulate legal processes to enhance the likelihood of a favorable outcome. However, a "libel tourist" could also be described as a plaintiff seeking favorable law under which to obtain redress for a grievance which he perceives as legitimate. Regardless of the characterization, given the increasingly globalized market for publications, some have warned that the libel tourism trend will cause an international lowest common denominator effect for speech, whereby "every writer around the globe [will be subjected] to the restrictions of the most pro-plaintiff libel standards available." The practice has affected U.S. persons in several suits brought by litigants who wish to avoid the relatively high burden of proof necessary to win defamation claims in the United States. U.S. courts interpret the First Amendment to protect speech that would be considered defamatory under traditional common law and in many other countries. For that reason, U.S. authors and publishers have been especially vulnerable to the possibility that a foreign libel judgment will impose penalties for speech that is protected in the author's home country. Although a committee of the English House of Commons has recommended reforms, England has a long history of providing redress for reputational injuries. Modern English law appeals to potential libel tourists primarily because it offers a dual advantage to plaintiffs: plaintiff-friendly libel laws and a relatively low bar for personal jurisdiction in libel suits. As a result, although England is not the only country with plaintiff-friendly libel laws, English courts have been an especially popular venue for defamation suits against U.S. nationals. Because obtaining a judgment and actually receiving the money awarded constitute two separate components of a successful lawsuit, winning a judgment in a foreign court does not end the discussion. If a defendant chooses not to appear in a foreign court, the court will typically award a default judgment against the defendant. In such circumstances, plaintiffs in foreign libel suits might involve U.S. courts when they seek to enforce judgments against U.S. defendants because foreign courts typically lack jurisdiction over assets located in the United States. Thus, the U.S. response to libel tourism has focused primarily on subsequent actions to recognize or enforce foreign court judgments in U.S. courts. For example, the first federal law on point, the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act (SPEECH Act), bars U.S. courts, both state and federal, from recognizing or enforcing a foreign judgment for defamation unless certain requirements, including consistency with the U.S. Constitution and section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. § 230), are satisfied. U.S. and English defamation laws derive from a common origin, but the latter have evolved into a comparatively plaintiff-friendly approach to defamation that has made England a common destination for libel tourists. Traditionally, at common law, defamation liability under both U.S. and English law was strict, meaning that a defendant did not have to be aware of the false or defamatory nature of the statement, or even be negligent in failing to ascertain that character. Instead, a plaintiff had to prove only that a statement (1) was defamatory; (2) referred to the claimant; and (3) was communicated to a third party. However, this common law liability evolved differently under U.S. and English jurisprudence. Today, the differences between the U.S. and English defamation law is primarily attributable to the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Today, U.S. defamation law places the burden of proof on plaintiffs, making it more difficult for them to win. The U.S. Supreme Court first established a federal constitutional privilege in defamation law in New York Times v. Sullivan , a landmark First Amendment case. The Court held that a public official is prohibited from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he or she can prove with "convincing clarity" that the statement in question was made with "actual malice," defined by the Court as "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." The Court derived this constitutional restriction from the text of the First Amendment, which prohibits any law "abridging freedom of speech or of the press," and which has been applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court further stated, "It would give public servants an unjustified preference over the public they serve, if critics of official conduct did not have a fair equivalent of the immunity granted to the officials themselves." The Court subsequently extended this constitutional protection to all "public figures." A second U.S. Supreme Court case, Gertz v. Robert Welch , marked another shift in U.S. defamation law away from the common law approach used by England. In that case, which addressed a defamation suit brought by a non-public figure, the Supreme Court rejected the English law of strict liability, holding that even a private plaintiff is required to show fault amounting to the defendant's negligence or higher to recover damages. Accordingly, a plaintiff in a U.S. court must prove (1) a false and defamatory communication that concerns another and is (2) an unprivileged publication to a third party; (3) fault that is at least negligence by the publisher; and (4) in certain instances, special damages. English courts, on the other hand, have not modified the traditional common law elements that a public official must prove to recover for defamation. Instead, they allow a defendant to invoke, as a defense, a qualified or conditional privilege, known as the Reynolds privilege. The Reynolds privilege is a relatively new defense, often referred to as "the test of responsible journalism." In the case of Reynolds v. Times , the court considered that statements in the newspaper, which related to the conduct of individuals in public life, should be covered by a qualified privilege. Thus, while Members of Parliament or other public officials need only prove the traditional common law elements of defamation, they may be barred from recovery if the defendants are members of the media who can show that the publication in question falls under the Reynolds privilege. The Reynolds privilege, however, has limited application. First, it does not appear to be available to authors or others who publish outside the realm of journalism, and, second, the judge decides whether the statement at issue was privileged (i.e., in the public interest), a decision that determines whether the Privilege will apply to the defendant. Defendants in libel tourism suits brought in England have typically not been able to invoke the Reynolds privilege because they either do not qualify as media or the judge has not deemed their statements privileged. In reporting the SPEECH Act out of committee in 2009, the House Committee on the Judiciary noted that British libel law has become more protective of free speech after the House of Lords issued a decision expanding the scope of Britain's Reynolds privilege. However, this may have little effect on the majority of libel cases brought against U.S. persons in Britain. Nevertheless, the U.S. response to libel tourism may motivate a re-examination of English libel law, and, indeed, some proposals to reform libel laws in England have already garnered attention. Among the changes that have been recommended are shifting the burden of proof in some cases and creating a one-year statute of limitations for libel cases arising from Internet speech, however future changes cannot be predicted. A prominent example of libel tourism is the suit brought by a Saudi billionaire, Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz, against a New York author, Rachel Ehrenfeld, whose book documented his alleged role in financing terrorism. Although the book was published in the United States, an English judge allowed the case to proceed in England because 23 copies of the book were sold through the Internet to English residents. Ehrenfeld did not defend herself in the litigation, and the English court ultimately entered a default judgment against her, awarding more than $200,000 in damages and ordering her to destroy copies of the book and apologize. In subsequent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Ehrenfeld expressed a concern that libel tourism was "limiting [scholars'] ability to write freely about important matters of public policy vital to our national security." This prompted concerns among lawmakers about the possible negative impact of libel tourism on the fight against terrorism. Other cases have involved U.S. plaintiffs suing U.S. defendants. An English court dismissed at least one such case on forum non conveniens grounds (i.e., because England was an inappropriate forum for litigation given the parties' circumstances) despite finding that it had the requisite ground for jurisdiction. On some occasions, however, English courts allowed the suits to proceed in England as long as a book or other publication had at least some exposure there. These suits against U.S. defendants in foreign courts prompted many lawmakers and editorial boards to characterize the libel tourism phenomenon as a threat to the U.S. Constitution's strong free-speech protections. A key concern was that foreign libel suits would have a "chilling effect" on speech because the possibility of civil or criminal liability for expression would deter or stifle speech that is protected within the United States. In turn, without a strong national law in the area, the possibility of foreign libel suits could inhibit the exchange of ideas vital to a functioning democracy. Except where preempted by federal law, state law governs the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in U.S. courts.