A clearly inappropriate forum? Jurisdiction, internet defamation and the high court of Australia

Abstract

When the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in Dow Jones & Co Inc v Gutnick on 10 December 2002, it attracted international media coverage, a significant proportion of which was hostile. This level of interest, and the very fact of an appeal to the High Court, seems incongruous with the nature of the dispute: a routine, preliminary skirmish. What distinguished this interlocutory dispute and what led to the appeal all the way to the High Court was that the case raised squarely the issue of jurisdiction over internet defamation. The High Court’s judgment therefore has become the first decision of a court of final authority in the common law world to address the difficult question of jurisdiction over libel in cyberspace. What piqued the interest of the international media was that the High Court found in favour of Gutnick and against the media defendant, Dow Jones.