Class 1, January 18, 2011
Overview/Legal Concepts: What is media law and how is it defined in today’s global environment? What are the major legal issues concerning journalists in Hong Kong and elsewhere? Why do they need to be concerned about legal concepts such as the Basic Law, common law, rule of law and human rights and what should they know about the world’s legal systems?

Readings:
Primary:

• Overview ( Chapter 1) and Legal Systems (Chapter 2) Hong Kong Media Law
• Preface (Understanding Media Law in the Global Context), International Libel & Privacy Handbook
• Weisenhaus, Communication_Law_and Policy:_Asia, in Wolfgang Donsbach (ed), The International Encyclopedia of Communication (Oxford, UK and Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell /International Communication Association), pp. 723-728
• Winfield, “Globalization Comes to Media Law,” Journal of International Media and Entertainment Law (Summer 2006)

Class 2, Jan. 25, 2011

Freedom of Expression: How is freedom of expression protected in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the world? How does freedom of expression fit into laws protecting other rights and into the larger human rights context? What impact would laws and regulations dealing with national security, global terrorism, media ownership, the Internet and other areas have on freedom of expression?

Speaker: Danny Gittings, Programme Director in Law, HKU SPACE College of Humanities and Law.
Readings:

–Chan, “Freedom of the Press: The First Ten Years in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,” Asia Pacific Law Review, 2007

–Freedom of Expression (Chapter 1) excerpts, Robertson & Nicol on Media Law

–Gittings, “Hong Kong’s courts are learning to live with China,” Hong Kong Journal, Fall 2010

UN pushes for global blasphemy law, New York Times, 10 Nov. 2010

“Twitter jokes: Free speech on trial,” The Guardian, 12 November 2010

“Twitter tirades test limits of freedom of speech,” Associated Press, 23 November 2010

The European court of human rights unanimously ruled that the recovery of success fees by lawyers in privacy and defamation cases represents a significant violation of freedom of expression, in a case brought by the publisher of the Daily Mirror.  18 Jan 2011, The Guardian.  See story here.

Mackinnon, “Internet Freedom in the Age of Assange,” Foreign Policy, 17 February 2011.

Supplementary

–Freedom of the Press, 2010 Annual Report, Freedom House

–Stephens, “Freedom of Expression: The Global Challenge” speech given at the launch of International Media Lawyers Association, London, 2005.

–Hong Kong Journalist Association 2010 Annual Report, “The Vice Tightens: Pressure Grows on Freedom of Expression in Hong Kong”

–Hong Kong Journalist Association 2011 Annual Report, “Two Systems Compromised: Free Expression Under Threat in Hong Kong.”

–”Britain’s Press Scandal,” The New York Times, 12 July 2011