Kyu Ho Youm · June 2008
76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1017 (2008)
In rejecting the right of reply as incompatible with the First Amendment, Justice Byron White of the U.S. Supreme Court stated in 1974: “We have learned, and continue to learn, from what we view as the unhappy experiences of other nations where government has been allowed to meddle in the internal editorial affairs of newspapers.” It is not entirely clear whether his deep concern about the right of reply’s impact on American print media was empirical or intuitive. In any event, Justice White’s absolutist assumption that U.S. newspapers should be free from what he considered government editing explains his and other Justices’ fears of what might happen when the government intrudes into actual or virtual high-walled newsrooms.
However, Justice White’s assertion that the right of reply would give rise to a meddlesome government dictating news editing was overly sweeping. In fact, the news media in most free-press democracies do not appear to be fettered by their governments, even though the right of reply has been part of such democracies’ press laws since it was first established in French law in 1822.
Over the years, however, access to the media in general, and the right of reply in particular, for individuals and the public has been in a state of retrenchment in the United States. Without a doubt, they are essentially moribund as First Amendment issues.
Further, the right of reply has been thriving in U.S.-influenced countries. Some countries recognize it as a constitutional right, while others treat it as a statutory regulation. South Korea, which the United States has helped evolve into a vibrant constitutional democracy, exemplifies the statutory right of reply in a nation with a vociferous press. In June 2006, the Korean Constitutional Court unanimously reaffirmed the right of reply. In addition, some nations with no constitutional or statutory right of reply have been trying to pass such laws.
In the context of the growing acceptance of the right of reply in international and foreign law, this Article is a modest attempt to review the right of reply abroad while risking the “nose-counting” sin. This Article examines three questions as its main focus: (1) How do international and regional law approach the right of reply vis- ` a-vis freedom of the press?; (2) How is the right of reply recognized in various countries with free-press systems?; and (3) What is the impact, whether actual or perceived, of the right of reply on freedom of the press?
In conclusion, this Article examines the overarching question: given the chasm between U.S. law and foreign and international law on the issue of the right of reply, should the United States remain increasingly anomalous as a “great free speech laborator[y] of experiment” of the world?
