Defamation, Libel Tourism and the SPEECH Act of 2010: The First ...

of the essential liberty of each individual. Like the other constitutive justifications, liberty is not so much a means to an end but is an end unto itself.⁴¹ The liberty theory holds the value of free speech to be intensely personal.⁴²

In trying to develop defamation law that respects rights to reputation, courts have also considered, to varying degrees, the expectations of both instrumental and constitutive free speech theories, though rarely in those terms. With the democratic traditions of America and England, it is not surprising that Alexander Meiklejohn’s democracy theory has found the broadest judicial recognition as a factor in the balance between the right to reputation and freedom of speech.