The state of California yesterday banned libel tourism in an effort to resist the influence of British judges. Its governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law which will allow its courts to refuse to enforce libel judgments handed down in London. He acted following alarm in the U.S. that powerful individuals use British courts to silence criticism and prevent investigation of their activities around the world. California legislators said their courts must have power to block libel judgments from Britain which ‘has become a jurisdictional Mecca for the rich and famous’. And in a verdict deeply embarrassing for the British government, they said the libel tourism law must be passed to ‘pressure foreign jurisdictions like Britain to change its laws to place greater protections on free speech’. The California law means that courts in all the most important U.S. cities now have laws to shield Americans from damages and gagging writs ordered in the High Court in London. New York and the state of Illinois have already passed libel tourism legislation and other states, including Florida, are in the process. Mr Justice Eady has handled a majority of high-profile libel trials in Britain in recent years and has been accused of trying to use his powers to bring in a judge-made privacy law. America has constitutional protections of freedom of speech and libel laws that are much weaker than those in Britain and which are rarely used to restrain newspapers, writers and broadcasters. The California law gives its courts the right to refuse to enforce defamation judgements made abroad unless it is shown that the foreign court had the same or better freedom of speech protection than is given by the US constitution. The state’s Senate Rules Committee said the law would ‘limit the exposure to California writers and diminish the chilling impact of libel tourism on aggressive reporting about important international issues.’