Torts Today: Parsing the New Internet Rules of China’s Supreme Court | China Copyright and Media

Torts Today: Parsing the New Internet Rules of China’s Supreme Court | China Copyright and Media: Rogier Creemers, Oxford Comparative Media Law scholar,  reports on the new regulations on online torts issued by China's Supreme People's Court. He has translated the Regulations and given us commentary.  - gwc

"Yesterday, the Supreme People’s Court issued a document with the – predictably convoluted – title “Supreme People’s Court Regulations concerning Some Questions of Applicable Law in Handing Civil Dispute Cases involving the Use of Information Networks to Harm Personal Rights and Interests”. This document provides instructions to People’s Courts on certain aspect of dealing with civil cases involving harm to personality rights, including the right to privacy, portrait rights and reputational rights. (Full disclosure, I was involved in an academic project that provided input into the drafting process).

It has been drafted to supplement the broad language of Article 36 of the Tort Liability Law, which sets forth a basis of liability for the online infringement of citizens’ rights, and provides for basic remedial measures. The Article’s wording left many questions of procedure and substance unanswered, meaning that courts (which in China’s civil law-based system have considerably less leeway to interpret the law, and do not create binding precedents) often faced considerable difficulties in handling these cases.".....

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