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''McDonald's Corporation v Steel & Morris'' () EWHC QB 366, known as "the McLibel case", was an English lawsuit for libel filed by McDonald's Corporation against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris (often referred to as "The McLibel Two") over a pamphlet critical of the company. Each of two hearings in English courts found some of the leaflet's contested claims to be libellous and others to be true. The partial nature of the victory, the David-and-Goliath nature of the case, and the drawn-out litigation embarrassed McDonald's. The original case lasted ten years, making it the longest-running case in English history.〔 〕 McDonald's announced that it did not plan to collect the £40,000 that it was awarded by the courts. Following the decision, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in ''Steel & Morris v United Kingdom'' that the pair had been denied a fair trial, in breach of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to a fair trial) and that their conduct should have been protected by Article 10 of the Convention, which protects the right to freedom of expression. The court awarded a judgment of £57,000 against the UK government.〔Press release issued by the Registrar. "(Chamber Judgment Steel and Morris v. The United Kingdom )" The European Court of Human Rights, 15 February 2005. Received 1 September 2008.〕 McDonald's itself was not involved in, or a party to, this action, as applications to the ECHR are independent cases filed against the relevant state. This judgement, given on 15 February 2005, represented the end of the pair's 20-year battle with McDonald's. A feature-length documentary film, ''McLibel'', was made about the case by Franny Armstrong and Ken Loach. In 2013 ''The Guardian'' newspaper reported that one of the authors of the "McLibel leaflet" was Bob Lambert, an undercover police officer who used the alias Bob Robinson in his five years infiltrating London Greenpeace. ==Facts== Beginning in 1986, "London Greenpeace", a small environmental campaigning group (not to be confused with the larger Greenpeace International organisation, which they declined to join as they saw it being too "centralised and mainstream for their tastes"),〔pg 388 of ''No Logo''〕 distributed a pamphlet entitled ''What’s wrong with McDonald’s: Everything they don’t want you to know''. This publication made a number of allegations against McDonald's. The leading allegations were that McDonald's: * is complicit in Third World starvation * buys from greedy rulers and elites and practices economic imperialism * wastes vast quantities of grain and water * destroys rainforests with poisons and colonial invasions * sells unhealthy, addictive fast food * alters its food with artificial chemistry * exploits children with its advertising * is responsible for torture and murder of animals * poisons customers with contaminated meat * exploits its workers and bans unions * hides its malfeasance.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 What's wrong with McDonald's? )〕 It was later noted that the reach of the campaign was tiny compared with the level of ensuing controversy.〔"London Greenpeace's campaign was winding down, and only a few hundred copies of the contentious leaflet had ever been distributed." pg 391 of ''No Logo''〕 In 1990, McDonald's brought libel proceedings against five London Greenpeace supporters, Paul Gravett, Andrew Clarke and Jonathan O'Farrell, as well as Steel and Morris, for distributing the pamphlet on the streets of London. This case followed past instances in which McDonald's threatened to sue more than fifty organisations for libel, including Channel 4 television and several major publications. In all such cases, the media outlets settled, and offered apologies for the alleged libel.〔"Over the past 15 years, McDonald's has threatened legal action against more than 90 organisations in the U.K., including the BBC, Channel 4, the ''Guardian'', ''The Sun'', the Scottish TUC, the New Leaf Shop, student newspapers, and a children's theatre group. Even Prince Philip received a stiff letter. All of them backed down and many formally apologised in court." from "Why Won't British TV Show a Film about McLibel?", Franny Armstrong, 19 June 1998, ''The Guardian''; as quoted in ''No Logo''.〕 Under English law, the burden of proving (on balance of probability) the literal truth of every disparaging statement is on the defendant. This can be an expensive and time-consuming process. Three of the charged individuals (Gravett, Clarke and O'Farrell) chose to apologise as requested by McDonald's. Steel and Morris, however, chose to defend the case.〔Skau, S. (2013) McLibel. followthethings.com (www.followthethings.com/mclibel.shtml) Accessed 16 June 2014.〕 The two were denied Legal Aid, as was policy for libel cases, despite having very limited income.〔"For 313 days in court - the longest trial in English history - an unemployed postal worker (Morris) and a community gardener (Steel) went to war with chief executives from the largest food empire in the world." pg 389 of ''No Logo''〕 Thus, they had to represent themselves, though they received significant pro bono assistance. Steel and Morris called 180 witnesses, seeking to prove their assertions about food poisoning, unpaid overtime, misleading claims about how much McDonald's recycled, and "corporate spies sent to infiltrate the ranks of London Greenpeace".〔pg 389 of ''No Logo''〕 McDonald's spent several million pounds, while Steel and Morris spent £30,000; this disparity in funds meant Steel and Morris were not able to call all the witnesses they wanted, especially witnesses from South America who were intended to support their claims about McDonald's activities in that continent's rainforests.〔McLibel film, 1998〕 In its libel allegation, McDonald's asserted that all claims in the pamphlet were false.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Statement of Claim )〕 They found it difficult to support this position despite the indirectness of some of the claims. The case eventually became a media circus. McDonald's executives, including Ray Cesca, took the stand to be questioned by the defendants. In June 1995, McDonald's offered to settle the case (which "was coming up to its () anniversary in court"〔pg 387 of ''No Logo'', 1st ed.〕) by donating a large sum of money to a charity chosen by the two. They further specified that they would drop the case if Steel and Morris agreed to "stop criticising McDonald's".〔 Steel and Morris secretly recorded the meeting, in which McDonald's said the pair could criticise McDonald's privately to friends but must cease talking to the media or distributing leaflets. Steel and Morris wrote a letter in response saying they would agree to the terms if McDonald's ceased advertising its products and instead only recommended the restaurant privately to friends.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「McLibel case」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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