Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 15


     
     1        any longer, and it all gets turned into beef as well.  Just
     2        pause a moment.  What I want to know is what else you say
     3        it means, which might justify responsibility for starvation
     4        in the third world?  That is what you are about to tell me
     5        but I keep stopping you.  I want to spell it out first.
     6
     7        When we come to rainforest, it seems to me that you agree
     8        that the general sting is, guilty of destruction of the
     9        rainforest and you probably agree there by causing wanton
    10        damage to the environment as well.  Indeed, that section
    11        ends by a charge that if you bite into a Big Mac you are
    12        helping McDonald's empire to wreck the planet.  What
    13        McDonald's say, the specific charge in support of that
    14        general charge is that they are alleged to have used legal
    15        poisons to destroy vast areas of central American
    16        rainforest, grazing pastures, for cattle to be sent to the
    17        United States as burgers and pet foods and to provide fast
    18        food packaging.  So general charge, guilty of destruction
    19        of the rainforest; specific charges, using lethal poisons
    20        to destroy rainforest and do so to create pastures for the
    21        cattle and doing so in order to provide fast food
    22        packaging.
    23
    24        Again, what I want to know is, do you accept that that is
    25        the meaning?   If you do, what other, what extra defamatory
    26        meanings, are there?  You might say, 'Yes, we agree with
    27        the McDonald's meaning but it also makes this defamatory
    28        statement and that defamatory statement, and whether we can
    29        justify a defamatory statement about lethal poisons does
    30        not matter because we can justify these other defamatory
    31        statements -----'
    32
    33   MR MORRIS:  As well-----
    34
    35   MR JUSTICE BELL: "And per section 5, having justified those, it
    36        does not matter that we have alleged lethal poisons, we
    37        can't prove that, because that would not lower McDonald's
    38        reputation below the level it has got to once we have
    39        proved the facts which we have proved".
    40
    41        So what I want to have clear in my mind at some stage is,
    42        looking at the meaning of McDonald's pleaded, to what
    43        extent do you agree with that?   And having established
    44        that, to what extent you say, 'Whether or not we can
    45        justify the specific statements McDonald's have referred
    46        to, to what extent are there other specific defamatory
    47        statements which McDonald's have not bothered to put in, or
    48        have not chosen to put in, but which we can justify?  And
    49        either generally or by the route of section 5 of the
    50        Defamation Act, give us a good defence.' 
    51 
    52   MR. MORRIS:   Right.  Regarding the first point, the economics 
    53        point, even McDonald's in their own, what we would say
    54        greatly inaccurate set of meanings -- well, in some
    55        respects greatly inaccurate, for example, in meaning A
    56        -- recognise that, for example, the eviction of farmers
    57        has a causal relation to the investments which they say,
    58        whether McDonald's own investments or not is irrelevant,
    59        but the point being that they say that by purchasing large
    60        tracts of land, we would say cattle, in poor countries

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