Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 54


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Turning it round, if the meaning were as
     2        I have suggested it might be, all that does is bring in the
     3        possibility, which you would argue against anyway, that
     4        even if the Defendants cannot justify culpable
     5        responsibility for starvation in the Third World by way of
     6        land purchase and eviction, one has to ask oneself, if they
     7        justified the power of the money to export beef to the US
     8        and the drawing of Third World countries to export staple
     9        crops, one would then have to say: well, does that justify
    10        the overall sting?
    11
    12   MR. RAMPTON:  I mean, plainly, it could never do.
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Query whether it could justify the sting of
    15        being to blame for starvation in the Third World.
    16
    17   MR. RAMPTON:  Quite.
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Query -- and I can see how you would say, no,
    20        it never can -- it cannot justify a sting that McDonald's
    21        have caused starvation in the Third World by buying all
    22        this land off the rulers and then clearing the small
    23        farmers off it.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  Buying the land is not defamatory, but forcing the
    26        eviction of small farmers plainly is.  I am looking now --
    27        and Mrs. Brinley-Codd has kindly written out what
    28        your Lordship read out, she has taken it off Caseview --
    29        and I am bound to say that I do believe that the second and
    30        thirds reasons that your Lordship gave are barely
    31        defamatory at all.  One might actually come to the
    32        conclusion, if that is what the leaflet meant, that they
    33        are conferring a benefit on the poor countries, because of
    34        course they are getting hard currency in exchange for their
    35        beef and their crops.  But if they are defamatory, they are
    36        barely so.  They could fall to be separately justified; and
    37        if they were defamatory and were so separately justified,
    38        they might knock a couple of bob off the damages for the
    39        main allegation, which is causing starvation in the
    40        Third World and, as an adjunct to that, evicting the
    41        farmers so that McDonald's can put the cattle on the land.
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  My next query -- and I think I have got it in
    44        relation to rainforest as well -- is, is this section
    45        defamatory of the Second Plaintiff as well as the
    46        First Plaintiff?
    47
    48   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes.  Can I just find where I dealt with that, so
    49        that I can see what my answer is so far?  Yes.  In so far
    50        as starvation is concerned, plainly, I would argue that 
    51        that is defamatory of both Plaintiffs, because the 
    52        Second Plaintiffs are part of the McDonald's worldwide 
    53        empire and -- I use that word because of the words
    54        "economic imperialism".  They are an active part of that
    55        empire.  They are not a holding company, or some such
    56        thing, sitting in Delaware.  The ordinary reader would be
    57        bound to say, well, they are making a contribution; by
    58        their use of these materials, they are making a
    59        contribution -- and of course by the profits they make in
    60        this country to flow back to the Corporation in America --

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