Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 44
1 rhetorical. What bearing does this plea in paragraph 1
2 truly have on the issues in this case which your Lordship
3 has to decide? Question 2, which is another way of
4 putting, perhaps, the same as question 1: how far, in
5 reality, even if it were proved, would it be capable of
6 sustaining any relevant case in respect of the leaflet
7 complained of in this case?
8
9 My Lord, for that purpose, it might be helpful if
10 your Lordship had another look at the third page of the
11 leaflet. I am not going to stop where Mr. Morris stopped.
12 I am going to start, if I may, under the box in the first
13 column on the third page and invite your Lordship to look
14 at the whole of it.
15
16 My Lord, in a sense, though the question of whether a plea
17 is a good or a bad plea is not a matter of discretion but a
18 matter of law, one of the things that your Lordship might
19 be considering at this stage of the case is how far it
20 would be a proper course in the administration of justice
21 to allow a plea which, at best, was only marginally
22 relevant to be put on the record and so give rise, if it
23 stayed there, to a vast amount of work, discovery and
24 witness evidence.
25
26 My Lord, the column starts: "Why is it wrong for McDonald's
27 to destroy rain forests?" There is no equivocation about
28 what it is that McDonald's are said to be destroying; it is
29 the rain forest. No fudging, no humbug about tropical
30 forests. These are rain forests. "Around the Equator there
31 is a lush green belt of incredibly beautiful tropical
32 forest untouched by human hand", and so on. I am not going
33 to read any of the rest of that.
34
35 "Pet food and environment/index.html">litter. McDonald's and Burger King are two
36 of the many US corporations using lethal poisons" -- not
37 peasants driven indirectly on to the rain forest land by
38 beef production for a few restaurants in Brazil -- "lethal
39 poisons to destroy vast areas of Central American
40 rain forest to create grazing pastures for cattle to be
41 sent back to the States as burgers and pet food and to
42 provide fast-food packaging materials"; and then the
43 parenthesis about the destruction of 800 square miles
44 forest just to keep McDonald's supplied with paper for one
45 year.
46
47 "Colonial invasion. Not only are McDonald's and many other
48 corporations contributing to a major ecological
49 catastrophe, they are forcing the tribal peoples in the
50 rain forests off their ancestral territories where they had
51 lived peacefully without damaging their environment for
52 thousands of years. This is a typical example of the
53 arrogance and viciousness of multinational companies in
54 their endless search for more and more profit. It is no
55 exaggeration to say that when you bite into a Big Mac you
56 are helping the McDonald's empire to wreck this planet."
57
58 My Lord, as I have had occasion to say times without number
59 in this case -- not your Lordship's benefit, I know, but in
60 the vain hope that the Defendants may in due course take it
