Question for lawyers re changes to rules on libel tourism (Defamation Bill), the potential McLibel cases & Twitter.

Lord McAlpine is non UK domiciled and now lives in Italy which is an EU Member State and so he is not classed as a foreign litigant in respect of libel tourism rules.

'Foreign litigants will have to sue in the country where most of the damage to their reputations was done, rather than using the English courts on the basis that the publication was available in Britain.'

As he is not classed as a foreign litigant but is instead non UK domiciled and is free to use UK Courts, how do the rules work in relation to defining where a tweet was originally published as opposed to where the publication was available? This is pertinent as under libel law he is threatening to sue thousands of Twitter users on the basis that he can prove that the publication of their tweets caused him "substantial harm" in the country they were published.

Published being the operative word here. So where are tweets published geographically? Twitter is a US Company, using US hosting and servers and is governed under US Law. So based on the above, am I right in thinking that even though the published tweets are available in the UK, initial publication was in the US and so technically he cannot use English Civil Courts to litigate but must use a US court?

If that is the case will he then also come up against US SPEECH Act 2010 which also protects against libel tourism?

I'd like to thank @3AB1 and @Alheri for their help in firing up my grey matter on this subject :)

Here are some related links:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/defamation-bill-intended-to-kill-off-libel-tourism-2241872.html

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmpublic/defamation/120626/am/120626s01.htm

http://t.co/FToXi2vJ

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