The European Court of Human Rights ruled against the paper having to pay the “success fee” Campbell agreed to pay her lawyers on top of other legal costs, arguing it didn’t fit the offense.

In 2004, Campbell won her battle against the Daily Mirror, which printed photographs in 2001 showing her leaving a drug counseling meeting. Britain’s highest court ruled the paper breached Campbell’s privacy by running the photos and a story detailing her treatment.

The model testified at the time that she felt “shocked, angry, betrayed and violated” by the piece, which was headlined: “Naomi: I am a drug addict.” The Strasbourg court said the “success fees” were more than 365,000 pounds as part of over 1,000,000 pounds in costs, and called them disproportionate.

The judges said there is a risk to media reporting and freedom of expression if the potential costs of defending a case risked putting pressure on the media and newspaper publishers to settle cases that could have been defended.

British libel laws place the burden of proof on the defendant to show what it published was true. But many other countries - including the US - require plaintiffs to prove a published article was both false and written with malicious intent. Free speech advocates say the UK legislation has a chilling effect on journalism, as newspapers are reluctant to publish certain types of articles due to fears of hefty legal fees and lengthy court disputes.

That has earned Britain a reputation as a “libel tourism” destination for celebrities and corporations to wage costly legal battles - a phenomenon the government has vowed to curb.

“This judgment is a clarion call for the UK judiciary to put libel costs under the microscope,” said media law specialist Mark Stephens, who helped prepare a submission on free speech to the Strasbourg court and called the ruling an “amazingly good result.” “It means that the gravy train for grasping claimant lawyers and their greedy clients has hit the buffers.” The government has pledged to change Britain’s libel laws.

In a statement Tuesday, it said it was already working on a “much-needed reform of conditional fee arrangements, including success fees.” The Daily Mirror welcomed the ruling, saying that after a long hard fight it has “been proved right” about success fees.

The Daily Mirror had also complained to the court that the privacy verdict and the amount of legal fees breached the paper’s right to freedom of expression.

The court, however, rejected that claim. The judges found that, since the publication of the photos and articles had not contributed to any “debate of general interest” to society, the newspaper had a lower level of protection for freedom of expression.