Shreena is mean

[shreena]

I heard a British victim of the Mumbai attacks on the radio this morning talking about how how he was not given any financial compensation.  He comes across a lot better in this article than he did on the radio (in my opinion) but, while I agree that there seems to have been a slightly horrifying lack of co-ordination, particularly when it came to

Comments

[editor]

Shouldn't compensation come from the Pakistani government?

[shreena]

No, generally governments are not required to compensate victims of crimes committed by their nationals. Many countries choose to compensate the victims of crimes committed within their country, though, but this crime was obviously not in Pakistan.

[editor]

I didn't mean "required", I just meant if you're looking for a government to hold accountable it would seem to me the authorities who "allowed this to happen" aren't British or Indian.

[shreena]

I don't think it's reasonable to think that governments can control what their nationals do in other countries. It's not up to them to do law enforcement in other countries.

[editor]

But if the Pakistani government had enforced the law in their own country these attacks couldn't have happened. At least, I'm presuming it's illegal in Pakistan to conspire to commit mass murder; I wouldn't care to speculate on what Pakistani law says about possessing and transporting firearms.

[vampire_kitten]

I'm presuming it's illegal in Pakistan to conspire to commit mass murder

I doubt it if the conspiring is occuring outside of the Pakistan.

[editor]

Pakistan acknowledged [...] that parts of the Mumbai terrorist attacks were planned on its soil.

[vampire_kitten]

Ah, I had missed that go past.

Slightly stronger ground then, but I still doubt it is a useful avenue to pursue.

[editor]

No, I too doubt much good would come of pursuing it. If nothing else, the Pakistani government really can't afford to go around accepting responsibility for crimes committed or planned on its soil because - if the news media are to be believed - it's not actually in effective control of the whole country.

All I was trying (ineptly) to say was that if the guy in the article thinks he deserves to be compensated by a government, I don't think it's either the British or Indian governments who are principally responsible.

Ooh, Claire Danes.

[vampire_kitten]

Particularly because then you could get international faff where one country is being held accountable for crimes committed in another country that were not illegal in the country being held accountable. Did that make sense?

I'm trying to think of a non-spurious example and failing, but am thinking somewhere along the line of the UK being sued for pain and suffering caused by someone being forced to witness a gay marriage in a US state where it is not legal. Only with a example where the answer may be more complicated than "piss off you silly little bigot"

[piqueen]

What about compensation payments for adultery?