The UK's debt to Libya over explosives

[tabatha]

2009: In the Summer of 2009 (traditionally a media "silly-season") the UK media promoted the idea that Libya should pay compensation to those injured by IRA bombs because Libya supplied the plastic explosive from which the bombs were made. The Prime Minister announced personal support for the claims. If the idea had any mileage, it would be relevant to humanitarian demining because funding would always be available from those who supplied the explosive inside the devices (no matter who actually used them). All we would have to do is find a few devices, and submit the bill to the manufacturing country... except that this would often by China, Pakistian, the USA or the ex-Soviet Union, none of which would pay. But countries that had extracted compensation from others, such as the UK is attempting to do from Libya, would be obliged to recognise that the principle works both ways.

In November 2003, the UK approved Protocol V of the Convention on Prohibitions and Restrictions on the use of Certain Conventional Weapons. This protocol deals with unexploded and abandoned ordnance left over after fighting ends (known as Explosive Remnants of War or ERW). The protocol stops short of requiring those who put the ERW there to pay for its removal, but it is interpreted as encouraging it. The Protocol puts no responsibility on the manufacturers or supplier of the explosives and is not retrospective, so does not cover ERW resulting from conflicts before the date that it entered into force (November 2006).

This may be just as well. British made munitions are all around the world, and there are millions in Libya. They date from WW2 and the period of British control that followed. Victim numbers have not been gathered in one place, but recent hospital records alone indicate that there have been hundreds of civilian casualties and deaths resulting from the ERW left by the UK.


British made Anti-Tank mines still litter the desert 67 years after being placed.

http://www.nolandmines.com/UK_debt_to_Libya.htm