International Courts and Tribunals Cases Series Volume 4: The Lockerbie Trial

by Laar, P.A. van; Tofan, C.

• ISBN13: 9789058870476
• ISBN10: 9058870472
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-01
• Publisher: International Courts Association

Summary

No aircraft disaster in history has produced the amount of legal wrangling as the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, in which 259 passengers and crew members and 11 people on the ground were killed. The Lockerbie families wanted justice in the name of their relatives that died in the aircraft, but only in 1996 did the US Administration and Congress amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act with the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that allowed civil actions against Libya. Libya was finally served, under the provisions of the Act, in 1997, and answered the complaints, asserting in its answers that the underlying statute was unconstitutional. One area of the Lockerbie litigation was the unusual use by Libya of an international treaty called The Montreal Convention of 1971 for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation. The purpose of this treaty was to prevent attacks against civil aircraft and provide for cooperation between countries when there has been such an attack and to provide appropriate measures to punish offenders. It was not meant to give jurisdiction over criminal proceedings to the country of the alleged wrongdoer. This book contains legal materials related to the Lockerbie Trial and examines this landmark case in international criminal law. (Series: International Courts and Tribunals Cases - Vol. 4)