"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

A Few More Francs

by Lee

Following up on this post, France has actually won one, sort of.

Libya has agreed to increase compensation for the 1989 bombing of a French airliner, allowing it to close the Lockerbie case and repair relations with the West, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Sunday. 

The compensation row erupted after Britain moved to end U.N. sanctions on Libya when Tripoli agreed this month to pay $2.7 billion to families of the 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of an airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. 

But France, a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, had threatened to block the move unless Tripoli increased its compensation to relatives of those who died when an UTA airliner was blown up over Niger in 1989. 

They didn’t get what they were asking for, however.

A source familiar with the Libyan position told Reuters on Saturday, Tripoli had offered around $300,000 per family. 

That would be a significant increase on the original pay out, but still less than the families had been seeking.

Yet one more reason France shouldn’t have a permanent seat on the UNSC.

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