Dear Editor,
By now, most of us are aware of the attempt of several Caribbean countries to demand reparations from several European countries for the "crime" of slavery. In this regard, Caricom has hired the British legal firm Leigh Day to press its case in the courts should negotiations fail, which they will. This legal firm doesn't come cheap.
Many legal experts have already concluded that the odds of Caricom winning the case through the courts are virtually nil. I saw a New York Times report, quoting Roger O'Keefe, deputy director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at Cambridge University, as saying Caricom's case is "an international legal fantasy".
My big problem with this "legal fantasy" is the financial commitments to this legal waste and the costs that Caricom taxpayers could be asked to pay.
When this chosen firm won that famous pollution case that involved the people of the Ivory Coast against Trafigura four years ago, Trafigura was forced to pay 30 million pounds to the claimants. In addition, the firm requested 105 million pounds for its fee. The firm claims that that fee was justified on account of the amount of work it had to do in the case.
If cases like Trafigura cost that much, imagine how much more difficult cases like reparations will cost? And, remember, lawyers must be paid whether or not they are successful. With the odds stacked so high against Caricom who is going to pay them?
Even if the firm doesn't win — and I strongly believe they will not win — considering the huge amount of work that it will have to do; from digging through mountains of historical documents, trying to convince European politicians to "do the right thing", to spending many billable hours putting the case together among a host of other tasks.
On behalf of the struggling taxpayers of Caricom, who have had to be putting up with dilapidated roads, schools, hospitals, public facilities, and frozen wages, high taxes, non-functioning fire trucks, under-equipped police forces, micro businesses being starved of funding, and I could go on and on, many of which could be fixed several times over with that kind of money, I demand to know how the bill for this "legal fantasy" is going to be paid?
We need to know. We surely have productive ventures on which we could spend that kind of money.
Michael A Dingwall
michael_a_dingwall@hotmail.com
Reparations 'legal fantasy' could cost billions
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By now, most of us are aware of the attempt of several Caribbean countries to demand reparations from several European countries for the "crime" of slavery. In this regard, Caricom has hired the British legal firm Leigh Day to press its case in the courts should negotiations fail, which they will. This legal firm doesn't come cheap.
Many legal experts have already concluded that the odds of Caricom winning the case through the courts are virtually nil. I saw a New York Times report, quoting Roger O'Keefe, deputy director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at Cambridge University, as saying Caricom's case is "an international legal fantasy".
My big problem with this "legal fantasy" is the financial commitments to this legal waste and the costs that Caricom taxpayers could be asked to pay.
When this chosen firm won that famous pollution case that involved the people of the Ivory Coast against Trafigura four years ago, Trafigura was forced to pay 30 million pounds to the claimants. In addition, the firm requested 105 million pounds for its fee. The firm claims that that fee was justified on account of the amount of work it had to do in the case.
If cases like Trafigura cost that much, imagine how much more difficult cases like reparations will cost? And, remember, lawyers must be paid whether or not they are successful. With the odds stacked so high against Caricom who is going to pay them?
Even if the firm doesn't win — and I strongly believe they will not win — considering the huge amount of work that it will have to do; from digging through mountains of historical documents, trying to convince European politicians to "do the right thing", to spending many billable hours putting the case together among a host of other tasks.
On behalf of the struggling taxpayers of Caricom, who have had to be putting up with dilapidated roads, schools, hospitals, public facilities, and frozen wages, high taxes, non-functioning fire trucks, under-equipped police forces, micro businesses being starved of funding, and I could go on and on, many of which could be fixed several times over with that kind of money, I demand to know how the bill for this "legal fantasy" is going to be paid?
We need to know. We surely have productive ventures on which we could spend that kind of money.
Michael A Dingwall
michael_a_dingwall@hotmail.com
Reparations 'legal fantasy' could cost billions
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