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Denial of Liability: Ex Gratia Compensation on a Humanitarian Basis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

Marian Nash Leich
Marian Nash Leich*
Affiliation:
Department of State
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Extract

On July 3, 1988, the U.S.S. Vincennes, already involved in an exchange of fire with a group of Iranian naval craft (Boghammar boats) in the international waters of the Persian Gulf, shot down an unidentified aircraft that had just departed from the joint military-civilian airfield at Bandar-e Abbas After repeated, unsuccessful efforts by the Vincennes to establish contact with the unidentified aircraft, the captain, believing that his vessel might be attacked within minutes by an Iranian military aircraft sent to assist the gunboats engaged in the surface exchange, ordered the still unidentified aircraft to be fired upon. The aircraft was shot down, and was only afterwards identified as a civil airliner, Iran Air Flight 655. The incident resulted in the deaths of 290 individuals from six nations.

Type
Agora: The Downing of Iran air Flight 655
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 83 , Issue 2 , April 1989 , pp. 319 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1989

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References

1 For the President's statement of July 3, 1988, and letters of July 4, 1988, to Jim Wright, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and John C. Stennis, President pro tempore of the Senate, see 24 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 896 (July 11, 1988), Dep't St. Bull., NO. 2138, September 1988, at 38.

2 See Dep't St. Bull., supra note 1, at 38.

3 Id. at 39, Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc., supra note 1, at 912.

4 For the text of the address, see Dep't St. Bull., supra note 1, at 39.

5 Int'l NOTAM No. 0052/87 (Sept. 9, 1987).

6 ICAO Ref. No. AN 13/4.3 (Nov. 18, 1987), also to be found at Dep't of State File No. P88 0138-0938.

7 See ICAO Ref. AN 13/4.3-88/72; see also Dep't of State File No. P88 0131-1193.

8 The full text of SC Res. 598 (1987) is reprinted in Dep't St. Bull., No. 2126, September 1987, at 76.

9 Dep't St. Bull., supra note 1, at 42–43. See further Dep't of Defense, Investigation Report: Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Downing of Iran Flight 655 on 3 July 1988 (1988).

10 UN Doc. S/20020 (1988). For a statement by the Department of State welcoming Iran's formal acceptance of the resolution, see Dep't St. Bull., supra note 1, at 63.

11 Dep't St. Bull., No. 2139, October 1988, at 58–59.