3 ms·

I've read numerous articles and although it seems lots of people knew the situation was dangerous and lots of letters flew back and forth, I'm still not clear o

I've read numerous articles and although it seems lots of people knew the situation was dangerous and lots of letters flew back and forth, I'm still not clear on who had jurisdiction or failed to take action. The Port Authority? The courts? The Army? The General Directorate of State Security? This Reuters article is maddening, but it hits much closer to the truth than all the pointless "welding is dangerous" threads going on right now around us: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast-documents-excl/exclusive-lebanons-leaders-warned-in-july-about-explosives-at-port-documents-idUSKCN2562L7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast-do... The hypothesis I tend to reach for is a general lack of "good government", originating because the factional tension in Lebanon completely overshadows any other political differentiation. The factions can't compete on competence because votes are locked in by group identity.

Sharlin 6y ago
> I've read numerous articles and although it seems lots of people knew the situation was dangerous and lots of letters flew back and forth, I'm still not clear on who had jurisdiction or failed to take action. That's exactly the problem. They weren't either.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
In an advanced country with a modern legal system, like, say, Australia, the answer to your question is: Every single person who knew the dangers is personally liable for up to $50,000 for an individual, if I recall correctly. And for industrial manslaughter the maximum penalty is 20 years jail and AU$10 million for a business operator: https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/business-fined-3m-under-new-industrial-manslaughter-laws-20200611-p551mp https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/business-fine...
- Dahoon 6y ago
  A modern legal system and an advanced country doesn't have or allow concentration style camps for immigrants or do its best to ruin the lives and rights of the original people. That rules out Australia.
  - jiggawatts 6y ago
    And the United States also, by that metric...
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    Not an entirely unfair point! If we discount everyone with any faults, we'll never get anywhere.
- bjowen 6y ago
  The concentration camps aren’t a mark of the effectiveness of the legal system so much as one of the political system - as inexcusable as they are, the country still manages to have mechanisms of state to administer airspace, health and safety and so on. But those institutions are fragile, especially when they're exposed to the political system (robodebt and the Murray-Darling authority spring to mind) but it’s also possible for dangerous situations to evolve in pretty well-defined regulatory frameworks. There’s a bunch of case law around situations such as buildings that failed inspections under one code or another, then caught fire and destroyed neighbouring property before the compliance deadline had elapsed. Common law negligence is there to catch these sorts of cases, but it’s much more of a way to assign liability than to guide behaviour. I haven’t followed the West Footscray fire from a couple of years ago, but it definitely had the signs of something that slipped through the cracks between regulations, which leaves it a matter of luck that it wasn’t something super duper toxic, explosive, or flammable and under pressure.

Sharlin 6y ago

> I've read numerous articles and although it seems lots of people knew the situation was dangerous and lots of letters flew back and forth, I'm still not clear on who had jurisdiction or failed to take action. That's exactly the problem. They weren't either.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

In an advanced country with a modern legal system, like, say, Australia, the answer to your question is: Every single person who knew the dangers is personally liable for up to $50,000 for an individual, if I recall correctly. And for industrial manslaughter the maximum penalty is 20 years jail and AU$10 million for a business operator: https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/business-fined-3m-under-new-industrial-manslaughter-laws-20200611-p551mp https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/business-fine...

Dahoon 6y ago
A modern legal system and an advanced country doesn't have or allow concentration style camps for immigrants or do its best to ruin the lives and rights of the original people. That rules out Australia.
- jiggawatts 6y ago
  And the United States also, by that metric...
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  Not an entirely unfair point! If we discount everyone with any faults, we'll never get anywhere.
bjowen 6y ago
The concentration camps aren’t a mark of the effectiveness of the legal system so much as one of the political system - as inexcusable as they are, the country still manages to have mechanisms of state to administer airspace, health and safety and so on. But those institutions are fragile, especially when they're exposed to the political system (robodebt and the Murray-Darling authority spring to mind) but it’s also possible for dangerous situations to evolve in pretty well-defined regulatory frameworks. There’s a bunch of case law around situations such as buildings that failed inspections under one code or another, then caught fire and destroyed neighbouring property before the compliance deadline had elapsed. Common law negligence is there to catch these sorts of cases, but it’s much more of a way to assign liability than to guide behaviour. I haven’t followed the West Footscray fire from a couple of years ago, but it definitely had the signs of something that slipped through the cracks between regulations, which leaves it a matter of luck that it wasn’t something super duper toxic, explosive, or flammable and under pressure.