Whats A Life Worth?

The value of a persons life can vary from place to place, time to time and circumstance to circumstances .... 

Whats The Value Life?

Of course in one sense, all life is precious, priceless in fact.

But in some countries, its monetary value can be very low, or even non-existent. For instance some third world countries appear to have no compensation schemes, whether state run or insurance led e.g. Haiti, where impunity for crimes is the norm.

In India Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised 200,000 rupees (£2,118; $2,580) to next-of-kin in compensation for each death in a fire in Delhi, which seems a pittance, especially as the mostly women who died, were their families sole bread winners.. 

In Russia President Putin said the country's military survivor benefit program would pay families of deceased soldiers an 'additional' 5 million roubles (approx $45,000). He also said that those who had to leave military service due to injury would get 2.9 million roubles as 'insurance payouts, plus compensation for any injuries.' 

Then he offered an additional 3 million rouble payouts to 'staff of the Minister of Defence and any injured personnel' ... However as Russia's military leadership regularly files most of its killed in actions (KIA's) as merely 'missing', their families will not receive any compensation.

In 2015 the then Open Russia news website, published a 64-page report, called Putin - War, which said that 150 Russian soldiers were killed in the key battle for Ilovaisk, a small town in the Donetsk region, in August 2014, with another 70 Russian soldiers dying in the battle for Debaltseve, before the Minsk ceasefire deal was signed after the first Russian attack in Eastern Ukraine. The report says relatives of the 150 soldiers killed at Ilovaisk received 2m roubles each (£25,100; $39,000) after agreeing not to reveal how the men had died, but the  relatives of the 70 who died in Debaltseve, were reportedly given no compensation from the Russian defence ministry.

In China, a policeman who killed a pregnant woman and wounded her husband in a restaurant, while he was drunk, was also ordered to pay the victim's family 73,324 yuan ($12,000; £7,200) in compensation. 

Also in China, it’s fairly common for drivers who have injured pedestrians to then try to kill them, by reversing over them, back and forth in a “double hit" .... The Chinese language even has an adage for the phenomenon: “It is better to hit to kill than to hit and injure.” Apparently in China and Taiwan if you cripple a man, woman or child, you pay for the injured person’s care for a lifetime. But if you kill the person, you “only have to pay once, like a burial fee.”

The compensation for killing a victim in a traffic accident is typically in the range of $30,000 to $50,000 in a one off payment, and the matter is then over. By contrast, paying for lifetime care for a disabled survivor can run into the millions. For instance one disabled man received about $400,000 for the first 23 years of his care, following a car accident, from the drivers family.

Zhao Xiao Cheng Car Killer

So Zhao Xiao Cheng, the driver of a car that was caught on security cameras methodically running over a grandmother (or grandfather reports vary), five times to kill her/him, ended up paying only about $70,000 in compensation.

In 2008 the family of a Beijing policeman, killed when he was run over by a getaway van was to receive 1 million yuan (US$123,000) in compensation.

While in Chechnya, the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov was quoted by Ekho Moskvy radio as saying that the  relatives of Chechen's killed in the Ukraine (fighting for Russia), will be paid 2m roubles (under $20,000 at the current exchange rate, or £15,000).

In ex-gratia Payments made in Afghanistan by the US Armed forces, for civilians accidentally killed or wounded ... The US military issued 1,630 condolence payments between October 2005 and September 2014, with an average payment of $2,985. While Minneapolis City Council paid George Floyd's family $27m (£19.4m) to settle a civil lawsuit over his killing in police custody.

The British Ministry of Defence paid a total of £397,000 for 240 civilians injuries in Afghanistan  - an average of £1,654. The largest single payment awarded was £54,347 for a single fatality in Kabul in 2007, but no details on who that was have been given, but presumably someone important enough to demand a larger amount than the peasants.

In 2018 the families of nine of those killed by British soldiers in Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland in January 1972, were paid £75,000 each. Another five people wounded at the time received £50,000

The British government paid a compensation of £1 million to British citizen, Jamal Udeen Al-Harith (aka Abu-Zakariya al-Britani), born Ronald Fiddler to parents who had migrated from Jamaica, after his release from Guantanamo Bay military prison. He later used the money to take his family to ISIS territory in Iraq/Syria, and then blew himself up in a suicide bomb attack on Iraqi forces. His family fled, and presumably are living off the compensation money somewhere.

UK-born journalist Ian Bailey, was ordered to pay a total of €225,000 in damages to the French state, and to the family of murdered film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier, after he was convicted in absentia of the murder of Ms du Plantier by a Paris court, and sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment. A warrant was put out for his arrest.

More than half of the compensation money - €115,000 - was to compensate a state guarantee fund for victims of terrorism and other offences (FGTI), which had advanced the  money to Ms du Plantier’s family, after a high court order in March 2013. Damages totalling an extra €110,000 have also been awarded to seven of Ms du Plantier’s family members, with the bulk of the money going to her son and her parents. Her brothers, aunt and uncle were also named in a “civil judgment”. Mr Bailey had 10 years to make the payment, after which time it will become unenforceable, which will actually be the case after Ireland's High Court ruled that Bailey could not be extradited in 2020, after 3 attempts by the French authorities.

So time, location and circumstance is what places the value of a life.