UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION COMMISSION AWARDS $425 MILLION TO CLAIMANTS FROM 68 COUNTRIES AND TWO INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Press Release
IK/198
UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION COMMISSION AWARDS $425 MILLION TO CLAIMANTS FROM 68 COUNTRIES AND TWO INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
19960531 GENEVA, 29 May (United Nations Information Service) -- The Governing Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission concluded its twentieth session today by awarding compensation to 62,337 claimants in category "C" (individual property losses of up to $100,000) from 68 countries and to two international organizations filing for Palestinians. The total amount of the awards is of $425 million, of which the claimants are to receive an initial payment of $155 million.During the session, the Council also agreed on a formulation for the secretariat to have corporations and governments rectify deficiencies in their claims; accepted for filing nine late claims under category "C" from Somalia; and rejected a number of late corporate claims (category "E") submitted by various governments and corporations. The Council was also addressed by the representatives of Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan and India, States non-members of the Council.
With the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the Government of Iraq and the United Nations Secretariat, the work of the Commission has entered a new stage. Exactly five years after their creation, the Commission and the Compensation Fund are to receive their first regular income through implementation of Security Council resolution 986 (1995), the proceeds of which the Commission expects to start receiving in the second half of this year. The Commission would by then be in a position to make the first payments for the first instalments of category "A" (departure) and "C" claims, approved by the Governing Council in October and December 1994, respectively. These two instalments together amount to $142 million and will benefit close to 57,000 claimants from 61 countries. Each of these claimants will be paid at the rate of $2,500 per claim in accordance with decision 17 of the Governing Council.
Depending on the size and the rate of the revenue received in the next few months, the Commission may be in a position to also pay the second instalment of category "A" claims, totalling $407 million and benefitting 162,000 claimants from 65 countries, as well as the second instalment of category "C" claims approved today.
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The positive outcome of the talks in New York confirms that the decision made by the Council to pay in full category "B" (serious personal injury and death) claims was not only correct but that it restored the faith of the claimants in the viability of this United Nations operation.
However, if the corresponding funds were available the Commission would currently be in a position to pay up to $2 billion in compensation awards. Additionally, a further $1 billion in awards are expected to be ready by the end of this year. At this time, nevertheless, practically all claimant countries have been issued compensation awards in one or more of the claims categories.
The high humanitarian aims of resolution 986 (1995) will thus apply both inside Iraq, providing the needed relief to its population, as well as outside Iraq, to the hundreds of thousands of claimants and their families who have been waiting these five years, often in particularly difficult conditions. However, only the total resumption of the exports of Iraqi oil would allow the Commission to meet its payment goals in full.
With regard to category "A" claims, after the approval of the fifth instalment by the Council last October, which brought the total number of claims approved for payment in this category to more than 780,000, the secretariat has processed what should constitute the sixth and final instalment of these departure claims. With this instalment, which will be examined by the Panel of Commissioners next month and which is scheduled for submission to the Governing Council at the October 1996 meeting, virtually all of the approximately 930,000 category "A" claims filed with the Commission will have been processed and resolved. In this regard, in little more than five years, a record time for an operation of such magnitude, the processing of one of the most voluminous claims categories -- and also perhaps one of the most far-reaching in terms of humanitarian assistance -- will have been successfully completed with awards issued totalling over $3 billion.
Concerning category "B" claims, all of the 6,000 claims that were filed with the Commission have been processed and resolved. The Claims Payment and Administrative Support Section of this secretariat is presently completing the payment of the amounts awarded. Most of the awards totalling $13.5 million have already been transferred to governments, thus bringing actual relief to approximately 4,000 successful claimants that suffered the death of a family member or a serious personal injury.
With respect to category "C" claims, the second instalment approved by the Governing Council during this session contains some of the losses most frequently suffered by claimants, including claims for mental pain and anguish due to forced hiding or illegal detention; claims for salary losses; claims for departure losses; and claims for personal property losses. All of these types of losses were able to be processed efficiently and expeditiously through sampling and database-assisted techniques.
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In relation to category "D" (individual property damages greater than $100,000) "E" and "F" (governments and international corporations) claims and subject to adequate resources and staffing, the secretariat expects to be in a position to submit the first instalments of these claims to the Panels of Commissioners that are to be appointed soon.
As its fifth anniversary approaches, the Commission is in an advanced stage of its work, having dealt with 2.2 million of the 2.6 million claims received and in a position to soon start making its first substantial payments of compensation awards.
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