GOVERNING COUNCIL OF UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION COMMISSION MEETS IN GENEVA, 22-24 JULY
Press Release
IK/200
GOVERNING COUNCIL OF UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION COMMISSION MEETS IN GENEVA, 22-24 JULY
19960723 Prepares To Receive $100 Million Monthly Under Resolution 986 To Pay Out Approved ClaimsGENEVA, 19 July (UN Information Service) -- The Governing Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission will hold its twenty-first session from 22 to 24 July in Geneva, under the chairmanship of Giuseppe Baldocci (Italy). It will be entering a new phase of its work, as it prepares to receive money under the terms of Security Council resolution 986 (1995). Better known as the "oil-for-food" resolution, its implementation should provide the Commission's Fund with $100 million each month to pay out approved claims.
During the current session, which marks five years since the Commission's first meeting, the Council will be asked to approve for payment 64,000 claims during the current session, coming from individuals who suffered losses of up to $100,000 each. Those claims, valued at more than $320 million, will bring the total amount of approved claims to $3.7 billion.
To date, 2.6 million claims have been submitted to the Commission, at an asserted value of over $200 billion. The great bulk of that sum comes from claims by corporations and governments. Of the 2.6 million claims received, 2.2 million claims from individuals have so far been processed by the Secretariat and reviewed by the appropriate panel. In 1994, the Commission used its limited resources to begin paying instalments on the most urgent, humanitarian claims involving death or serious personal injury. It expects to accelerate those payments and begin paying claimants in other categories once funding is received under resolution 986.
Reviewing the work of the past five years, the Commission's Executive Secretary, Carlos Alzamora, has paid tribute to the work of its Member States and the Geneva Secretariat. He has noted that, although the Commission is a subsidiary body of the Security Council, with the same membership, all its decisions have been taken by consensus and there was agreement from the beginning that the veto would not apply to the Governing Council's decisions. Non-members of the Council were allowed to participate in Commission meetings, and Iraq and Kuwait contributed to each meeting of the Governing Council.
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The Commission had also taken the unprecedented step of putting the claims of individuals ahead of those of governments and corporations. With the deadlines for almost all categories of claims now expired, the Commission has received 2.6 million claims in 28 million pages of claim forms and documents. Coping with that torrent of paper has required the innovative application of new technologies and statistical methods. The Commission was setting records in terms of the speed of its operations and the minimal cost of its administration relative to the sums of money it would pay to claimants.
The Commission has completed the processing of all claims for people who were forced to leave Kuwait and Iraq, as well as claims involving death and personal injury. It has also completed processing many of the individual claims for losses of up to $100,000. Substantial work remains, however, including the review of the remaining individual claims -- especially those for more than $100,000 -- and the review of corporate and government claims for larger amounts and involving more complex legal issues.
One of the tasks of the Governing Council's July session will be to appoint members of the first panels which will review claims in those categories. Each panel will be comprised of three Commissioners. Mr. Alzamora said the work of Commission over the past five years had further demonstrated the capacity and potential of the United Nations to respond effectively to new challenges.
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