United Nations Compensation Commission pays out final compensation award

Today, the United Nations Compensation Commission made available $629,324,488 to the Government of the State of Kuwait towards the Commission’s remaining claim with an outstanding award balance. With this payment, all claimants awarded compensation by the Commission have now received the full amount of their respective awards. In total, the Commission has paid out $52.4 billion in compensation to more than 1.5 million successful claimants.

The United Nations Compensation Commission is a subsidiary organ of the United Nations Security Council. It was established in 1991 in accordance with Security Council resolutions 687 (1991) and 692 (1991) to process claims and pay compensation for losses and damages incurred by individuals, corporations, Governments and international organizations as a direct result of Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait (2 August 1990 to 2 March 1991). The Commission received approximately 2.7 million claims and concluded its review of all claims in 2005.

Successful claims were paid from the United Nations Compensation Fund which received a percentage of the proceeds generated by the export sales of Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products. This percentage was set pursuant to various Security Council resolutions and decisions of the Commission’s Governing Council and was most recently set at 3 per cent under Governing Council decision 276 (2017).

With the Commission nearing its conclusion, a special session of the Governing Council will be held on 9 February 2022 to mark the payment in full of all compensation awarded by the Commission and the conclusion of its mandate.

Further information about the Commission can be found on the United Nations Compensation Commission website located at www.uncc.ch.

M.22.002E