GOVERNING COUNCIL OF UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION COMMISSION
CONCLUDES SIXTY-FOURTH SESSION

The Governing Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission, under the Presidency of Ambassador Alex Van Meeuwen (Belgium), today concluded its sixty-fourth session. Representatives of Kuwait and Iraq addressed the fifteen-member Governing Council at its opening plenary meeting.

At the session, the Council considered a number of reports and information notes prepared by the secretariat on the activities of the Commission since the last session; distribution by Governments and international organisations of payments to successful claimants; the transparency of the distribution process and the return of undistributed funds. The Council also heard a briefing from the secretariat on the status of the implementation of the Follow-up Programme for Environmental Awards, approved by the Council at its fifty-eighth session in December 2005 to monitor the technical and financial aspects of F4 environmental remediation projects.

In the course of the session, the twenty-fourth meeting of the Committee on Administrative Matters was also held. The Committee considered and approved the budget of the Commission for the 2008-2009 biennium and presented a report on its discussion to the closing plenary of the session.

The Council decided to hold its next regular session on 8-9 April 2008.

The session just concluded was the last session for the delegations of the Republic of the Congo (Vice-President), Ghana, Peru, Qatar and Slovakia whose terms of office end on 31 December 2007. As of 1 January 2008, the new members of the Security Council, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Viet Nam, will be joining the Governing Council for two-year terms.

The next payment to successful claimants pursuant to decision 256 is scheduled to be made in January 2008. There are now twenty-eight approved claims (in categories E and F), with a total outstanding balance of approximately US$29.5 billion, that have not been paid in full. The overall amount of compensation made available to date by the United Nations Compensation Commission is approximately US$23 billion.

Further information about the Commission, including the text of Governing Council decisions and reports and recommendations of the panels of Commissioners, can be found on the United Nations Compensation Commission website located at www.uncc.ch.

For use of the information media; not an official record

UNCC07010E