Originally from Inside the Black Box: How Arbitral Tribunals Operate and Reach Their Decisions - ASA Special Series No. 42

GEOFFREY SENOGLES:

It is a privilege to be here particularly as the only non-lawyer who has spoken today. I am an accountant, I apologise! My core practice is international arbitration as an expert witness. I have been asked to speak today thinking back ten years to my time in the United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva, so this is all old news.

For those who do not know much about the UNCC, please bear with me. I am going to spend a few minutes giving you some context of what we were doing and why. Shown on the screen are the dates of the invasion and occupation, a period of seven months almost 22 years ago. Where was each of us on 2 August 1990?

At a glance; the United States Compensation Commission was established by the Security Council as a part of the Security Council. Some of the biggest numbers that I think need to be kept in mind and, as we have discussed as a panel, we are not saying the UNCC is like an ICC or ICSID tribunal, clearly it is not. There is a very clear distinction.

There were over 2.5 million claims filed in all, with a total asserted value of just over US$350 billion. The bulk of the claims were at the personal level: death, injury and damage to property. The larger claims are shown on the bottom line of the slide on the screen: commercial, governmental and environmental.