International Administration of Holocaust Compensation: The International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC)

Abstract

The most important change in public international law over the past century has been a re-direction of its focus exclusively on states to a broadened scope of subjects including, most importantly, individual human beings. This shift in the status of individuals may be directly traced to the widely acknowledged need, in the aftermath of the Second World War, for a more adequate response to the Holocaust and other large-scale atrocities than that offered by traditional international law. Substantive concerns led to the development of human rights law. Victims’ demands for compensation or restitution for the material injuries caused by genocidal Nazi persecution spurred a parallel procedural revolution. The innovation lay in national and international recognition of individuals’ rights to assert such claims on their own behalf against their own governments, foreign states and foreign private entities. In relation to other procedural-institutional changes in international law which have likewise found their impetus in awareness of the horrors perpetrated by Nazi Germany during World War II, the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC) represents a unique development. This institution is distinguishable from both a traditional claims commission and an arbitral tribunal. Classically, claims commissions have been established under bilateral, lump-sum, postwar reparations settlements to resolve demands for compensation by individuals. An example of such a commission may be found in the context of the Nazi Persecution (Princz) Agreement between the United States and Germany, which facilitated compensation of a small group of American citizens who survived Nazi concentration camps. The settlement in the Princz case, including its claims processing arrangement, corresponded to the traditional practice under customary international law. Pursuant to that practice, claims of individuals against a foreign state may only be espoused by the state of which they are citizens.