Statelessness at the United Nations Compensation Commission

Abstract

Every wrongful act results in an obligation to redress the offense. Under the ‘traditional’ claims approach for internationally wrongful acts, when a state injures another state’s national, it is the state of nationality that has the duty to request redress for the violations incurred by its nationals through diplomatic protection. However, this ‘traditional approach’ excludes stateless persons, who are not considered nationals by any state. After the Gulf War, Iraq was held liable by the UN Security Council (UNSC), which established the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) to process claims for compensation of Iraq’s victims. However, initially only states could file claims on behalf of their nationals, which excluded stateless persons from accessing compensation for the violations they suffered as a result of the war. The UNCC adopted several special procedures to address this issue. This paper explores the UNCC’s approach concerning the stateless, and seeks to determine whether this approach could serve as a model for future mechanisms of a similar nature and also explores the changing nature of diplomatic protection and the role it has played and can play in the future of mechanisms of a nature similar to that of the UNCC.