Following
the issuance on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice
of the advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction
of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the United Nations
Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory (UNRoD) was established in accordance
with General Assembly resolution A/RES/ES-10/17 of January 2007.
UNRoD
is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly of the United Nations
and operates under the administrative authority of the Secretary-General
at the site of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV) which
provides administrative and logistical backstopping.
UNRoD's
mandate is to serve as a record, in documentary form, of the damage
caused to all natural and legal persons concerned as a result
of the construction of the Wall by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem. UNRoD is not
a compensation commission, claims-resolution facility, judicial
or quasi-judicial body.
UNRoD's
Office, which was established following the appointment by the
Secretary-General of the three independent members of the Board
and its Executive Director in 2007, is fully operational with
18 staff members comprising 9 Professional staff, and 9 General
Service staff.
To
fulfil its mandate, UNRoD undertakes outreach activities in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory to inform potential claimants of
the existence and purpose of UNRoD and the procedure for filing
a claim for registration of damage. UNRoD also assists claimants
in completing the official UNRoD claim forms, and collects completed
claims forms for processing in Vienna.
UNRoD
receives, processes and reviews claims from any natural or legal
person who has sustained material damage or loss as a result of
the construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
UNRoD's three-member Board has the ultimate authority to decide,
based on criteria established by it, whether or not a loss or
damage claimed is to be included in the United Nations Register
of Damage.
The mandate entrusted to UNRoD is being successfully implemented. By 16 June 2023, 69,554 claim forms for registration of damage and more than 1 million supporting documents had been collected and delivered to the Office of the Register of Damage in Vienna. Claim-intake activities had been carried out in all nine affected governorates: Tubas, Janin, Tulkarm, Qalqilyah, Salfit, Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem. As of June 2023, the Board of UNRoD reviewed and decided on 35,370 of the collected claims for its inclusion in the Register.
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