108 Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its fifty-third session has been fixed and the obligation to pay has been established”.604 (3) Issues of the award of interest have frequently arisen in other tribunals, both in cases where the underlying claim involved injury to private parties and where the injury was to the State itself.605 The experience of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal is worth noting. In The Islamic Republic of Iran v. The United States of America (Case A–19), the Full Tribunal held that its general jurisdiction to deal with claims included the power to award interest, but it declined to lay down uniform standards for the award of interest on the ground that this fell within the jurisdiction of each Chamber and related “to the exercise … of the discretion accorded to them in deciding each particular case”.606 On the issue of principle the tribunal said: Claims for interest are part of the compensation sought and do not constitute a separate cause of action requiring their own independent jurisdictional grant. This Tribunal is required by [a]rticle V of the Claims Settlement Declaration to decide claims “on the basis of respect for law”. In doing so, it has regularly treated interest, where sought, as forming an integral part of the “claim” which it has a duty to decide. The Tribunal notes that the Chambers have been consistent in awarding interest as “compensation for damages suffered due to delay in payment”. … Indeed, it is customary for arbitral tribunals to award interest as part of an award for damages, notwithstanding the absence of any express reference to interest in the compromis. Given that the power to award interest is inherent in the Tribunal’s authority to decide claims, the exclusion of such power could only be established by an express provision in the Claims Settlement Declaration. No such provision exists. Consequently, the Tribunal concludes that it is clearly within its power to award interest as compensation for damage suffered.607 The tribunal has awarded interest at a different and slightly lower rate in respect of intergovernmental claims.608 It has not awarded interest in certain cases, for example where a lump-sum award was considered as reflecting full compensation, or where other special circumstances pertained.609 (4) Decision 16 of the Governing Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission deals with the question of interest. It provides: 1. Interest will be awarded from the date the loss occurred until the date of payment, at a rate sufficient to compensate successful claimants for the loss of use of the principal amount of the award. 2. The methods of calculation and of payment of interest will be considered by the Governing Council at the appropriate time. 604 See footnote 34 above. The Court accepted the French claim for an interest rate of 6 per cent as fair, having regard to “the present financial situation of the world and … the conditions prevailing for public loans”. 605 In the M/V “Saiga” case (see footnote 515 above), ITLOS awarded interest at different rates in respect of different categories of loss (para. 173). 606 The Islamic Republic of Iran v. The United States of America, Iran-U.S. C.T.R., vol. 16, p. 285, at p. 290 (1987). Aldrich, op. cit. (see footnote 357 above), pp. 475–476, points out that the practice of the three Chambers has not been entirely uniform. 607 The Islamic Republic of Iran v. The United States of America (see footnote 606 above), pp. 289–290. 608 See C. N. Brower and J. D. Brueschke, op. cit. (footnote 520 above), pp. 626–627, with references to the cases. The rate adopted was 10 per cent, as compared with 12 per cent for commercial claims. 609 See the detailed analysis of Chamber Three in McCollough and Company, Inc. v. Ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephone, Iran-U.S. C.T.R., vol. 11, p. 3, at pp. 26–31 (1986). 3. Interest will be paid after the principal amount of awards.610 This provision combines a decision in principle in favour of interest where necessary to compensate a claimant with flexibility in terms of the application of that principle. At the same time, interest, while a form of compensation, is regarded as a secondary element, subordinated to the principal amount of the claim. (5) Awards of interest have also been envisaged by human rights courts and tribunals, even though the compensation practice of these bodies is relatively cautious and the claims are almost always unliquidated. This is done, for example, to protect the value of a damages award payable by instalments over time.611 (6) In their more recent practice, national compensation commissions and tribunals have also generally allowed for interest in assessing compensation. However in certain cases of partial lump-sum settlements, claims have been expressly limited to the amount of the principal loss, on the basis that with a limited fund to be distributed, claims to principal should take priority.612 Some national court decisions have also dealt with issues of interest under international law,613 although more often questions of interest are dealt with as part of the law of the forum. (7) Although the trend of international decisions and practice is towards greater availability of interest as an aspect of full reparation, an injured State has no automatic entitlement to the payment of interest. The awarding of interest depends on the circumstances of each case; in particular, on whether an award of interest is necessary in order to ensure full reparation. This approach is compatible with the tradition of various legal systems as well as the practice of international tribunals. (8) An aspect of the question of interest is the possible award of compound interest. The general view of courts and tribunals has been against the award of compound interest, and this is true even of those tribunals which hold claimants to be normally entitled to compensatory interest. For example, the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal has consistently denied claims for compound interest, including in cases where the claimant suffered losses through compound interest charges on indebtedness associated with the claim. In R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the tribunal failed to find: any special reasons for departing from international precedents which normally do not allow the awarding of compound interest. As noted by one authority, “[t]here are few rules within the scope of the 610 Awards of interest, decision of 18 December 1992 (S/ AC.26/1992/16). 611 See, e.g., the Velásquez Rodríguez, Compensatory Damages case (footnote 516 above), para. 57. See also Papamichalopoulos (footnote 515 above), para. 39, where interest was payable only in respect of the pecuniary damage awarded. See further D. Shelton, op. cit. (footnote 521 above), pp. 270–272. 612 See, e.g., the Foreign Compensation (People’s Republic of China), Order, Statutory Instrument No. 2201 (1987) (London, HM Stationery Office), para. 10, giving effect to the settlement Agreement between the United Kingdom and China (footnote 551 above). 613 See, e.g., McKesson Corporation v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 116 F, Supp. 2d 13 (2000).