Copies of records of the Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold

Division within DG

1954-1998

This division contains copies of the most significant records of the Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold relating to the collection and agreed redistribution of monetary gold recovered from defeated powers after the Second World War. Photocopies of selected records are in DG 9

French National Archives

Not Public Record(s)

English

1 series

Open

Foreign and Commonwealth Office , in 1998

Topics

Government finances

Conflict

Operations, battles and campaigns

By agreement of the three member states (France, the United Kingdom and the United States), the records of the Commission were passed to the French National Archives when the Commission was wound up in August 1998, and copies of the most significant records were made and passed to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the US State Department.

The Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold (commonly known as the Tripartite Gold Commission) emerged from Part III of the Paris Agreement on Reparation, which was signed in January 1946 by the United Kingdom, France and the United States. The agreement provided for the establishment of a tripartite commission, to be based in Brussels, which would oversee the collection, storage and eventual distribution of monetary gold recovered from the defeated powers during and after the Second World War according to the provisions of the agreement. The Commission was established in September 1946.

The Tripartite Gold Commission consisted of a representative from each of the three signatories to the Agreement, and had a small secretariat to carry out its operations. The work of the Commission was drawn out over more than fifty years, having been impeded by various difficulties relating to the manner of dividing the accumulated monetary gold. Even when the Commission was wound up, in August 1998, there remained an amount of gold still to be disbursed among the successor states of the former Yugoslavia.