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Former US Test Site Sues Nuclear Nations For Disarmament Failure
mdsolar (1045926) writes "The tiny Pacific republic of the Marshall Islands, scene of massive U.S. nuclear tests in the 1950s, sued the United States and eight other nuclear-armed countries on Thursday, accusing them of failing in their obligation to negotiate nuclear disarmament. The Pacific country accused all nine nuclear-armed states of 'flagrant violation of international law' for failing to pursue the negotiations required by the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It filed one suit specifically directed against the United States, in the Federal District Court in San Francisco, while others against all nine countries were lodged at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, capital of the Netherlands, a statement from an anti-nuclear group backing the suits said. The action was supported by South African Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation said."
Yeah, Ukraine agreed to disarmament and look what happened. I'm willing to bet that if that country exists in two years we'll see them performing at least one nuclear test.
They should have tried this after Fukushima, now it looks like any country that does disarm is just asking to be conquered.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
because one of their residents was mean to me once? What is with everyone suing everyone. Real men do not sue. They get even. John Wayne never once sued anyone, he just handled his business. I would have no problem if the Marshals decided to conduct a nuclear test or 10 on the CONUS. That would be just deserts; but suing really. Why not just sue God because he gave you bad weather, and your people starved, or better yet just sue your parents beacuse they won't pay for your college and give you a free car.
Fuck we need to stop suing. It would be one thing if the court system represented a wise and honorable impartial system that could deal out justice in a fair manner. But we all not that it isn't. It is just a group of bullies who use words and laws to get their way rather that using fists like real men do.
mutually assured destruction somewhat works in preventing nuclear weapon use during warfare.
and disarmament will only work if all country's that have nuclear weapons will disarm at exact the same time.
I don't see North Korea disarm any time soon.
No other country has made the USA accountable for its past misdeeds. How could this sycophantic country even try? It gets more laughable: The Islands depend on US aid so this is biting the hand that feeds them.
Bye bye boys!
Have fun storming the castle.
(think it'll work?)
(it would take a miracle...)
Bye Byyyye
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
'The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation said the five original nuclear weapons states - The United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - were all parties to the NPT, while the others - Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea - were "bound by these nuclear disarmament provisions under customary international law."'
It's an excellent point though not a new one. One that is often studiously ignored by the media, so it's good to see it getting a little press. The terms of the NPT are pretty clear, and while they are unfortunately not operational and thus subject to all the normal lawyer tricks... the fact is every signatory has been pretty blatantly violating it almost from the moment of signing. No one has been negotiating in good faith towards eliminating nukes even after being maneuvered into solemnly agreeing on the record to do so.
The mainstream media outlets are always happy to press this case on North Korea. They have ratchetted back and forth a bit over Russia and China, but always at least hostile. Yet how often do they say anything about the other members of this 'club?'
And just how do these nuclear signatories of the NPT expect to have credibility in pushing non-signatory states to accept being bound to it by custom despite having deliberately declined to sign, when they themselves flaunt its obligations?
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
By the way, The Hague is not the capital of the Netherlands, although it is where the pairlement is seated.
Save that Goliath has an M1 Abrams loaded with canister rounds and David... still has a sling.
Obviously their lawyers are White Martians preparing us for the invasion.
It's never too late to resume the tests on those islands. :-)
"the International Court of Justice in The Hague, capital of the Netherlands,"
The Hague is where the international court is located, but it's not the capital, that's Amsterdam.
According to the Dutch constitution Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, although the parliament and the Dutch government have been situated in The Hague since 1588, along with the Supreme Court and the Council of State.[1][2]
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Boy I hope this turns into a winnable case.
That treaty has never been enforced. This lawsuit won't change that- but it might inform the generation coming into power that there is a need to disarming.
Go Marshall Islands!
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Am I the only one that saw this? The capital of the Netherlands is Amterdam...
When it comes to things like free trade, our fearless leaders squawk about how their hands are tied because treaties. But here we have a treaty that they have managed to start ignoring completely before the ink even dried, and then for more than 40 years.
but this isn't quite how it works.
I was just reading Carl Sagan's Cosmos this evening. He mentions the Marshall Islands nuclear test near the end of the book:
The Hiroshima explosion, unlike the subsequent Nagasaki
explosion, was an air burst high above the surface, so the fallout
was insignificant. But on March 1, 1954, a thermonuclear weapons
test at Bikini in the Marshall Islands detonated at higher yield
than expected. A great radioactive cloud was deposited on the
tiny atoll of Rongalap, 150 kilometers away, where the inhabitants
likened the explosion to the Sun rising in the West. A few
hours later, radioactive ash fell on Rongalap like snow. The
average dose received was only about 175 rads, a little less than
half the dose needed to kill an average person. Being far from the
explosion, not many people died. Of course, the radioactive
strontium they ate was concentrated in their bones, and the
radioactive iodine was concentrated in their thyroids. Two-
thirds of the children and one-third of the adults later developed
thyroid abnormalities, growth retardation or malignant tumors.
In compensation, the Marshall Islanders received expert medical
care.
The capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam, not The Hague. The Hague is the seat of government though, and the location of most of the international institutions like the International Court of Justice.
Our Words Are Backed By The Power Of Nuclear Weapons!
Capital is Amsterdam. The government, however, is located in The Hague.
... of anyone discussing the topic? In case everyone has forgotten, that is the attempt by the Marshall Islands to sue the nuclear powers for ignoring their obligations to disarm. Also to sue the USA for exploding nuclear and thermonuclear weapons on its (tiny) territory?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
How do they have standing to sue us? Are they even a real country? I believe we owned that test island at the time.
And that particular explosion saved us all from a hundred years of a world wide communist dictatorship.
You're welcome.
"Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."
Note that this part of the Treaty does NOT say that they have to continually pursue negotiations until the end of time. All they had to do was pursue negotiations ONCE in order to fulfill the Treaty.
There were regular nuclear disarmament negotiations during the 1970s and 1980s - right up until the point where one of the participants in the NNPT effectively disbanded.
For the US and Russia, they will point to arms reductions treaties over the years. China will say our arsenal is smaller than theirs. UK and France may opt for the same. India, Pakistan and North Korea will say they are not bound by the treaty and Israel will say "What weapons?" This is the latest effort: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Well I'll be damned, I lived with the notion that he's already dead. Guess no-one just gives a fuck about him, once apartheid and Soviet bloc kicked the bucket. Hopefully, he'll crawl back under whatever stone he's been hiding since then.
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
The peaceful uses of nuclear material have us well on the way to an extinction level event. I guess that threat was not anticipated or suppressed by commercial interests. At least the military tends to be realistic or even paranoid in it's assessment of risks and outcomes. Read up on cesium 137, Fukushima, and what isn't being reported in the media if you want a real eye opener.
Funny you should mention that in an article about the Marshall Islands :( It's the only US territory where slavery is not just a freak occurrence perpetrated by a kidnapper but instead a more frequent event.
"New Zealand relies on the kindness of others for its defense."
NZ has fought in other peoples wars for a long time (like 99 years exactly April 25th is the 99th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings)
My grandfather fought in the 1st World War middle east (NZ mounted rifles)
Other wars we fought include WWII, Korea and Vietnam
in the 1st gulf war we sent mostly medical personel and transport planes.
Our SAS was invloved in the early stages of the Afghanistan conflict just after 9/11
And we helped the Aussies in East Timor (of course you probably never heard of that conflict)
Its true that we didn't join in the 2003 Bush war in Iraq, but not many others did either.
The fact that we were kicked out of ANZUS because we wouldn't allow nuclear powered and armed ships and boats in our harbours is not our fault - there are many otther places in the world that don't let nukes in.)
But mostly NZ relies on the distance across the Pacific.
Only one country has attacked us in the last 4 decades, and that was France.
This is a frivilous lawsuit, and an embarrassment to the global community.
Unless they want to sue Bill Clinton, because it was under his administration that the dismantling of the stockpile leveled off.
Even under W, who at the very least saw that traditional nuclear weapons (as opposed to tactical warheads) were not worth the hazard, we reduced the stockpile by half.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
South Africa actually tested a nuclear device once and then gave up on further development.
*Some* people think the Vela Incident was a nuclear test, and the island is between South Africa and Antarctica, but Wikipedia hardly makes it sound definite. Other than that, there was one "cold test" (no nuclear material involved) that France et. al strongarmed them into cancelling.
The Vela Incident — sometimes referred to as the South Atlantic Flash — was an unidentified "double flash" of light detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite on September 22, 1979, near the Prince Edward Islands off Antarctica, which many believe was of nuclear origin. The most widespread theory among those who believe the flash was of nuclear origin is that it resulted from a joint South African and Israeli nuclear test.[1][2][3] The topic remains highly disputed today.
While a "double flash" signal is characteristic of a nuclear weapons test, the signal could also have been a spurious electronic signal generated by an aging detector in an old satellite, or a meteoroid hitting the Vela satellite. No corroboration of an explosion, such as the presence of nuclear byproducts in the air, was ever publicly acknowledged, even though there were numerous passes in the area by U.S. Air Force planes specifically designed to detect airborne radioactive dust. Other examiners of the data, including the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and defense contractors, have come to the conclusion that the flash was not a result of a nuclear detonation.[4][5][6] Much information about the event remains classified.
South Africa did actually have 6 nukes, and 1 more under construction. They dismantled them in 1989.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
The Marshal Islanders should be bringing charges against Hormel for genocide.
not sure if joking or not...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
...as are international law, war crimes, etc. None of these "laws" are enforced, except at the point of a gun.
I think the upshot is that the NNPT is a dead treaty. The only thing that was of any value to the country's signing on to the treaty as non-nuclear states was the promise not to use nuclear weapons against them. But using nuclear weapons against a country has become the international equivalent of chemical weapons that there is in effect a ban on the use of nuclear weapons regardless of the NNPT. Basically countries that want nuclear weapons go ahead and get them regardless of the NNPT. One could argue that the inspections under the NNPT and the sharing of nuclear energy technology still have value, but country's like Iran who are not actively pursuing nuclear weapons are still blocked from nuclear technology simply because of the fear of nuclear proliferation, so it is clear that being a signatory to the NNPT is no guarantee of any benefit even if you are technically in compliance. Bottom line is that the NNPT has not achieved what it was supposed to and today it is used basically as a way of perpetuating the US grudge over the embassy hostages against Iran.
For stealing the US's radiation. That's property of the US government.