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."

Comments

Good for them!

[Arker]

'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?

Re:Ukraine

[cold fjord]

It looks to me like you've got that completely wrong, not the least of which is the strategic weapons Ukraine had were developed by the Soviet Union of which both Russia and Ukraine were a part. As to the rest ...

Half of Ukraine's electricity is from nuclear power. That have 13 reactors now, and plan to add 11 more. Access to enriched nuclear materials isn't likely to be much of a problem.

Ukraine's strange love for nuclear power

Missile

Ukraine is capable of producing advanced intercontinental range ballistic missiles, and its missile industry is second only to Russia's among the former Soviet republics. The linchpin of this industry is the former Yuzhnoye Scientific Production Association, arguably the preeminent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) design and production facility in the Former Soviet Union, whose capabilities are matched only by a handful of U.S. and Russian missile enterprises.