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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
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.
The Islands depend on US aid so this is biting the hand that feeds them.
However... the US respects the law and the treaties they sign.
If there is a legal dispute and they want to take the US to court, then let them take the US to court.
As for whether the US government will abide by any ruling of the court... probably not, due to lack of jurisdiction.
By the way, The Hague is not the capital of the Netherlands, although it is where the pairlement is seated.
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...
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.
the US respects the law and the treaties they sign
Mod +500 Funny
However... the US respects the law and the treaties they sign.
If there is a legal dispute and they want to take the US to court, then let them take the US to court.
Actually, I suspect the reason they filed a separate suit for the US is probably that the States unilaterally withdrew from jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. This is because they were upset of having been found guilty by that court of violating many international laws in a case brought to the ICJ by Nicaragua.
And, more recently, the US even threatened with military action against The Netherlands if the ICJ were ever to consider cases against US military personnel. This became affectionately known as the The Hague Invasion Act, no less.
So no -- the US does not always respect the treaties they sign. See also: Geneva Convention.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
If someone burned down Congress today, half the country would be cheering...
But yes. It's quite amusing what they teach American kids about the War of 1812.
When they started negotiating the treaty to end the war, the British, having won it (Canadian troops did much of the winning, but they were still part of the Empire back then), started by demanding territorial concessions, as is the usual case when winning a war. The Americans asserted that the British couldn't hold the territory they'd taken and refused to give it up, and the British were tired of fighting several wars at once (they were busy fighting Napoleon for most of the war and didn't devote much effort to the minor sideshow that was the war with the USA) so they gave in and agreed to simply return to status quo ante bellum, i.e. the state of affairs before the war began. Some would try to spin that as a "draw", but the British were fine with the state of affairs before the war, it was the US that declared the war in the first place, claiming that the state of affairs prior to the war were intolerable. Although no territory was lost, it was, in fact, a unequivocal defeat for the US. However, several of the reasons the US declared war to begin with were over measures the British were using to fight Napoleon. With Napoleon defeated, those measures came to an end (not because the British gave in, they continued to assert they had the right to do as they did -- they just had no more need to continue doing them). That plus some battlefield victories that occurred after the war was over but before news reached America of the signing of the peace treaty enabled the politicians in Washington to spin the defeat into an illusion of victory, and to this day, you will find many Americans who think they never lost a war before Vietnam, that we actually achieved our objectives in the War of 1812, and that the major victories weren't pointlessly fought after the war was already over but news hadn't reached us yet. Some of this comes from a slanted and incomplete way the story is taught in American classrooms, and some from flat-out misinformation. But in any case, don't be surprised if most Americans are completely incredulous when you try to remind us of the fact that we actually fought a war with the Canadians once... and they kicked our asses.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
"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.
"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.
You're confusing courts here. The Hague Invasion Act is directed against the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was only established in the late 1990s to try individuals charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and/or war crimes. The ICJ has been in existence since 1946 (and has a predecessor, the PCIJ or Permanent Court of International Justice set up under the League of Nations) and only tries inter-state cases, like the one you mentioned by Nicaragua in the 1980s.
The battle of New Orleans was after the peace treaty was signed. Britain wasn't trying to reconqueror the colonies, it was trying to stop its Candian provinces from being conquered by an aggressive expansionist empire while at the same time trying to win a world war against a genocidal miltary despot. I think it suceeded quite well.