NAN-F-18
Suit
Amsterdam, Oct. 5, 2016 (Reuters/NAN) The International Court of Justice in the Hague, on Wednesday rejected suits filed by Marshall Islands against the world’s nuclear powers that sought to force them to do more to disarm.
Though the suits failed on procedural grounds, India, Pakistan and Britain were brought to the court to answer the complaint at public hearings in April.
In its ruling in the country’s case against India, the first of the three to be decided, the court said it had accepted Indian arguments that the ICJ should not have jurisdiction in the case.
Judges said that while the Marshall Islands might not be satisfied with progress on nuclear disarmament, it had failed to show that it had any ongoing legal dispute with India fit for the court to adjudicate.
The court later rejected Marshall Islands’ suit against Pakistan on the same grounds. The third suit, against Britain, was still to be decided.
The other nuclear powers including China, France, Russia and the U.S., as well North Korea and Israel yet to publicly declare they possess nuclear weapons, did not respond to the suit the islands filed in 2015.
The Marshall Islands, with a population of 53,000, was the site of dozens of atomic-bomb tests by the U.S. after World War II.
The leadership of the country had argued that nuclear powers failed to adhere to the 1970 Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons by developing a new generation of “tactical” nuclear weapons.
In 1996, at the request of the UN General Assembly, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion on nuclear weapons.
It said that the countries were obliged “to pursue in good faith and bring to conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.
But the court ruled that given its lack of jurisdiction, it would not consider the Marshall Islands’ arguments on their merits. (Reuters/NAN)
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Edited by Damilola Oyewole and Controlled by Archibong Asuquo