Former US test site sues nuke states, including India and US
25 April 2014 6:07 AM IST
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.
‘The failure of these nuclear-armed countries to uphold important commitments and respect the law makes the world a more dangerous place,’ its statement quoted Tutu as saying.
‘We must ask why these leaders continue to break their promises and put their citizens and the world at risk of horrific devastation. This is one of the most fundamental moral and legal questions of our time.’ The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a US-based non-partisan advocacy group working with the Marshall Islands and its international pro-bono legal team. The Marshall Islands, a grouping of 31 atolls, was occupied by Allied forces in 1944 and placed under US administration in 1947. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted repeated tests of hydrogen and atomic bombs in the islands. On March 1, 1954, was the largest US nuclear test, code-named Bravo.
It involved the detonation of a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll, producing an intense fireball followed by a 20-mile-high mushroom cloud and widespread radioactive fallout. agencies
The action was supported by South African Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation said.
‘The failure of these nuclear-armed countries to uphold important commitments and respect the law makes the world a more dangerous place,’ its statement quoted Tutu as saying.
‘We must ask why these leaders continue to break their promises and put their citizens and the world at risk of horrific devastation. This is one of the most fundamental moral and legal questions of our time.’ The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a US-based non-partisan advocacy group working with the Marshall Islands and its international pro-bono legal team. The Marshall Islands, a grouping of 31 atolls, was occupied by Allied forces in 1944 and placed under US administration in 1947. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted repeated tests of hydrogen and atomic bombs in the islands. On March 1, 1954, was the largest US nuclear test, code-named Bravo.
It involved the detonation of a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll, producing an intense fireball followed by a 20-mile-high mushroom cloud and widespread radioactive fallout. agencies
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