{"id":7295,"date":"2016-03-18T06:04:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T06:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.p4.greenpeace.org\/post\/marshall-islands-vs-big-nuclear-will-the-tiny-island-get-the-justice-they-deserve\/"},"modified":"2022-03-07T11:05:28","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T10:05:28","slug":"marshall-islands-vs-big-nuclear-will-the-tiny-island-get-the-justice-they-deserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/7295\/marshall-islands-vs-big-nuclear-will-the-tiny-island-get-the-justice-they-deserve\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshall Islands vs big nuclear – will the tiny island get the justice they deserve?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In April 2014, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a tiny island country part of Micronesia, filed groundbreaking lawsuits<\/a> to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the world\u2019s nine nuclear-armed countries. Now, almost two years later, the ICJ has heard preliminary oral arguments in three of the cases.<\/p>\n

\"Rainbow

Plants and palm trees in foreground, Rainbow Warrior in background at sea.<\/p><\/div>\n

Between 1946 and 1958, 67 nuclear tests were conducted by the US in the Marshalls, making it one of the most contaminated places in the world. With a population of less than 70,000, the Islanders suffered greatly from the impact of radiation; the land and sea poisoned as well. In 1985, the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior<\/a> helped to relocate the residents of one of the most severely impacted islands, Rongelap, after it became clear that high levels of radioactive contamination made most of the island unfit for habitation.<\/p>\n

\"Evacuation

Evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejato by the Rainbow Warrior crew in the Pacific 1985.<\/p><\/div>\n

Between 7-16\u00a0March\u00a02016, the ICJ\u2019s panel of 16 judges heard oral arguments by the Marshall Islands and three respondent nations – the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan. Tony de Brum, Co-Agent of the Marshall Islands and former Foreign Minister, reminded the Court why the Marshall Islands, a small nation with limited resources that is seriously threatened by climate change, would bring these lawsuits against some of the world\u2019s most militarily powerful nations. During the second day of the hearings, he recalled one occasion in 1954 of the testing of a thermonuclear bomb that was 1,000 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb. When the explosion occurred, it began to rain radioactive fallout at Rongelap. Within hours, the atoll was covered with a fine, white, powder-like substance.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one knew it was radioactive fallout,\u201d said Mr de Brum. \u201cThe children thought it was snow. And the children played in the snow. And they ate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Evacuation

Evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejato by the crew of the Rainbow Warrior.<\/p><\/div>\n

The other six nuclear-armed nations \u2013 the United States, Russia, France, China, Israel and North Korea \u2013 do not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ and therefore, would not appear before the Court.<\/p>\n

The Marshall Islands contends that the UK, India and Pakistan are in breach of existing international law, which requires good faith negotiations for an end to the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament.<\/p>\n

\"Evacuation

Islanders with their belongings approach the Rainbow Warrior. The Rainbow Warrior is in Rongelap to assist in the evacuation of islanders to Mejato.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Court is expected to deliver its decision in approximately six months from now. Greenpeace will continue to stand with the people of the Marshall Islands in their fight to rid the world of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

To read more about the hearings just concluded at the ICJ, our friends at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation have been writing daily summaries, which you can find here<\/a>. You can also access to all relevant court documents at the ICJ website for the cases against the UK, India and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Take action today to let the leaders of the Marshall Islands know that you support their courageous legal action. Sign the petition at www.nuclearzero.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jen Maman is the Senior Peace Advisor at Greenpeace International<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In April 2014, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a tiny island country part of Micronesia, filed groundbreaking lawsuits to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the world\u2019s nine nuclear-armed countries. Now, almost two years later, the ICJ has heard preliminary oral arguments in three of the cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":14554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[99,73],"tags":[89,21,109],"p4-page-type":[59],"class_list":["post-7295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ships","category-social-and-economic-systems","tag-climate","tag-rainbow-warrior","tag-nuclear","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7295"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26190,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295\/revisions\/26190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7295"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=7295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}