Former US Test Site Sues Nuclear Nations For Disarmament Failure 165
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."
Good for them! (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [bbc.co.uk]
Missile [nti.org]
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.
Re:Hague, Capital? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, you are not alone. Interestingly the sentence came from the article itself - written by Reuters. I though Reuters was one of the places where you could find real journalists. So ... you could say that /. reached the quality of Reuters which is undoubtedly a great achievement.
Re:Ukraine (Score:4, Interesting)
And NATO does exactly the same. Both sides test the awareness of the others all the time. Such "accidents" happen tens of times per year...of course the public is ignorant and unwilling to educate themselves so it is easy to manipulate in this manner....
The wackos are preparing for WWIII. It scares the hell out of me and don't you think for a second that there is a good guy in this mess. They are all guilty as sin – the Russians and the West.
Do you know what actually happened? On a psychological/diplomatic/social level. The winners from the cold war turned out to be ungracious winners. Military doctrine states that after you win if you do not use your victory properly, if you overdo on punishing, pillaging and humiliating the losers, sooner or later they will rise aging and kick you. Germany after WWI anyone? Russia after the Cold war? First, the “sound financial advices” from the west almost destroyed Russia [don’t tell me you don’t know that IMF are the modern day slave-traders], the mafia gained the power, the military bases started cropping, the promise that NATO will not expand east was broken. What did you expect would happen after such humiliation and desperation? Naturally, a strong leader emerges [reinforced by historical tradition] that turns all the tables against the west and start solidifying the nation around anything, anything at all that is different from the western ideology.
Very simple, but very notable example, just for illustration – the prevailing opinion in the east these days is that west is a bloated plutocracy populated chiefly with drug-users, pedos and gays [notice the lumping those people together in one group of “evils” – already the propaganda is apparent]. And the fact the west has all those evils is due to the very socio-economic system they live in so we should never, ever adapt it or even respect it – it only breeds “monsters”. And so on and so forth it goes.naturally similar stereotypes are propagandized in the west as well. So that when the bastards on the top make the wars they so much desire the people will support them since we are fighting sub-humans anyway
Thus, in my opinion, anyone who expresses preference to either side in this conflict is supporting the devils themselves and acts against his/her own interest and the interest of the species.
And BTW, admins, Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands.
Re:Pointless (Score:4, Interesting)
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.