UN urges US reparations over Marshall Islands nuclear tests

The UN rights office on Thursday urged Washington to ensure full and effective reparations for people affected by US nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, a tiny Pacific nation.

Home to approximately 37,000 inhabitants, the Marshall Islands were the site of 67 US nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958 – the environmental and health impacts of which are still being felt today.

“For the Marshallese, this history is not past,” said deputy UN rights chief Awa Dabo.

“It lives on in bodies and families. In lands poisoned and communities displaced, and it lives in the demands, across generations, for recognition and justice,” she told the UN Human Rights Council.

The consequences of the 1958 “Cactus” test continue to weigh on the Marshall Islands.

Two decades later, the US military dumped contaminated waste from dozens of other tests into the test crater. The entire site was capped with a vast, circular concrete dome.

Due to cost considerations, the bottom of the crater was not lined with concrete, raising fears that radioactive material could leach out.

After decades of exposure to the elements, cracks appeared in the dome. Furthermore, the structure is threatened by rising sea levels caused by global warming.

The consequences of the US nuclear testing programme extend beyond the dome.

Many residents were forcibly evacuated from lands they had occupied for generations, and thousands of others were affected by radioactive fallout.

“Virtually every Marshallese family has been touched by the enduring health consequences of the nuclear testing, which include elevated rates of cancer,” said Dabo.

In a report presented to the rights council, the UN rights office urged Washington to “recognise that there has not yet been a comprehensive just settlement of claims arising from the nuclear testing programme”.

It called on the US to provide “full and effective remedies for the human rights impact of the nuclear legacy for all Marshallese, including by declassifying and making accessible all information related to the nuclear legacy”.

Under a 1980s agreement, the Marshall Islands officially accepted a full and final payment intended to cover the impact of the nuclear tests, amounting to US$150 million.

However, “the settlement of claims did not cover harm done to future generations, moral damage, environmental degradation or other forms of harm”, said Dabo.

Established by the archipelago in 1987, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal issued several rulings over the following decades, setting the total compensation to be paid at more than US$2.3 billion.

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