Nuclear Weapons Court Case

Op dit moment begint in Den Haag een uiterst belangrijke rechtzaak betreffende nucleaire bewapening:

The Marshall Islands' Nuclear Zero Cases
in the International Court of Justice 
 
The International Court of Justice in The Hague

   
On April 24, 2014, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) filed applications in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to hold the nine nuclear-armed states accountable for violations of international law with respect to their nuclear disarmament obligations under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and customary international law. The nine states possessing nuclear arsenals are the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel.

The cases are founded on the unanimous conclusion of the ICJ in a 1996 advisory opinion, that there “exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leadings to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

The relief requested is a declaratory judgment of breach of obligations relating to nuclear disarmament and an order to take, within one year of the judgment, all steps necessary to comply with those obligations, including the pursuit, by initiation if necessary, of negotiations in good faith aimed at the conclusion of a convention on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.

The International Legal Team is headed by the two Co-Agents of RMI: Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister, Republic of Marshall Islands, and Phon van den Biesen, an Amsterdam-based lawyer and longtime member of IALANA. Other members of the team (full list here) include John Burroughs, LCNP Executive Director, Peter Weiss, LCNP President Emeritus and IALANA Co-President, and Roger Clark, professor at Rutgers Law School and a member of the LCNP Consultative Council. In a companion case against the United States in U.S. federal court in the Northern District of California, the RMI is represented by the U.S. law firm Keller Rohrback.

More information


Background and Current Status, September 2015
Special IALANA Newsletter, July 2014
Marshall Islands Challenges Nine Nuclear-Armed States in Lawsuit before the World Court, Press Release, April 24, 2014
www.nuclearzero.org – includes applications filed in ICJ
www.icj-cij.org, website of the International Court of Justice
LCNP Amicus Brief in Marshall Islands' appeal in US court case, July 20, 2015

Presentations

Tony de Brum, RMI Minister of Foreign Affairs, NPT PrepCom, plenary session, April 28, 2014 
Phon van den Biesen, Co-Agent, NPT PrepCom, non-governmental presentations to plenary session, April 29, 2014

Tony de Brum, NPT PrepCom, side-event, April 28, 2014:

http://lcnp.org/RMI/

U kunt de zaak via internet bijwonen: http://www.icj-cij.org/presscom/live_english.php?p1=6