The Castle Bravo thermonuclear test at Bikini Atoll on 1 March 1954. Photo: US Department of Energy / Public domain
The UN human rights office has told the Human Rights Council that Marshallese communities are still waiting for justice for the 67 nuclear tests carried out by the United States, calling for the release of classified records, reparations and acknowledgement from the UN body that allowed the tests to continue.
Presenting its report to the Council’s 63rd session on 1 October, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said the US conducted the tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, while the islands were under UN trusteeship, with a combined explosive power equivalent to more than 7,000 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to the UN Web TV transcript of the dialogue.
“For the Marshallese, this history is not past,” the deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Council. “It lives on in bodies and families, in poisoned lands and communities that have been displaced.”
OHCHR said virtually every Marshallese family had been affected by the health consequences of the testing, including elevated rates of cancer, and that many displaced communities have been unable to return to their ancestral atolls.
Claims unpaid
The office said the Nuclear Claims Tribunal in the Marshall Islands had assessed more than US$2.3 billion in personal injury and property damage claims, but no claimant has received full compensation because of insufficient funds. The Compact of Free Association and the Section 177 claims settlement with the US did not cover harm to future generations, moral damage or environmental degradation, it said.
It recommended that the US declassify information on the nuclear legacy, including radiation exposure data and testing records, and said the international community, through the UN Trusteeship Council, should consider steps to acknowledge and apologise for the human rights impact of the tests.
The Marshall Islands has identified transitional justice as a way of advancing victims’ rights to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition.
“The continued denial of an effective remedy is itself an ongoing human rights violation,” the UN Human Rights regional representative for the Pacific, Heike Alefsen, said at a side event during the session, the Pacific Islands News Association reported.
‘Told the matter is settled’
“How can we have justice when we are told by those responsible that the matter is settled and that is final?” the Marshall Islands delegation asked the Council.
It said the people of Bikini and Rongelap remain displaced, while on Enewetak people are living beside a nuclear waste dump sealed under a concrete dome. Marshallese people were “experimented on under Project 4.1 without their consent”, it said, and when they petitioned the UN for the tests to stop, the Trusteeship Council issued resolutions that allowed them to continue.
“Without truth, there can be no justice,” the delegation said, calling for “accountability for the human rights, environmental, health consequences of the nuclear legacy”.
The United States, which withdrew from the Human Rights Council last year, did not take part in the dialogue.
