“A Discussion of the Marshall Islands v India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom Case before the ICJ”
Paolo Palchetti Professor in International Law,
University of Macerata, and Counsel for the Marshall Islands.
Tuesday 22 March 2016 at 4.00pm
Carnegie Lecture Theatre
University of Dundee
In 2014 the Marshall Islands, a Pacific Ocean territory with 55,000 people, accused nine countries, including China, Britain, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States of “not fulfilling their obligations with respect to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”.
The Marshall Islands government, said that by not stopping the nuclear arms race, the nine countries continued to breach their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and/or customary international law. The Marshall Islands decided to sue the worlds ‘nuclear heavyweights’ as it said “it has a particular awareness of the dire consequences of nuclear weapons” because between 1946 and 1958 the United States conducted repeated nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands.
Professor Paolo Palchetti, who is Counsel for the Marshall Islands, will talk about the case. Professor Palchetti has, among others, been adviser to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has served as counsel for several states in various international disputes. He is co-editor of Questions of International Law, member of the Board of Directors of Diritti Umani e Diritto Internazionale and a member of the editorial committee of the Rivista di diritto Internazionale. For more information on the case, click here.