GIFF JOHNSON
A United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons spent 10 days visiting the Marshall Islands in October and issued a detailed report at the end of her visit.
The Special Rapporteur’s report, which will be presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in June next year, focuses on the many relocations of Marshallese people by the US military to facilitate nuclear weapons testing at Bikini and Enewetak, and later missile testing at Kwajalein.
It is the second major UN investigation and report on the US nuclear weapons testing from a human rights perspective conducted this year. Earlier this year, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights engaged in a detailed review focused on “transformative justice” issues for the Marshall Islands.
The full report of this earlier human rights review was submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in September. That report is titled: “Addressing the challenges and barriers to the full realization and enjoyment of the human rights of the people of the Marshall Islands, stemming from the State’s nuclear legacy.”
The “end of mission statement” by the Special Rapporteur Paula Gaviria Betancur said the Marshall Islands “faces a complicated and multifaceted displacement situation, one that is inextricably intertwined with the international community’s failure to uphold its obligations towards a remote small island developing state buffeted by forces beyond its control.”
The report is blunt in its assessment of the history of forced resettlements by the United States military from the 1940s to the 1960s, and the continuing fallout from those displacements.
“In 1946, as an occupying power with no internationally-legitimized jurisdiction over the country, the United States forcibly displaced the Indigenous People of Bikini Atoll, comprising some 167 residents, to Rongerik Atoll before carrying out two atomic bomb tests in Bikini Atoll in July of that year; at this time, the peoples of Enewetak, Rongelap, and Wotho were also temporarily forcibly displaced while the tests were ongoing,” the report states.
It notes the United Nations granted the US a trusteeship over the Micronesia area in 1947. “This agreement was unique in that the United States was effectively able to eliminate any checks and balances on its authority by arguing for administration of the islands as a Strategic Trust, which not only permitted use of the territories covered for military activities but also ensured that the Trust was administered by the Security Council, where the United States enjoys veto power as a permanent member.”
It points out that the Bikini, Rongelap and Enjebi people (Enewetak) remained displaced today. The report also discusses the relocations by the US military of islanders from Lib in the early 1960s and later from the mid-corridor islands in Kwajalein Atoll to make way for missile testing.
It concludes with a series of recommendations for the Marshall Islands, the US and the United Nations, which include:
- The RMI should adopt “a comprehensive policy on internal displacement covering all forms of displacement and all aspects of the displacement cycle, with an institutional body that is charged with oversight and implementation of this policy across all relevant areas.”
- The United States should “re-examine the displacement and other violations of the human rights of the Marshallese people that its actions continue to cause today and pursue an approach that seeks to provide meaningful remedy to victims. An initial step would be to acknowledge that nuclear damages have not been remedied by the paltry past settlements and to fully fund payment of the claims assessed by the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, as well as contribute significantly to the Marshall Islands’ efforts to combat the effects of climate change given overlap with the nuclear legacy, and compensate others affected by displacement whose stories remain not fully acknowledged, including the people of Lib Island.”
- “Like the United States, the United Nations must apologize for its role in the Marshall Islands’ nuclear and military legacies. It should also give weight to such an apology by strengthening its presence in and assistance programs to the Marshall Islands.”