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The tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands is taking on the United States and the world’s eight other nuclear-armed nations with an unprecedented lawsuit demanding that they meet their obligations toward disarmament, and accusing them of “flagrant violations” of international law. The island group, which was used for dozens of U.S. nuclear tests after World War II, filed suit Thursday against each of the nine countries, filing the action in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The country is also filing a federal lawsuit against the U.S. in San Francisco, naming President Barack Obama, the departments and secretaries of defense and energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration. The Marshall Islands claims the nine countries are modernizing their nuclear arsenals instead of negotiating disarmament, and it estimates that they will spend $1 trillion on those arsenals over the next decade.

The Marshall Islands was the site of 67 nuclear tests by the U.S. over a 12-year period, with lasting health and environmental effects. “Our people have suffered the catastrophic and irreparable damage of these weapons, and we vow to fight so that no one else on earth will ever again experience these atrocities,” the country’s foreign minister, Tony de Brum, said in a news release announcing the lawsuits. The country is seeking action, not compensation. It wants the courts to require that the nine nuclear-armed states meet their obligations.

In 1996, the ICJ said unanimously that an obligation existed to bring the disarmament negotiations to a conclusion, Burroughs said. Instead, "progress toward disarmament has essentially been stalemated since then," he said.