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By GIFF JOHNSON
Calling the US government’s
response to RMI requests for more nuclear test compensation
“old wine in a new bottle,” Rongelap attorney Howard Hills
told the Journal that the report should not be the focus of
the Marshall Islands as it prepares for important US Senate
and House hearings.
The US-based Hills said
that Congressional staffers have indicated to him the plan
is to schedule hearings in the Congress in March or April
this year.
“It would be a mistake to spend too much time and effort
rebutting every point in the US departmental report,” Hills
said.
That report, issued in
early January to the Congress, said there is no legal basis
for the RMI’s “changed circumstances” petition to the
Congress seeking at least $3 billion in compensation. But
Hills downplayed the importance of this negative
“departmental-level” report, saying it reflects the views of
“the same people we’ve been dealing with for 20 years.”
Getting that report done
was a required step in the process to considering the RMI’s
petition, “but it shouldn’t be the focus” of discussions
with the Congress, he said.
The upcoming hearings are a
chance to address “how to fulfill the obligations on the
part of the US Congress, the US and RMI governments” related
to the US nuclear testing program, he said.
Essential to that is
understanding the 177 compensation agreement in the first
Compact, key points of which are ignored by the recently
issued US government report, he said. The terms of the
Compact settlement “included the ability of people to bring
claims to the Nuclear Claims Tribunal and the changed
circumstance provision allowing a petition to Congress for
more compensation,” he said.
The real questions, Hills
said, are whether the US Congress is prepared to consider
and respond to the RMI petition, and do the awards of the
Tribunal have political and legal standing with the US?
“I don’t see the hearings
in Congress as a showdown,” he said. “They’re not a battle
between Department of Energy and RMI scientists. That would
be frustrating and self-defeating.”
The hearings should not
even be looked at in terms of trying to get a quick
appropriation of more money, he said.
The hearings are a chance
to “give the US Congress the record to make an informed
decision on the RMI petition by looking at the complete
record,” Hills said. “It needs to be a cooperative effort so
the US Congress has all the facts on the table.”
After that, the Congress
will have to decide if it is going to do anything more
politically under the 177 agreement, he said.
It is possible that whether
it decides to provide more compensation or rejects the
petition, final decisions could be left to US courts.
“The US Congress needs to make a legal and political
judgment as to whether the compensation is adequate,” Hills
said, adding that the RMI contends it was “manifestly
inadequate.”
The Congress may decide
that the courts are a better forum for evaluating the facts,
science and law behind the RMI’s petition, he indicated.
Nuclear claims were specifically exempted from a Compact
provision that allows other rulings from RMI courts against
the US to be submitted to US federal courts to validate,
modify or reject. But the Congress could decide that the
nuclear claims should be allowed to go to court as are other
legal claims against the US.
Or if the US Congress
rejects the petition, then the government and affected
islands can look at the possibility of refiling claims in US
courts, he said.
The point for the upcoming hearings, said Hills: “The focus
should be less on money and more on the process at this
stage” in order to advance the interests of all affected
islands and the RMI government. |
