Marshall Islands slam India, Pak over 'nuke race'

The Marshall Islands has accused India, Pakistan and Britain of failing to halt the nuclear arms race and will place the matter before the UN's highest court next week to ensure that a lawsuit is initiated against them.

According to reports, lawyers representing the small Pacific Island nation will launch the opening salvos in the International Court of Justice, which will examine whether it is competent to hear the lawsuits against India and Pakistan.

The hearing against Britain is scheduled to take place on the coming Wednesday.

The Marshall Islands, a Pacific Ocean territory with 72,000 people, in 2014 had accused nine countries of not fulfilling their obligations with respect to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, reported The Express Tribune.

The tiny island nation said that China, Britain, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States continued to breach their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), even if the treaty was not signed by India and Pakistan.

Focusing on the threat of global warming, causing the world's oceans to rise, the Marshall Islands said it cannot ignore other major threat to its survival.

In March 2014, the Marshall Islands marked 60 years since the devastating hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll that vapourised an island.

The 15-megaton test on March 1, 1954 exposed thousands in the surrounding area to radioactive fallout and was part of the intense Cold War nuclear arms race.

The explosion was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.