POLITIC, CAUTIOUS, AND METICULOUS: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SYMPOSIUM ON THE MARSHALL ISLANDS CASE

Writing in 1831 of the tragic plight of the Cherokee nation whose members had desperately sought the intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the treaties between the United States and the Cherokee whereby the former solemnly promised to protect the latter, Chief Justice Marshall observed, “[i]f courts were permitted to indulge their sympathies, a case better calculated to excite them can scarcely be imagined.” More than sixty nuclear tests were conducted in that part of the Pacific throughout the Cold War. 3 The human consequences for the Marshall Islanders were immense: as one mother stated “[w]omen of the island have given birth to babies that look like blobs of jelly. [...]Ranganathan points out, this was made explicit by the Judges in the controversial Advisory Opinion decision of 1996—the central issue of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons was also decided by the President's casting vote—who referred to the NPT as the best approach to the nuclear problem. 22 In the Marshall Islands case then, it was the NPT itself that was finally and squarely in question. [...]as both Ranganthan and Venzke point out, there is little reason to believe that the political process would advance the goal of disarmament. 23 The arena was open for the law to play the role prescribed for it.