The Nation - News from April 30, 1989

A three-member federal appeals court panel has upheld the dismissal of suits by Pacific islanders claiming damages from U.S. nuclear tests. “Congress has stripped the courts of jurisdiction over these claims,” declared the appeals court opinion. U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan had ruled in 1987 that federal courts have no jurisdiction to assess the validity of an agreement giving the government of the Marshall Islands authority to press claims of citizens for damages from the atomic tests between 1946 and 1958. The Marshall Islands and the United States in 1986 signed a Compact of Free Association giving the islands self-government status. Under the independence settlement, the United States gave the Marshall Islands government $150 million to pay people claiming damages from the U.S. nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s.