With its compensation fund nearly exhausted, Tribunal officials say not only is it impossible to make even a token payment this year, but this further confirms the inadequacy of U.S.-provided compensation for nuclear test victims.
Marshall Islands President Litokwa Tomeing has stepped up pressure on U.S. government officials, seeking endorsement of a plan to use U.S. grant funding to provide $1.2 million annually for Marshall Islanders with approved, but not paid, personal injury awards.
Nearly half of the 2,000 islanders who have been awarded nuclear test compensation from the Tribunal have died without receiving 100 percent of their awards, according to Tribunal officials.
But Gregory Danz, chairman of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, said Friday it is not just about compensating people with existing awards. A recent U.S. government study predicts more than 250 cancers caused by U.S. nuclear tests are still to develop in the population of this western Pacific nation.
The Tribunal was established in the late 1980s by a Compact of Free Association between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands with the mandate to adjudicate and compensate personal injury and other claims arising from the 67 American nuclear tests at Bikini and Enewetak.
Tribunal Chairman Danz said no existing awards will be paid this year, and new awards will be limited to five percent of the total award due because of the limited compensation funding left.
The unpaid portion of personal injury awards made by the Tribunal to date is $22.7 million. The unpaid class action property awards total more than $2.25 billion.
Since its inception, the Tribunal has paid out more than $73.5 million for personal injuries, and about $3.9 million has been paid for property awards.
The Nuclear Claims Fund is almost empty, Danz said. As of early November, only $250,916.79 remained in a fund that started as a $150 million investment provided by the U.S. government under the first Compact in 1986.
“With total personal injury awards in excess of $96 million, an annual payment of even one-fourth of one percent to each awardee would exhaust the Fund, force the closure of the Tribunal, and foreclose the possibility of any award of payment for future claimants,” Danz said.
He said that the Tribunal will continue to function with a greatly reduced budget “for such time that is necessary to complete an administrative scheme to address outstanding property claims, and provide a means to address future personal injuries resulting from the nuclear testing program with at least a minimal level of initial payment for a limited period of time.”
But, said Danz, the limited amount of funding left will not support Tribunal operations for another year.
Maintaining operations into the future is crucial to meet the needs of people who develop cancers from exposure to U.S. nuclear tests in the coming years, Danz indicated.
He referred to a U.S. National Cancer Institute study on the Marshall Islands issued in 2004 that estimated 531 cancers would result among Marshall Islanders exposed to fallout from the U.S. nuclear testing program at Bikini and Enewetak, and over half of these cancers were still to develop in the population.
“There continues to be a need for the Tribunal to adjudicate the claims of the people of the Marshall Islands, which can only be accomplished in the absence of an annual payment this year,” Danz said.
Danz said the funding provided by the U.S. was “manifestly inadequate.”
The inability of the Tribunal to provide 100 percent of its compensation awards “provides the best indication of (the) inadequacy (of nuclear test compensation from the U.S.) and the closure of the Tribunal would cripple the efforts of the Marshall Islands to obtain additional funding under (the Compacts nuclear compensation) provision,” Danz said.
