Keith Polya
Jaluit Atoll Lagoon in the Marshall Islands. The Marshallese people, like others in Pacific Island nations, were subject to years of nuclear weapons testing.
Pacific Island countries are again pushing the United States to ratify the Treaty of Rarotonga, a decades-old agreement that provides the basis for a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific.
At the review conference for the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that is currently underway at the United Nations, Pacific Island countries highlighted that the Treaty of Rarotonga, which went into force in 1986, remains incomplete.
“We call on the United States to now take the necessary steps toward ratification so that our Treaty can have its full effect,” said Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who spoke on behalf of the parties to the Treaty of Rarotonga and the Pacific Islands Forum.
The Treaty of Rarotonga is a key component of the world’s system of laws and norms geared toward the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Created during the 1980s at the initiative of the Pacific Island countries, which had been subject to decades of nuclear testing by the United States and other nuclear powers, the treaty laid the groundwork for a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific. Parties to the treaty are barred from hosting, testing, and developing nuclear weapons in their territories.
The treaty includes protocols for the Permanent 5, or P5, the five countries recognized under the NPT as nuclear weapons states. Among the P5, France, China, Russia, and the United Kingdom have all ratified the protocols. The United States remains the lone holdout.
During the initial negotiations, the United States worked with its allies to weaken its provisions. Australia preserved options for nuclear powers such as the United States to continue moving nuclear weapons and nuclear-armed vessels through the region.
Another weakness in the treaty is that it does not include the three Pacific Island countries that maintain compacts of free association with the United States. The Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia have never joined the nuclear-free zone. The United States wields a “defense veto” over these three “freely associated states,” or FAS, which it can use to stop them from joining the treaty.
“We tirelessly underscore that no people or nation should ever have to bear a burden such as ours, and that no effort should be spared, to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear risk.”
“The United States may block FAS government policies that it deems inconsistent with its duty to defend the FAS,” a 2020 report by the Congressional Research Service noted.
At the U.N. conference, Marshallese diplomat Amatlain E. Kabua expressed skepticism about the ongoing diplomatic work toward non-proliferation. Citing decades of efforts by the Marshallese people to call attention to the perils of nuclear weapons, Kabua warned that “these circular negotiations on nuclear non-proliferation under the NPT have failed to listen closely to those voices who know better.”
From 1946 to 1958, the United States detonated sixty-seven nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, exposing the Marshallese people to radiation and making several of their islands uninhabitable. Recent Marshallese requests for U.S. assistance have received little attention in Washington, despite the likelihood that a U.S.-built nuclear dumping site known as the Runit Dome is currently leaking radiation into the ocean.
“We tirelessly underscore that no people or nation should ever have to bear a burden such as ours, and that no effort should be spared, to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear risk, through any and all effective pathways,” Kabua said.
The United States could join the Treaty of Rarotonga with little effort, having already laid the groundwork for ratification. In 1996, the Clinton Administration signed the protocols to the treaty. In 2011, the Obama Administration sent the protocols to the Senate for ratification, which would bring them into force for the United States.
“I am convinced that it is in the best interest of the United States to ratify these protocols,” President Obama said, adding that their entry into force “would require no changes in U.S. law, policy, or practice.”
The Senate, however, never ratified the protocols. A major concern in Washington has been that the Pacific Island countries could modify the treaty for the purpose of prohibiting all nuclear-related activities in the region. Such a move would make it illegal for the United States to send nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered vessels through the South Pacific.
“We see the Treaty of Rarotonga as a living document and a symbol of our region’s long-standing opposition to nuclear weapons,” Bainimarama noted.
So far, the Biden Administration has shown little interest in the treaty. Instead, it has focused on strengthening the U.S. position in the South Pacific, which officials view as an increasingly important region, particularly in relation to China.
“We will significantly deepen our engagement in the Pacific Islands,” Vice President Kamala Harris announced in July. “We will embark on a new chapter in our partnership—a chapter with increased American presence.”
The growing geopolitical competition between China and the United States remains a major concern to the Pacific Island countries. With China and the United States jockeying for influence, Pacific Island leaders believe it has become increasingly important to keep nuclear weapons out of the area.
“The world and our Pacific region do not need nuclear weapons to survive,” said H.E. Fatumanava-o-Upolu III Dr. Pa’olelei Luteru, chair of the Pacific Small Island Developing States. “Nuclear weapons are a nemesis to all.”