Tiny Pacific Nation Sues 9 Nuclear-Armed Powers

NEW YORK (AP) — The tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands is taking on the United States and the world's eight other nuclear-armed nations with an unprecedented lawsuit demanding that they meet their obligations toward disarmament.

The island group was used for dozens of U.S. nuclear tests after World War II. And today it's filing suit in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands and in federal in the United States.

It's naming as defendants President Barack Obama, the departments and secretaries of defense and energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The Marshall Islands claims the nine countries are modernizing their nuclear arsenals instead of negotiating disarmament, and it estimates that they will spend $1 trillion on those arsenals over the next decade.

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