Paul Flynn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2016-03-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations the Government has received in the case brought at the International Court of Justice in the Hague from 8 March 2016 by the Marshall Islands against the UK and other states on obligations concerning negotiations relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race and to nuclear disarmament.

Mr Hugo Swire

The Government received legal representations from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 24 April 2014, when the Marshall Islands submitted their application. I met Tony deBrum, the then Marshall Islands Foreign Minister, in May 2014 to discuss the issue. The UK filed written objections to jurisdiction and admissibility with the Court in June 2015, and the Marshall Islands provided a written response to those objections in October 2015. Oral hearings on whether the case should proceed to the next phase in which the merits will be considered are currently underway at the ICJ in The Hague.