India Questions Legality Of U.S. H-Bomb Tests

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27909, 5 March 1956, Page 11

India Questions Legality Of U.S. H-Bomb Tests

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 8 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 2. India served notice today in the United Nations that it might seek to have the World Court rule on whether the United States had the right to carry out hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific Trust territories. Speaking in the Trusteeship Council, Mr V. K. Krishna Menon (India) said that if the United Slates embarked on its announced series of tests, beginning on April 20, his Government would submit the proposal to the next council meeting.

“We want the World Court to tell us whether the right to destroy trust property is vested in the trusteeship agreement,” said Mr Menon. “I submit that it was not.” The tests will be conducted in the Marshall Islands, a trust territory administered by the United States Government.

Mr Menon raised the possibility of taking the issue to the World Court during council consideration of a Soviet resolution.

This would have had the council declare that nuclear tests in trust territories were “inadmissible.” The Soviet resolution was not pressed to a vote. Dr. E. Ronald Walker (Australia) questioned the vali’idity of discussing "matters of such enormous extent” in the Trusteeship Council. He said the speeches showed that the matter was far beyond the normal sphere of the council’s competence. Mr Menon, noting that a 375.000 square mile safety zone was being set up and other so-called precautions taken, said that India did not believe precautions could be taken against radiation.

"This is a fishing area and fishermen usually do not read the communications of governments,” he commented.

He recalled the unexpected fall-out from the last American hydrogen explosion in the same area two years ago and said that the calculations then had been upset by an unexpected change of wind. Hydrogen bomb explosions must stop, he declared, whether by the Soviet Union, Britain or’ the United States. "These things are dangerous to humanity,” he said, "and they stand in the way of the advance of civilisation. "The hydrogen Powers have now in their possession all the powers of destruction that are necessary to blow this planet to pieces.” Mr Benjamin Gerig, of the United States, replied that the United States would take extensive precautions in the area of the tests. On the legal aspects of the question, he said there were many precedents for carrying on various kinds ol tests of this nature over vast areas. He said that when the United States entered into its trusteeship agreement the Security Council unanimously approved it with full knowledge that atomic tests had been made and would be made there.