UN top court rejects Marshall Islands' bid to sue India on nuclear disarmament

The Hague: The UN's highest court on Wednesday threw out a bid by the tiny Marshall Islands to sue India for failing to halt the nuclear arms race, saying it lacked jurisdiction.

"The court upholds the objection to jurisdiction raised by India... And finds that it cannot proceed to the merits of the case," judge Ronny Abraham told the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The Marshall Islands had earlier filed a suit against the world`s nuclear powers that sought to force them to do more to disarm.

In its ruling in the country`s case against India, the first to be decided, the court said it had accepted Indian arguments that the ICJ, also known as the World Court, should not have jurisdiction in the case.

The Marshall Islands, population 53,000, whose territory was used for dozens of atomic-bomb tests by the United States after World War Two, had argued that nuclear powers weren`t doing enough to adhere to the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

With Agency inputs