Report from Ms. Jacqueline Cabasso, Mayors for Peace Coordinator in North America
On July 17th, six U.S. members of Mayors for Peace and the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) submitted an “amicus curiae” letter in support of the Republic of the Marshall Islands’ (RMI) appeal of the dismissal of their lawsuit in U.S. federal court earlier this year. In its 2014 resolution, the USCM went on record in support of the RMI’s cases in the International Court of Justice against all nine nuclear-armed states for their failure to negotiate nuclear disarmament under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law, and its case against the U.S., which was filed in U.S. federal court. That case was dismissed earlier this year on grounds of standing and the “political question” it might pose. It is now on appeal. Oral arguments will be heard next year.
The mayors’ amicus letter quotes from several of the resolutions adopted annually over the past ten years by the USCM, the nonpartisan association of U.S. cities with populations over 30,000. It was filed by Western States Legal Foundation on behalf of Mayor Mark Stodola of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Mayor Ardelle Brede of Rochester, Minnesota, Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon, Mayor Denny Doyle of Beaverton, Oregon, and Mayor Laurel Lunt Prussing of Urbana, Illinois.
>U.S. mayors’ amicus curiae letter
>Additional information about the RMI lawsuits, including other amicus briefs