Many years ago while at secondary school I happened to chance upon a now out of print book at my local library which unfortunately I cant remember the title or author of, but which I can very clearly remember the subject matter of which was a detailed account of the experiences of British Nuclear Test Veterans, who are collectively the servicemen shipped to places including Christmas Island and Australia to witness Britain's nuclear weapons tests during the 1950's, and the subsequent health difficulties many veterans have faced since in life and death. Of particular interest was that this book concluded with a rather harrowing and extensive index listing the names of many servicemen who had since died from or were suffering at the time from illnesses including leukaemia, bone and other cancers, skin defects and cataracts, or who had later had Children who suffered from birth defects, or similar life illnesses. The general gist was of course that an increased instance of serious illnesses within this group was evident and attributable to exposure to radioactive contamination or fallout at the time of witnessing detonations.
Many years later following years of denial by the MOD and British Government of negligence liability for the health problems of Nuclear veterans, and following the failure of one claim (Pearce v Secretary of State for Defence [1988] AC 755) for lack of provable causation between any radiation exposure and illness, a report on a study by Professor Al Rowland emerged in 2007 (which you can read here) which gave significant hope to veterans by establishing that a test group of New Zealand veterans (who had witnessed British tests) exhibited signs of genetic damage associated with exposure to ionising radiation that were not present in a test group of non veterans. This lent weight to the argument that illnesses suffered by veterans may have been induced by nuclear radiation exposure.
Following this report ten veterans mounted a new High Court test claim in 2009 alleging that the MOD had been negligent in exposing them to radiation to the detriment of their health, and seeking the setting up of a compensation fund for veterans. In that case, the High Court held that although five claims were statute barred under the Limitation Act 1980, the remaining five were allowed to proceed at the courts discretion under s.33 of that Act, the court thereby finding in their favour.
However in 2010 in Ministry of Defence v AB and Others [2010] EWCA Civ 1317 the MOD successfully appealed and overturned four of those successful claims in the Court of Appeal on grounds including lack of causation between radiation exposure and illnesses suffered, and they were statute barred under the Limitation Act 1980 having waited too long beyond the three year limitation period to bring their claims having gained sufficient knowledge of the alleged cause over a protracted period of time since witnessing the detonations. The court also ruled that the High Court had erred in its application of s.33 of the Limitation Act in a decision which can be read here.
Now this week in Ministry of Defence (Respondent) v AB and others (Appellants) these claimants began an appeal to the Supreme Court for a final ruling on the application of the Limitation Act in an attempt to have the Court of Appeal decision overturned. This is expected to be an important decision; if the court finds in their favour then a substantially larger number of claims on behalf of surviving and deceased veterans could potentially arise. If limitation can be set aside, and causation established to raise actionable negligence, the decision will be welcomed by these veterans who willingly served their country only to end up being exposed to a needless and known radiological risk in the pursuit of a highly questionable and destructive arms race, one which also involved in many cases between Britain, the USA, Russia, France, China, Pakistan, India and now North Korea, the forced repatriation of populations from their homes, large scale destruction and contamination of Pacific islands, the detonation of hundreds of nuclear weapons within continental Australia, the USA, Russia, Siberia, the South Pacific, Asia and the Indian continent (the population health effects of which have never been publicly acknowledged), and the stockpiling of thousands of nuclear warheads throughout all nuclear power states. Hardly a noble pursuit in the interests of mankind, or indeed our planet.
The Supreme Court case awaits judgment.
Mike Farrell - November 2011
(This is an edit of a post which earlier appeared on the authors own site LawBlogOne)