Addressing Nuclear Legacy in the Marshall Islands

by Yoshiki Narita and Masato Abe

Highlights

The nuclear legacy of the Marshall Islands remains a complex governance and justice challenge shaped by evidentiary uncertainty, geographic dispersion and migration, all of which fragment data and constrain nationally led monitoring and service delivery. This paper argues that indigenous data sovereignty (IDS) offers a practical foundation for strengthening Marshallese authority over environmental, health and historical records, supporting credible evidence generation and reinforcing justice-oriented policy autonomy. Drawing on the United Nations human-rights practices and comparative indigenous governance models, the paper presents IDS as a means to consolidate dispersed datasets, embed informed consent and community participation and integrate scientific analysis with Marshallese knowledge systems. To operationalize these principles, the paper proposes hybrid arrangements that maintain national leadership while drawing on targeted United Nations and regional support. Such approaches can harmonize monitoring standards, coordinate victim-facing services across mobile and diasporic populations and build long-term scientific, archival and analytical capacity appropriate to small-island contexts. By combining IDS with adaptive hybrid governance, the paper outlines policy options to reduce fragmentation, strengthen institutions and advance a coherent, nationally owned system for remediation, resettlement and intergenerational health. The overall aim is to transition from externally driven, episodic initiatives to a sustainable, Marshallese-led nuclear-justice framework that enhances trust, accountability and self-determined recovery.