Leaders from multiple Pacific Island countries are urging Japan "to store or dump their nuclear waste in their home countries rather than storing or dumping them in the Pacific," Secretary-General Henry Puna of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) said in a statement on Monday.

As early as in December 2020, Pacific Island countries, as States Parties to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, have "recalled concerns about the environmental impact of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactor accident in 2011 and urged Japan to take all steps necessary to address any potential harm to the Pacific," said the statement.

Leaders of these countries have "called on States to take all appropriate measures within their territory, jurisdiction or control to prevent significant transboundary harm to the territory of another state, as required under international law."

Pacific Island countries have a legal obligation "to prevent the dumping of radioactive wastes and other radioactive matter by anyone" and "not to take any action to assist or encourage the dumping by anyone of radioactive wastes and other radioactive matter at sea anywhere within the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone," it said.

The statement added that Japan's plan to dump nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean "is not merely a nuclear safety issue. It is rather a nuclear legacy issue, an ocean, fisheries, environment, biodiversity, climate change, and health issue with the future of our children and future generations at stake."

People from the Pacific Island countries have gained nothing from Japan's plans, but leaves generations to come at great risk, the statement noted.