But the lawyer representing people from Bikini atoll in the western Pacific nation is pessimistic about the chances of winning a hearing before America's top court.

"Don't hold out too much hope," Washington-based lawyer Jonathan Weisgall said Thursday.

"The Supreme Court only takes about one percent of the appeals it gets," he warned islanders.

The Bikinians contend that the US Congress cannot take away their constitutional protections for just compensation payments for damage the nuclear testing program did to their islands.

But the US Justice Department said in earlier court hearings that the US Congress provided a "full and final" settlement through a 150 million dollar compensation fund in a treaty between the US and Marshall Islands governments in 1986.

The Marshall Islands was a US-administered trust territory until becoming independent in 1986 under a Compact of Free Association between the two countries.

The US government tested 23 nuclear weapons on Bikini, including "Bravo" in 1954, the largest hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the United States.

Bikini was the site of America's first post-World War II nuclear tests and the atoll is still uninhabited because of radiation contamination.

The Bikinians filed suit in the US Federal Court of Claims in 2006 after a Nuclear Claims Tribunal established with US funding issued a 563 million dollars damage award in their favour but did not have the money to pay it.

The 150 million trust fund set up for the tribunal has produced interest of 300 million dollars, which has all been used up in nuclear-related awards, compensation and related programs set up by the tribunal.

But the tribunal has made further compensation awards despite not having the money to pay them.

The Bikini lawsuit filed in 2006 was first dismissed by the Court of Claims and the lower court's ruling was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit earlier this year.

"Between 1946 and 1958, the United States' nuclear testing program irradiated and partially vaporized the Bikini Atoll while the atoll was under US trusteeship and its people were US dependents," the Bikinians' appeal to the Supreme Court said.

The US government response is due on November 27, but the Justice Department is expected to ask for at least one extension, Weisgall said.

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