A Study on the Nuclear Liability ACT for the Effectiveness of Land Price Compensation

Abstract

In July 2022, the Tokyo District Court of Japan ruled that JPY 13.321 trillion should be compensated to TEPCO in a JPY 22 trillion lawsuit filed by TEPCO shareholders against five former executives of TEPCO in connection with the Fukushima nuclear accident. It is estimated that JPY 35 to 81 trillion and JPY 68 to 114 trillion will be needed for reconstruction costs over the next 40 years due to the actual accident management caused by the serious accident. In this way, serious accidents that occur in nuclear power plants cause great damage in the long term and wide area. Currently, Korea is operating 25 nuclear power plants and building three new ones. This situation can be considered to increase the hazard of severe accidents at domestic nuclear power plants.
 It was announced that the total amount of individual land prices in Korea exceeded KRW 7,000 trillion for the first time in 2022. This rise in individual land prices in Korea can be seen as difficult to sufficiently guarantee compensation for land that will be damaged by radiation in the event of a serious accident at a nuclear power plant.
 Therefore, this paper analyzed the current status of the nuclear damage compensation system to compensate for serious accidents at nuclear facilities, presented legal, insurance, and fund installation aspects of compensation for radioactive lands in case of serious accidents, and studied ways to secure compensation effectiveness.