Nuclear liability conventions and decommissioning: exclusion provisions revisited

Abstract

Neither the Paris Convention on Nuclear Third Party Liability of 1960, nor the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage of 1963 specifically addressed the issue of decommissioning nuclear installations in their provisions. The lack of explicit provisions concerning these activities in the liability conventions is due to the fact that, when these instruments were drafted, the development of nuclear energy was in its infancy, and there was little concern about activities at the back end of the fuel cycle. Since the 1980s, problems arose from the decommissioning of nuclear installations again raised questions concerning applicability of the liability regime of these liability conventions on various stages of decommissioning. Since the post-Chernobyl period, the issue of decommissioning was addressed in the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management of 1997. Consequently, the Protocol to Amend the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage in 1997 and in the Protocol to Amend the Paris Convention on Nuclear Third Party Liability of 2004 also raised the issue.