Nuclear waste management activities in the pacific basin and regional cooperation on the nuclear fuel cycle

Abstract

Abstract Pacific Ocean and island sites have been used since World War II for nuclear activities, including effluent discharges from nuclear facilities, sea dumping of packaged radioactive wastes, and testing of nuclear explosives. In the future, the amounts of radioactive wastes deliberately released into the Pacific Ocean may increase in connection with planned commercial‐scale nuclear fuel reprocessing operations, recommencement of plutonium production for weapons purposes, and resumption of sea dumping of low‐level wastes. Proposed storage of spent nuclear fuel on Pacific island sites or disposal of high‐level wastes in the deep seabed of the Pacific could also expose the ocean to a risk of contamination by long‐lived radio‐nuclides. The consequences of all these activities should be assessed in practical terms—their likely effects on the living marine resources of the Pacific and the economic development of the societies benefited by them; in terms of the legal principles which govern activities such...