The Brussels Convention on the Liability of Operators of Nuclear Ships: Expectations, Basic Principles and the Reasons of Failure
Abstrakt
The Convention on the Liability of Operators of Nuclear Ships was adopted in Brussels on 25 May 1962, as a free standing convention (not under the aegis of either the OECD/NEA or the IAEA). The Convention was intended to apply to nuclear damage caused by a nuclear incident occurring in any part of the world and involving the nuclear fuel of, or radioactive products or waste produced in, a nuclear ship flying the flag of a contracting party.
In most respects, the Convention closely resembles the Paris and Vienna nuclear liability conventions. Nevertheless, the Convention has not entered into force until now, mostly because of the following reasons: Firstly, there have been virtually no commercial nuclear fleets in operation in the years coming after the adoption of the convention.
Second, the Convention covers military vessels and those states with major military nuclear fleets have not been interested in becoming contracting parties to this Convention. Finally, liability has been limited to an anachronistic amount of 1500 million gold francs.
However, according to the most current statements made by some states (in particular the Russian Federation), the nuclear fleet is planned to be further enhanced by new-generation nuclear vessels in coming years. Having these developments in mind, we have to currently face the question of which nuclear liability regime will be most appropriate for these newly built fleets and what lessons are to be learned from the deadlock of the Brussels Convention on the Liability of Operators of Nuclear Ships.