CYIL Vol. 6, 2015

JAKUB HANDRLICA

CYIL 6 ȍ2015Ȏ

Low risk installations Further, the Vienna Convention envisages the possibility of an Installation State to exclude any small quantities of nuclear material from the application of this Convention, provided that maximum limits for the exclusion of such quantities have been established by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency; and any exclusion by an Installation State is within such established limits. The maximum limits shall be reviewed periodically by the Board of Governors. However, unlike the Paris Convention, 60 the Vienna Convention does not envisage the possibility to exclude “low risk installations” from the scope of applicability of the Convention. In particular, this provision might be of importance for some types of research reactors , but also for some types of small nuclear reactors . 61 Consequently, the Amended Vienna Convention contains a new provision 62 which allows such exclusion, provided that criteria for such exclusion have been established by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Conclusions Since the adoption of the Vienna Convention, the issue of its applicability on various types of nuclear installations has been a matter of scientific discussions. When the Convention was drafted, the question of hazards arising from certain uses of nuclear materials was not yet fully understood. The lack of explicit provisions concerning these uses in the Convention is due to the fact that, when the Convention was 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. However, most recently, problems have arisen from the disposal of radioactive waste, the decommissioning of nuclear installations and also from the launching of new nuclear technologies ( e.g. floating nuclear power plants, nuclear fission etc. ) which again raised questions concerning the applicability of the liability regime of this Convention to various types of technologies. In this respect, the Amended Vienna Convention strengthens the existing legal framework and constitutes an appropriate tool to cope with the challenges discussed in this contribution.

60 The Paris Convention provides in Art. 1 /b/, that the Steering Committee may, if in its view the small extent of the risks involved so warrants, exclude any nuclear installation, nuclear fuel, or nuclear substances from the application of this Convention. 61 See RILEY, P. Institutional Challenges to Mini Nuclear Power Plants: A Way Forward, In Nuclear Inter Jura 2009, Toronto: INLA, 2009, at pp. 153-162. 62 Art. I. Par. 2.

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