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CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ
DO THE EUROPEANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO GET INFORMATION ABOUT…
information in the evaluation documents. In 2012 it prepared a Mission Report
on the Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review, where it recommended to the
Belarusian Ministry of Emergency Situations and to the Department of Nuclear
and Radiation Safety that they “complete a statement/strategy of regulator policy
regarding availability of information to the public for the purpose of transparency
and building trust in the regulatory body and for the public’s perception of safety of
Belarus’s nuclear power programme.”
39
Furthermore, the IAEA prepared an extensive
report on the Nuclear Power Plant in Ostrovets according to the methodology called
INPRO. The experts stated that “The detailed assessment of the Belarus NES using
the INPRO methodology found some so-called gaps, i.e. not complete fulfilment
of INPRO criteria for certain issues […] Most of these gaps are data that were not
available to the assessor at the time the report was written”.
40
2.2 The Obligations in the Convention on Environmental Impact
Assessment in a Transboundary Context
Furthermore, the obligations to provide information about the construction of
a nuclear power plant are outlined in the Convention on Environmental Impact
Assessment in a Transboundary Context, signed in Espoo, Finland, in 1991 (hereinafter
– the Espoo Convention). This Convention obligates its member states to provide
information and the possibility to participate in the procedures of the environmental
impact assessment to another State having joined the Convention when the activity
listed in the Convention is likely to cause a significant adverse transboundary impact.
The provisions of the Convention obligate the State in which the activity is planned
to provide notification of such activity to all the states that could be affected by the
proposed activity.
41
Therefore the State of origin prepares the environmental impact
assessment report of the projected facility and has the duty to notify the possibly
affected states of such activity. As is outlined in the Convention, “For a proposed
activity listed in Appendix I that is likely to cause a significant adverse transboundary
impact, the Party of origin shall, for the purposes of ensuring adequate and effective
consultations under Article 5, notify any Party which it considers may be an affected
Party as early as possible and no later than when informing its own public about that
proposed activity.”
42
The content of the notification is outlined further – the notification should contain
the information on the planned activity, including any information that is available
39
International Atomic Energy Agency ‘Mission Report on the Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review
(INIR)’ (18 to 29 June 2012 Minsk, Republic of Belarus).
40
IAEA ‘INPRO Assessment of the Planned Nuclear Energy System of Belarus. A report of the
International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO)’ (VIENNA, 2013)
IAEA-TECDOC-1716 239.
41
Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (adopted 25 January
1991, entered into force 10 September 1997) 1989 UNTS 309 (Espoo Convention), Article 2, para 4.
42
Ibid
., Article 3.