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THE BRUSSELS CONVENTION ON THE LIABILITY OF OPERATORS OF NUCLEAR SHIPS
whether the Convention would contain only rules applicable for operation of nuclear-
powered vessels on the High Seas, or also govern issues of their entry to the ports
of other than licensing states. Furthermore, it was obvious that, while land-based
reactors might easily mitigate possible dangers by locating them far from populated
areas, nuclear-powered vessels were designed to sail into harbors. Consequently, while
the installation state was expected to appropriately compensate a nuclear incident
created by its land-based reactor (situated in its territory), the licensing state would be
not under such intermediate pressure where the incident occurs in a distant harbor,
where the nuclear-powered ship bearing its flag is anchored.
7
Thus states involved in further development of nuclear shipping had to face all
these challenges and deal with them during negotiations, which will be subject of the
following paragraphs.
The 11
th
session of the Brussels diplomatic conference on maritime law:
paving the way to a deadlock
The first draft convention in these matters was detailed in 1959 at the Nineteenth
Conference of the International Maritime Committee (
Comité Maritime International,
CMI
) in Rijeka
(
hereinafter
“the Rijeka Draft”
).
8
In the following year, a representative
panel of 150 experts met under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Because the existing “Panel of Experts on Civil Liability and State Responsibility for
Nuclear Hazards” had decided to restrict its study and drafts to land-based reactors,
a “Panel of Legal Experts on Liability for Nuclear Propelled Ships” was charged with
reviewing the “Rijeka Draft”. Pursuant to the request of the Panel and following its
substantive recommendations, the Secretariat of the International Atomic Energy
Agency prepared a new draft convention.
All these documents were subsequently submitted to the Eleventh Session of the
Diplomatic Conference on Maritime Law (hereinafter
“the Conference”
). Those were
held under the sponsorship of the Belgian Government (which had traditionally
convened maritime law conferences) and of the International Atomic Energy Agency
in Brussels from 17 to 29 April 1961.
9
The circumstances, under which the Conference initiated its Session on 17 April
1961, were following: A working group of the United States Academy of Sciences
assumed, two years earlier (1959), that there would be approximately 300 nuclear-
powered ships by 1970.
10
However, at the time the Session was opened, the number
of nuclear vessels had been considerably lower: 21 nuclear submarines and 2 surface
7
Seaver, R. The Impact of Nuclear Propulsion of Ships on Admiralty and Shipping Law,
Atomic Energy
Law Journal,
1960, at p. 303.
8
The text if the “Rijeka Draft” was reproduced in the
Progress in Nuclear Energy,
Vol. 3, New York:
Pergamon Press (1962), at pp. 321
et seq.
9
Belli, G
.
La conferenza diplomatica per una convenzione sulla responsibilitá civile degli utilizzatiori di
navi nucleari,
Diritto ed economia nucleare,
1961, at p.
353.
10
Hardy, M
.
The Liability of Operators of Nuclear Ships,
International and Comparative Law Quaterly,
1963, at p. 779.