CYIL 2014

136

JAKUB HANDRLICA

CYIL 5 ȍ2014Ȏ

Taking all these objections into account, some important concessions were

made towards those states opposing inclusion of the nuclear-powered vessels in the

Convention:

– pursuant to the Article III (3), the obligation to maintain insurance or other financial

security does not apply to the cases where the operator of the vessel is the state itself.

However, the liability of the licensing state, pursuant to the Article III (2), has not

been touched by this provision and, consequently, this exception was more symbolic,

– pursuant to the Article X (3), nothing in the treaty shall make warships or other state-

owned or state-operated ships on non-commercial service liable to arrest, attachment

or seizure, or confer jurisdiction in respect of warships on the courts of any foreign

state.

It is a matter of fact that an attempt to find a compromise between two different

positions was made. A proposal to exclude nuclear-powered military vessels from

the scope of the Convention implied negotiating a separate protocol which would

extend some of the basic principles of the NS Convention to these ships. However,

such attempts failed. The attempts to amend the NS Convention and to exclude the

nuclear-powered military vessels faced the same fate. Subsequently, both major states

operating nuclear military fleets remained reluctant to join the Convention.

Contemporary authors pointed out that the inclusion of the warships into the

Convention was the sole reason why the United States, reflecting the views of the

Navy Department

and of the

American Bar Association

, hesitated to adopt this treaty.

However, such a result is curious if the fact is taken into account that the Convention

was in most of its features an

American

convention.

The views of the United States

delegation prevailed concerning the limit and channeling of liability, jurisdictional

issues, on the barring of recourse actions, and finally on many of final clauses of

the treaty, in particular what concerns the Article XIX, ensuring the continued

application of the treaty for as long as twenty five years of operation to those nuclear-

powered vessels licensed prior to the termination of the Convention.

Failure of plans to increase the nuclear-powered fleets

While the subject of much expectation, nuclear propulsion failed to prove its

ability to be a prospective means of marine propulsion. There have been only four

nuclear-powered merchant cargo ships in operation until now.

The United States

launched the NS Savannah (in operation 1962-1972), Japan launched the NS Mutsu

(in operation 1970-1992), the Federal Republic of Germany the NS Otto Hahn (in

operation 1968-1979) and the Soviet Union the NS Sevmorput, a nuclear-powered

cargo ship with ice breaking abilities in operation since 1988.

The fate of the NS Savannah illustrates the entire issue. The NS Savannah is

considered a demonstration of the technical feasibility of nuclear propulsion for

Op. cit.

sub note 4, at p. 563.

Op. cit.

sub note 3, at p. 36.

Op. cit.

sub note 11, at p. 110.

Op. cit.

sub note 3, at p. 37.