Invited Paper THE IAEA'S ROLE IN AND STATUS OF THE INTERNATIONAL LIABILITY REGIME

摘要

Over recent years, the international regime of liability for nuclear damage has undergone significant evolution. There is now in place a body of legal instruments dealing with nuclear liability. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has played an active role in the development of the international nuclear liability regime. Several instruments of universal character were adopted under its auspices, including the Vienna Convention that forms, together with the Paris Convention (a regional treaty concluded within the framework of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), the basis of the existing international liability regime. The two conventions enunciated identical principles of nuclear liability that apply both to incidents occurring at nuclear installations and during transport of nuclear material. There are also rules designed specifically to govern liability in the course of transport. In the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident, the IAEA initiated work with a view to strengthening the system of remedies available under the Vienna Convention. It resulted in the adoption of three new instruments under the auspices of the IAEA: the Joint Protocol (1988), which linked the Vienna and Paris Conventions without affecting their substantive provisions; the Protocol to Amend the Vienna Convention (1997), which substantially improved the protection of victims of nuclear accidents; and the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (1997), which established a mechanism of additional compensation from public funds to be contributed predominantly by nuclear power generating States and created conditions for establishing a single worldwide liability regime open for adherence by States party to the Vienna and Paris Conventions as well as by other States. While the objective of further improvement remains, it is advisable that effort now be focused on enlisting broad participation in the existing instruments, in the first place the Protocol to Amend the Vienna Convention and the Convention on Supplementary Compensation, so that they are enforced soon. Liability remains a topical issue. Given its mandate as well as its role in the development and functioning of the international nuclear liability regime, the IAEA is well placed to ontinue to serve as a focal .point of international interest in the field of nuclear liability.