Umweltverbrechen multinationaler Konzerne - Greenpeace

continue to have spent fuel reprocessed at Sellafield).
Neither BNFL nor the British Government have admitted liability
for the Windscale Fire, nor for the "legalised pollution" that
Sellafield routinely creates through its reprocessing operations.
On the contrary, BNFL would like to use funds already
accumulated for decommissioning and waste management to
offset its unprofitably reprocessing operations.
Nuclear Shipment liability
En route countries at risk from BNFL shipments have little help from
international law. Particularly in the South Pacific, states have been
vocal in their opposition to the shipments and the dangers they pose.
Although there are a number of international conventions which
address liability and compensation issues in the event of a nuclear
accident, the amounts of compensation available are small in
comparison to the potential scale of a major accident. Moreover for
international transports, most of the countries that are along the
transport routes between Japan and Europe are not parties to any of
the Conventions. Even France and the United Kingdom apply
different regimes, and Japan is not a Party to any international
nuclear liability Convention. None of the existing Conventions in
force would reach the US$ 7 billion estimate for a transport accident
in the North Sea referred to earlier and the range and types of
damage that are covered would be inadequate to guarantee full
compensation for all damage suffered. 180
It should be noted that, “once a shipment crosses international
boundaries, potential nuclear liability presents a number of intricate
and largely untested legal issues. This is the case for shipments on
the high seas.“ 181
It has been suggested that some of the problems could be avoided if
there was a common and truly global liability and compensation
scheme for nuclear accidents. Unfortunately, none of the existing
regimes are adequate and coastal States joining the existing
Conventions would limit rather than enhance the possibility of getting
full and comprehensive compensation in the even of an accident.
Japan has responded to ongoing pressure over the issue by offering
an initial grant of US$10 million into a “good will” trust fund by
Japanese nuclear corporations. The trust fund was announced
publicly at the October 2000 Pacific Islands Forum meeting in
Kiribati. Annual interest of some US$500,000 from this Pacific
Islands Development Cooperation Fund could be used to finance
projects for Forum Island Countries in the fields of environment,
energy and tourism. A more controversial element of the fund was
the announcement that “the principal of the trust fund would be
available to cover the costs of the initial response to incidents during
shipment of radioactive materials and MOX fuel through the region.”
However, the UK and France are worried that the trust fund has
been linked to the nuclear shipments, and Japan is seeking to revise
its original advice that the fund has any connection to nuclear
transport accidents, in order to avoid liability. The Japanese
180 The country whose nuclear liability and compensation legislation offers potentially the most compensation for victims, the
United States, has a total fund of just under US$ 10 billion. This can be compared with estimates of between US$15-150
billion dollars for the Chernobyl accident. Dr. Marvin Goldman, Testimony to the United States Presidential Commission on
Catastrophic Nuclear Accidents, 25 October 1989.
181 See, for example, “Liability for International Nuclear Transport: An Overview”, Omer F. Brown III and Nathalie L.J.T.
Horbach, in Reform of Civil Nuclear Liability, OECD/NEA, Budapest Symposium, 1999.
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