Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

142 Chapter 8
Table 8.1
Votes on the 1983 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Moratorium. Source: LDC 1983a,
p. 29.
In favor (19)
Argentina, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Kiribati, Mexico,
Morocco, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Papua New Guinea,
Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Sweden
Against (6)
Britain, Japan, Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, United States
Abstaining
Brazil, Federal Republic of Germany, France, Greece, Soviet Union
“result in a substantial political storm” (“A Call for a Two-Year Halt on
Ocean Disposal,” Nuclear News, March 1983, p. 120).
Contradicting realist regime analysis, the hegemon and powerful states
could not determine a regime development that diverged significantly from
their interests. Britain immediately indicated it would not be bound by the
decision (Wright 1983b). Britain planned to dump 3500 metric tons of lowlevel
radioactive waste, representing more than 1500 curies of alpha radiation
and some 150,000 curies of beta and gamma radiation, in the Atlantic
(Pearce 1983, p. 924). The Swiss delegation also expressed the view that
Switzerland did not feel bound by the resolution. Switzerland and Belgium
intended to dispose of relatively small amounts later that year, but
Switzerland would stop dumping in 1984 (Edwards 1983, p. 6). The government
of the Netherlands explained that it had difficulties disposing of
low-level radioactive waste on land and therefore might have to carry out
dumping in the summer 1983. Later it became clear that the French government,
which had not participated since 1969, also intended to participate
in the 1984 dumping (“Ocean Disposal Operations to Continue,”
Nuclear News, July 1983, p. 50).
To prevent the scheduled dumping, Greenpeace set out to strengthen
and broaden the transnational anti-dumping coalition by including a significant
number of stakeholders and special-interest groups. Greenpeace
made contact with the National Union of Seamen, the British seamen’s
organization, hoping that the union would boycott the dumping planned
for the summer of 1983 (Pearce 1991, pp. 54–55). 40 The initiative was successful.
In March of 1983, the British seamen, concerned primarily about