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

Introduction 15
caught my attention. The issue of radwaste disposal certainly seemed politically
sensitive as well as institutionally significant. In the words of the head
of the regime secretariat and a former London Convention conference
chairman, this issue was of “extreme importance to the operation of the
[London Dumping Convention]” (Nauke and Holland 1992, p. 75). I
wished to know how different countries looked upon radwaste disposal,
the knowledge and advice of scientific experts, and the views of ENGOs
regarding this issue. I soon learned that radwaste disposal was regulated
under the global ocean dumping regime, created in the early 1970s. Hence,
to understand the developments in the 1980s and the 1990s, and the underpinning
regime norms and principles, as well as the regime rules and decision-making
procedures, required that an additional set of questions be
answered: What had caused the creation of the global ocean dumping
regime in the first place? How had this environmental regime come into
existence? Why was radwaste disposal regulated under this regime?
As I have already mentioned, ocean dumping of radioactive waste began
in 1946. However, before the creation of the global ocean dumping regime
(1972) there existed no regime for controlling ocean dumping of wastes,
including radioactive ones. During the early stages of my research, I therefore
examined whether scientific evidence that ocean dumping was seriously
threatening the oceans of the world had persuaded countries to build
the regime. Another possible explanation was that public pressure had
motivated politicians to act. Alternatively, perhaps countries did not consider
ocean dumping a significant environmental issue but were primarily
concerned with increasing political power or protecting economic interests.
Careful empirical research was indeed needed to shed light on these
questions.
Environmental issues are less straightforward than most of the political,
economic, and military security issues that states deal with. They are often
both science-intensive and trans-scientific. Hence, most environmental
issues have a clear ethical and normative dimension. It therefore is necessary
to examine how states look upon environmental issues, and how and
why their perception may change. For instance, why is a problem that not
long ago was considered insignificant, or perhaps even was ignored, suddenly
seen as an important international environmental issue? What
explains why an issue, after some time, is looked upon in a new and different
way? Under certain conditions, technological development, scientific
discovery, and altered distribution of capabilities among states influence