State Responsibility in globalized world- EU Nuclear Compensation Law

Research Project

Project/Area Number	25870805
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	New fields of law International law
Research Institution	Meiji University
Principal Investigator	SATO Chie 明治大学, 法学部, 講師 (80611904)
Project Period (FY)	2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2014)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,730,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥630,000) Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000) Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Keywords	ＥＵ環境法 / 越境損害 / 国家責任 / 国際法違反行為 / 原子力損害 / 国際法 / EU環境法 / EU法 / 環境法 / 国家責任法
Outline of Final Research Achievements	It is quite difficult to find appropriate legal grounds in order to explain State responsibility for transboundary damages caused by unlawful activities such as operation of nuclear power plants. One of the reasons is: states are not operators of nuclear power plants (in many countries private entities are operators). The European Union adopted the Environmental Liability Directive and introduced poluter pay's principle. Under that Principle all liabilities for damages caused by high-risk activities shall be bore by operators. This Directive excludes some activities such as operation of nuclear power plants, oil pollution by tankers. However in the globalized world, the EU Directive suggests important legal reasoning for transboundary liability problems. EU is special, becasue EU is a regional integration between very similar states and this is the main reason why EU laws can have binding effects over its Member States. However, the globalize world needs to learn from EU experience.