This open access book traces the journey of nuclear law: its origins, how it has developed, where it is now, and where it is headed. As a discipline, this highly specialized body of law makes it possible for us to benefit from the life-saving applications of nuclear science and technology, including diagnosing cancer as well as avoiding and mitigating the effects of climate change. This book seeks to give readers a glimpse into the future of nuclear law, science and technology. It intends to provoke thought and discussion about how we can maximize the benefits and minimize the risks inherent in nuclear science and technology. This compilation of essays presents a global view in discipline as well as in geography. The book is aimed at representatives of governments -- including regulators, policymakers and lawmakers -- as well representatives of international organizations and the legal and insurance sectors. It will be of interest to all those keen to better understand the role of law in enabling the safe, secure, and peaceful use of nuclear technology around the world. The contributions in this book are written by leading experts, including the IAEA's Director General, and discuss the four branches of nuclear law -- safety, security, safeguards and nuclear liability -- and the interaction of nuclear law with other fields of national and international law.

The book presents a proposal for a harmonised European liability regime and discusses possibilities to enhance the feasibility of such a reform. It calls for a stronger involvement of the public in the nuclear sector and emphasises the intrinsic link between effective safety regulation and liability and compensation mechanisms.

Since its establishment in September 2003, the International Expert Group on Nuclear Liability (INLEX) has played an important role in raising awareness and understanding of the nuclear liability instruments adopted under the IAEA’s auspices. Over the course of the past two decades, the group has advised on many issues related to nuclear liability and reached conclusions and made recommendations on possible gaps and ambiguities in the scope and coverage of the existing instruments. To mark this 20th anniversary, this publication includes papers on several nuclear liability topics and the work of INLEX, contributed by some of the group's current members. The aim of this publication is to increase awareness of the role of INLEX, as well as nuclear liability as an important aspect of nuclear law. The publication is intended for nuclear law professionals, academics and practitioners as well as policy makers.

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: merit, Queen Mary University of London (Department of Law), course: LLM, language: English, abstract: In this essay I would like to argue that the existing international nuclear liability framework cannot prevent great nuclear disasters. I will start with some considerations about Chernobyl and Fukushima, and then my discussion will continue with a framework of the international legal provisions that address related clauses of liability. I attempted to furnish plausible interpretation of the existing international legal framework before arriving at conclusion about the efficiency of this framework. The nuclear accidents of Chernobyl, USSR in 1986 and Fukushima, Japan in 2011 rekindled serious and thought provoking discussions among the scientific communities, policy planners and beneficiaries of the world to understand whether the existing legal liability ensures the nuclear safeguards to the world for continued use of the nuclear technology at the cost of human and environmental tragedies. A thorough review of these two nuclear tragedies in light of legal provisions is made in the subsequent sections to understand [...]

This handbook is a practical aid to legislative drafting that brings together, for the first time, model texts of provisions covering all aspects of nuclear law in a consolidated form. Organized along the same lines as the Handbook on Nuclear Law, published by the IAEA in 2003, and containing updated material on new legal developments, this publication represents an important companion resource for the development of new or revised nuclear legislation, as well as for instruction in the fundamentals of nuclear law. It will be particularly useful for those Member States embarking on new or expanding existing nuclear programmes.