 but we have so far examined nuclear safety and nuclear security. Again, most of you probably are not lawyers, so I don't want to go into legalistic terminology. But the conventions dealing with nuclear safety and with nuclear security mainly deal with what the state has to do vis-à-vis the individuals that are subject to its jurisdiction or the entities that are subject to its jurisdiction and so on. So the lawyers would call these conventions as conventions that deal with public law aspects because they deal with the relationship between the state and its subjects. Civil liability for nuclear damage deals with what lawyers call private law because they deal with relations between individuals. The conventions on nuclear reliability are about how can an individual who has suffered damage be compensated, but not by resorting to the state but by resorting to the entity which could be a public entity but could also be a private entity that was operating a nuclear installation which has somehow caused a nuclear incident. So it's the relationship between private entities, private law courts and so on, and therefore that's why a lot of nuclear lawyers find it difficult to cope with nuclear liability because it's a completely different subject. Even at the national levels, if you go to a lawyer who is specialized in public law, he would not be able to deal with nuclear liability. You have to go to another lawyer who is more specialized in these kinds of issues. There is also another reason why nuclear liability is complicated and we will see this in one of the slides that I will show to you and that is because there are a number of conventions in this area which deal with the same subject matter. So it's not like in nuclear safety where we have one convention dealing with the safety of nuclear power plant, one convention dealing with the safety of spent fuel management and with the safety of radioactive waste management, one convention dealing with physical protection of nuclear material, and so on. Here we have at least two important conventions that deal with the same thing. So in an ideal world, there shouldn't be two conventions. There should be only one because the subject matter that they regulate is the same. But for historic reasons and for other reasons, we have two conventions and this complicates the legal situation in a way that I don't want to describe in detail because we don't have the time. So unless you're interested, I will not go into these issues so much. So this is the objective of a nuclear liability to establish minimum common standards of legal and financial protection against damage resulting from the peaceful uses of nuclear energy through the harmonization of national private law dealing with civil liability for nuclear damage. So the purpose of these conventions is to bring about harmonization of national law. Again, this is very different from the CNS, for example, because the CNS also obliged the state's parties to implement the CNS provisions in national law. But the CNS usually isn't very detailed. It prescribes an objective the states have to pursue in their national law and it leaves each states free to decide on the means whereby it wants to achieve that objective. In the era of civil liability, on the other hand, we have detailed rules that have to be implemented exactly as they are in the national law of the contracting parties. That's because the purpose of nuclear liability is to have harmonization of national law on this issue so that it doesn't matter where a victim brings an action to get compensation if it's in one state or in the other, the rules will be the same. That's the purpose of these conventions. And that is also why they're more difficult to implement than they can, or at least from the political point of view. Eagley speaking, they're not difficult, but politically they're probably more difficult to implement. So we have, again, in this case, only binding instruments, as I've said, and there are a number of legal instruments that have been adopted that relate to the same subject matter and complicate the picture a little bit. This is partly for historic reasons because the first convention that was adopted in this area was not adopted under the auspices of the IEA, which is potentially a world organization, but was adopted under the auspices of what is now called the OECD, the Organization of Economic Development and Cooperation which has its own nuclear energy agency, the one for which Patrick worked for many years as a legal advisor. He was the head of the legal office of the IEA for many, many years. Why was this so? Because the OECD, when it was founded, it had a different name at that time. I don't remember exactly what was the name of the OEC. This organization was founded after the Second World War in order to implement the so-called Marshall Plan which was a plan of AIDS, economic AIDS, devised by the United States government in order to help European states whose economies had emerged in a shattered stage from the Second World War. And I mean not only those that had lost the war like Italy or Germany, but also those that had won the war like Britain or France. Their economies were in a state of disaster and the Marshall Plan was supposed to help them re-emerge from this situation. And one of these aspects was also the transfer of technology so that the European states could build nuclear power plants to help them with the energy production because at that time the nuclear technology was in the hands of the United States and not of the European states. At least they weren't able because of their economic situation so much. And so these AIDS had to be administered through this organization and that explains the reason why the first convention on civil liability for nuclear damage was adopted within this framework. This is the 1960 Paris Convention which was very soon supplemented in 1963 by another convention which is called the Brussels Supplementary Convention which is not about nuclear liability, it's about increasing the amount of money available through a system of public funds. But I don't want to go into the Brussels Convention now. What is important for our purposes now is the Paris Convention which was the first convention containing rules that all states parties had to put in their national private law to regulate issues of civil liability for nuclear damage. After a few years in 1963 a similar convention, though less detailed was adopted under the auspices of the IEA. This is the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage. At the time when the Vienna Convention was adopted the Paris Convention had not entered into force yet and there were those who hoped that the European states would not join the Paris Convention or would not let it enter into force but would rather join the Vienna Convention so that there would only be one convention dealing with civil liability for nuclear damage. Because the Paris Convention is open to members of the OECD or to other non-OECD members but only if the parties agree. So it's not an entirely open convention. You can join the Paris Convention either if you are an OECD member state in which case you can join. That's it with a unilateral act. Or if you're not a member of the OECD you can only join if the others want you to join. It's a bit like the NATO treaty. You can enter only if the others are in agreement. Whereas the Vienna Convention is open to all members of the United Nations and its specialised agencies so practically everyone. So there was a hope that everyone would join Vienna and then we would only have one. This unfortunately did not happen. The Paris Convention ended into force and since then we've had a situation where we have these two conventions each of which is binding for its own parties. None of the state's parties to Paris is also party to Vienna and vice versa. So we have two families of states, parties to different conventions. And the fact that there are no treaty relations between these two families creates a number of problems which I don't want to go into unless you're interested in your questions because it's really very complicated. Now so we've had this coexistence of conventions since the early 60s. By the way you will notice that this area was the first area where binding treaties were adopted. Already in the early stages of the development of nuclear industry it was felt that there was a need for binding rules on civil liability for nuclear damage. At a time where there were no treaties dealing with nuclear safety or with nuclear security. The Convention on Physical Protection was only adopted in 1977. The Convention on Nuclear Safety were only adopted after Chernobyl, 1986, 1994, 1997. In the era of civil liability, already in the early stages of the development of nuclear industry it was felt that there was a need because of the potential transboundary effects of a nuclear accident. It was felt that it was impossible to leave states free to regulate how to compensate nuclear damage. We needed to have same rules applying in every state. And that's why these conventions were adopted already at that time. After Chernobyl, however, a number of issues arose regarding the effectiveness of these regimes. One of them was that a number of nuclear states were not parties to any of these conventions. This was made crystal clear by the fact that the accident occurred in the Soviet Union at the time which was not a party to any convention. So the conventions played no role in the compensation of damage caused by the Chernobyl accident. This was an issue. Another issue was the definition of nuclear damage because it was felt that what was covered by the two conventions was not enough in particular because since the early 60s the concept of environmental damage had emerged and there were those who said we need to cover environmental damage as well. It's unclear how far this is covered by the two conventions. Some said it's not covered at all and so on and so forth. So a number of issues arose which led to negotiations first within the IEA which the outcome of which was in 1997 the adoption of a protocol to amend the Vienna Convention. Following this, the Paris Stasenses decided to amend the Paris Convention trying to absorb all the rules or most of the rules that had been adopted under the auspices of the IEA when revising the Vienna Convention also in the context of the Paris Convention. And these negotiations led in 2004 to the adoption of protocols revising the Paris Convention and also the Brass Supplementary Convention. Now, unlike the 1997 protocol to amend the Vienna Convention the 2004 protocols to amend Paris are not yet in force. This is mainly because of a rule adopted within the European Union whereby the European Union member states can only ratify at the same time. And that means that unless they all prepared none of them can join. And I have, I'm sorry to have to say that it's because of Italy at this time who is not yet ready to join that no one else is ready to join. Until a few months ago it was Italy in the UK so we were in a better situation. Now the UK has managed to pass legislation that would enable the UK to join the 2004 protocol so Italy is the only one that remains. So I can imagine that within the IEA there is some pressure applied to frustration for the situation. A number of other conventions have been adopted or at least two that need to be mentioned in order to create a treaty link between these two families of states. One was a 1988 joint protocol relating to the Paris Convention or the Vienna Convention. This was adopted soon after Chernobyl because one of the issues that was raised by Chernobyl was the fact that because of the direction of the winds a lot of the damage or perceived damage that was suffered after Chernobyl was suffered in Western Europe. And some said even if the Soviet Union had been a party to the Vienna Convention which it wasn't but even if it had been, damage in Western Europe probably would not have been covered because under the Vienna Convention although there is no explicit rule on this it could be argued that the state's parties should only compensate damage suffered in the state's parties. So if you're in Germany for example of France who are parties to the Paris Convention but not parties to the Vienna Convention the Soviet Union could have argued even if they had been party to the Vienna Convention or when you're not parties to the Vienna Convention you're not in the family of Vienna States so I don't need to compensate you because the treaty only obliges me to compensate damage suffered in the state's parties to the Vienna Convention. So this was an issue after Chernobyl a theoretical issue because as I've said the Soviet Union anyway was not a party to the Vienna Convention but the issue arose and the solution was since we cannot merge the two convention and turn them into one treaty because this is politically impossible we will have another treaty which is the joint protocol which has the only aim of creating a treaty link between the two. Finally, oh what happened now? Finally in 1997 when the protocol to amend the Vienna Convention was adopted yet another convention was adopted which is the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. Why was this convention adopted? For two reasons. One was the fact that as I mentioned the Paris Convention was supplemented by Brussels which comes up with a system of public funds to have more money available to compensate nuclear damage because the conventions are based on private law on the idea that there is the operator is liable and the operator only has a limited amount of money that he or it can use to compensate the victims. This may not be enough if there is a major nuclear accident. So the idea was let's come up with public funds. The states have to intervene and produce money in order to compensate victims that remain uncompensated under the private law system. This system was created for the Paris Convention by the Brussels Supplementary Convention but there was no supplementary compensation system for the Vienna Convention. This created a political issue in the area because the limit of money which is available under Vienna is much lower than the limit which is available under Paris. So not only in Vienna there was a lower amount of compensation that was made available by the operator but there was no supplementary funding system like there was for the Paris Convention. So the CSE was created in 1997. But the CSE has an additional aim which at the moment is only potential and which is to create an umbrella among all the nuclear states, in particular the nuclear states involved in nuclear power. So the CSE is not supplementary to Vienna like Brussels. Brussels Convention is supplementary to Paris in the sense that you can't join Brussels if you're not parties to Vienna. It's a kind of regional system. So the Paris States can join the Brussels Convention to increase the amount of money available to compensate nuclear damage. The CSE is open to everyone. It's open to Paris, it's open to states parties to Vienna and it was decided at the time to open it also to a third category of states which are the states which are not party to any of these conventions. Because there were a number of important nuclear states who had not joined one or the other convention. The most obvious example was the United States of America United States could have joined Paris but they didn't for reasons which I will explain to you if you're interested. But other states, nuclear states were not parties to one or the other. Japan was not a party to either Paris or Vienna, Korea, India, Canada and so on. So the CSE decided that there was a need to have everyone under this supplementary compensation system. Not only Paris or Vienna, but also this third category of states provided that they had national law in place that conformed with the basic principles of nuclear liability. And the next slide, you will see a visual presentation of the participation into these conventions. The Paris Convention, although it is theoretically open to all members of the OECD is de facto mainly a European and I would say a Western European although there are some states that are not in Western Europe like Slovenia or were not originally in Western Europe like Slovenia. There is also Turkey in the family of states, parties to the Paris Convention. But it's basically a European club. The Vienna Convention is, which is potentially global as a wider participation but there are many nuclear states who are not parties. So it's still not a very satisfactory situation. The CSE at the moment has very few states, parties, but these few states are among these few states. There are some important nuclear states like the United States, Canada who ratified recently, Japan who ratified after Fukushima and so on. So if we look at the number of nuclear power plants which are covered by the CSE, you will see that despite the low number of states parties, the number of nuclear power plants covered by the CSE is higher than the number of nuclear power plants covered by any of the other conventions. However, this is still a satisfactory situation because the CSE aims to be an umbrella for everyone to join and until everyone joins, joins it will have failed to reach this objective. Fortunately, despite this complexity of legal instruments, the actual regime of nuclear liability is very similar if we look at the various conventions. First of all, if we look at the scope of application of the various conventions, the conventions apply to damage caused by nuclear incidents, not only occurring at a nuclear installation but also occurring in the course of transport of nuclear material to or from one of these installations. So in order to understand the scope of application of these conventions, we have to look at the definitions of nuclear installations and of nuclear material which is in each of the conventions. This is basically the definition in the Vienna Convention of Nuclear Installations. If you look at this definition, you will see that those that are covers are only the installations that are related to the nuclear fuel cycle. So nuclear power plant, nuclear reactors rather, so also research reactors, nuclear power plants, facilities where nuclear material is being processed or reprocessed, facilities where nuclear material is being stored. And the reason was that this regime is so special so it's different from the rules that states normally apply when there is an accident and there is a need to compensate the victims. The nuclear regime is very different from the general rules that in each state apply to compensation for any incident other than the nuclear incident. So it was decided in the early 60s that okay, we have this very special regime but this very special regime only makes sense for the most dangerous activities. For those less dangerous like facilities where radioactive sources are being used like hospitals or so on, there is no need for such a special regime. We only want to apply this regime to incidents that potentially have transboundary consequences. And that is why installations are only nuclear power plants, nuclear reactors and other facilities related to the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear material, which is relevant in particular for transport, only covers the definition of nuclear fuel and radioactive products or waste. But radioactive products or waste are defined in a narrower way than in the joint convention, for example, because they don't cover radioactive waste coming from sources. So these conventions only apply to nuclear material and nuclear installations which are linked to the nuclear fuel cycle. The rest is not dangerous enough to warrant this very special regime at least in the opinion of states. Experts or individuals may have a different view but states so far have decided that there is no need for a specific regime for sources and for facilities handling radioactive sources. General, the general rules that each state applies can very well apply also to this, to these activities. There are some differences in scope among the various conventions, but these differences are not so much between the Vienna Convention on the one hand and the Paris Convention on the other hand. There are other differences between the old pre-chernobyl version of each of the two conventions and the new post-chernobyl version of the two conventions in the sense that the scope of the conventions was broadened after Chernobyl. The first of these issues relates to the definition of nuclear damage which is very important because it relates to what can be compensated. If you are a victim of nuclear damage you want to know whether you can be compensated or not and this is about the definition of nuclear damage. In the original version of both Paris and Vienna there was an obligation for states to cover only loss of life and personal injury and loss of or damage to property. This definition was considered to be too narrow by those who thought that there was a need to cover environmental damage as well because environmental damage is not necessarily covered by these two heads of damage in particular by the concept of damage to property. So a lot of discussions took place after Chernobyl and the compromise that was reached was we don't cover environmental damage as such but we cover elements of environmental damage. The costs of measures of reinstatement of impaired environment, so if there is damage to the environment and the state or a private person takes measures to reinstate the environment the costs of these measures can be compensated under the new definition of nuclear damage. The cost of preventive measure is also now recoverable so all measures that can be taken to prevent or minimize damage in the event of a nuclear accident and different forms of economic loss which are not necessarily related to the concept of damage to property. So if you're interested we can go into examples about this. Geographical scope is also different depending on whether you look at old Vienna and old Paris on the one hand and new Vienna and new Paris on the other. Under old Paris which is still in force the obligation is to cover damage only in the territories of the contracting parties. The installation state if it's very generous can also cover damage suffered outside but the obligation is only to cover damage within the contracting parties. The Vienna convention doesn't say anything but was interpreted in the same way. That is why there were those who argued even if the Soviet Union had been a party damage in France or Germany would not necessarily have been covered because they were parties to a different convention and therefore there was no obligation for the Soviet Union to cover that damage. After Chernobyl a lot of discussions took place which resulted in a revision of Vienna and Paris which basically means that under revised Vienna for example, damage is now covered wherever suffered. Doesn't matter anymore if it's within or outside the contracting parties. However, and this is a compromise these rules only applies to the full in the case of non-nuclear states. So a state with no nuclear installations who is not a party to the Vienna convention will be covered. If it's a nuclear non-contracting state the discussion was why do we have to cover damage in a nuclear state? If that state, if there is an accident in its territory will not cover damage suffered in our territories. And that's why the concept of reciprocity was included. So the rule is damage is covered wherever suffered but a state party can exclude if it wants to damage suffered in a nuclear non-contracting state that doesn't afford reciprocal benefit. So for example, if you're a nuclear Vienna state and have a neighbor who is not a Vienna state who has a nuclear power plant and there is an accident in your territory you can decide to exclude damage suffered in your neighbor if that neighbor has legislation in place that says that if there is an accident in that state damage in your country will not be compensated. So reciprocity here is the issue. If you compensate me, I compensate you. If you don't compensate me, I don't compensate you. But this reciprocity rules only applies to nuclear non-contracting state. If your neighbor has no nuclear installations then you have to cover damage suffered in that state even if that state is not a party to the Vienna Convention. The Paris Convention is slightly different in language but the concept is more or less the same. It's a bit more complicated on the Paris so I don't want to go into the details in this case. The basic principles of nuclear liability are the same in all the nuclear liability conventions. You see them in this slide. I will go very quickly through all of them. I think the most important one because it's the one that derogates the most from the rules that normally apply within a state to the compensation of damage is the principle of channeling of liability. Which means that there is only one person who is liable for nuclear damage and that person is the operator of a nuclear installation. Normally in a state's legal system, if there is damage, if a person has suffered damage, that person can sue anyone who has contributed to cause this damage. If it proves that that person has contributed to cause the damage through negligence or hasn't done everything that was necessary to prevent the damage. In nuclear liability, you can't do that. You can only sue the operator of the nuclear installation. This is very important because it's the rule that protects the suppliers of nuclear material which cannot be sued in case of a nuclear accident. That is why if you want to embark on a nuclear power plant, you will soon find out that the suppliers of nuclear material or those that will help you to build a nuclear plant will probably prefer that you are parties to one of these conventions or at least that you have legislation in place that embodies the principle of channeling so that they, in case something goes wrong, will not have to pay because the only person liable is the operator of a nuclear installation. In the case of transport, it's a bit more complicated because we have to decide who is the operator liable and I don't think I have time to go into all of these details. Normally it's the sending operator until the nuclear material has been taken charge of by the receiving operator unless there is a contractual provision between the two operators involved in transport that will provide for the shifting of liability at a different stage. But there are complications that arise in case of operators which are in states not parties to the same liability conventions and I don't want to go into these because this is just too complicated for the present purposes. The other basic principle is liability without fault which again is a major departure from common law. In common law, the victim can sue everyone who has contributed to the damage but the victim has to prove that that person has acted if not with intent to cause damage at least with negligence. It has done something wrong. That is why in some systems this kind of liability is called liability in tort in the common law systems because there has been a tort. The tort has been that a person has either intentionally or with because of its negligent behavior caused the damage and then you can pursue that person and get compensation. In the nuclear liability, you can't sue anyone who has committed a tort. You can only sue the operator and get the money from the operator but at least the liability is liability without fault. The operator, the victim doesn't have to prove that the operator has done anything wrong. The operator will be objectively liable. If you can prove that your damage results for the nuclear incident, then the operator is liable. It doesn't matter if that operator had done anything it could to prevent the nuclear incident from happening. It will still be liable. There are only some very exceptional cases where the operator is not liable. For example, when the nuclear accident is directly due to an act of war which doesn't include an act of terrorism so if there is a nuclear accident that results from an act of terrorism, the operator will still be liable unless we're in the context of an armed conflict and then it's an act of war. But normally, if it's just an act of terrorism, the operator will still be liable. Under the old Vienna Convention and old Paris Convention, there was also another exception which was the case of an accident directly due to a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character but in the new versions of Paris and Vienna, this is no longer an accepted cause for exoneration and the operator will therefore still be liable. It would be interesting to talk about Fukushima at this stage but I don't think I have time. Unless you're interested, we will leave that to the discussion. Another basic departure from General Totz's Law or General Civil Liability Law is that if you have suffered damage, normally when you sue the person who has contributed to this damage, you can get from this person the entire amount of money equivalent to the damage that you have suffered. There is no limit of liability. Normally the person liable has to pay full compensation. In the case of nuclear damage because of the potentially disastrous character of damage, of the magnitude of damage that can be caused by a nuclear accident, in particular if it's an accident at a nuclear installation, it was decided at an early stage that the installation state could decide to limit the operator's liability to a certain amount of money. So the operator is exclusively liable, the operator is liable without fault, but it's not necessarily liable without limit. There may be a limit of liability and a certain amount of money after which the operator will no longer have to pay anything. Another Vienna convention then the state can limit the operator's liability to a certain amount of money which is actually very low and this is why this was one of the issues after Chernobyl because the limitation of liability could go as low as five million US dollars, which is a ridiculously low amount if you think about the potential consequences of a nuclear accident. There was a definition, there is a definition of the Vienna convention of the US dollar which according to one interpretation doesn't mean US dollars as of today, but US dollars as of 1963 on the basis of the value of the US dollar in terms of gold in 1963, but this is one interpretation which is not necessarily shared by Ust's parties to the Vienna convention. So after Chernobyl, this was one of the hotly debated issue and again there was a compromise because there were those who wanted a very high limit, there were those who wanted to keep the low limit, in the end they were decided to put the limit at 300 million special drawing rights. So no longer dollars, but special drawing rights. Special drawing rights is a unit of account used by the International Monetary Fund, which is based on a number of, on a panel of national currencies. And I think 300 million SDRs, I mean you can see the value of the SDR every day in the economic newspapers, but basically it would amount to something like 450 million US dollars, basically, which is not a very high amount, but it's still much higher than five million US dollars. This is one of the areas where the differences between Paris and Vienna are outstanding because under Paris there is also a limit of liability, but this limit is much higher. Both if you look at the old Paris vis-a-vis the old Vienna convention and if you look at the new Paris when it will enter into force, vis-a-vis the revised Vienna convention, because when the Paris convention revised enters into force, the limit will be 700 million euros, which is much more than 300 million SDRs. This is one of the reasons why the Paris states don't want to join the Vienna convention because the amounts of money available under the two conventions are too different. Another basic principle is mandatory financial coverage. The operator has to take up insurance to cover its liability. Why? Because the victims have to be certain that there will be money available. If we simply say the operator is liable up to 300 million SDRs, but then the operator doesn't have the money to pay, then the operator will go bankrupt and the victims will remain uncompensated. That is why there is an obligation for the state to oblige the operator to take up insurance to cover liability. So that there will be certainty that if there is an accident, there will be money available through the insurance system. The conventions talk about insurance or other financial security because in most cases, the money will come from the private insurance market. There are in most nuclear states, there are insurance pools that provide specific nuclear insurance policies to operators based on the conventions. But there are some cases where these policies do not apply. For example, we've seen that under the new Vienna convention, the operator will be liable also if there is a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character. Now, there may be no insurance available in this case. Certainly in Japan, for example, if there is an accident due to an earthquake, there is no insurance because the insurers, if you know a little bit about insurance, they like to cover risks which are uncertain to happen. That is how they make their money because you have to pay, every year you have to pay a premium in order to be compensated if something happens. But God willing, nothing will happen and then the insurer will simply get the money and you will never get anything back from the insurer. But, and that is why the insurer like to insure when the risk is uncertain. But if the risk is certain in a country like Japan there are earthquakes every week, then of course the insurers will not insure because it means that they will certainly have to pay and then they will make no profit. So that is why when there is no insurance, you have to find an alternative way to cover the operator's liability. That's why the conventions talk about other financial security. For example, in Japan there was an interesting system even before Japan joined the CSC based on national law whereby where there was no insurance available, the operator, there was a state insurance system. So the operator had to pay a premium to the private insurers and where the private insurance did not cover had to pay a premium to the state every year so that the state would then cover the same amount of money that the private insurance would have covered in a case where there was no private insurance. Like for example Fukushima. Fukushima was not insured because it was not covered by private insurance but the same amount of money that would have been available under the insurance system in Fukushima was made available by the state. Then because of the magnitude of the damage the state went beyond that, but at least there was a first layer of compensation which was equivalent to the amount of money that in a normal nuclear accident would have been paid by the insurance, by the private insurance market. Liability is also limited in time. There needs to be legal certainty for the operator so after a certain amount of years after the nuclear incident there is no liability anymore. Again here we have a different between old Vienna and old Paris on the one hand and new Vienna and new Paris on the other because under the old conventions the limit was 10 years after a nuclear incident. After Chernobyl it was felt this is too short because in particular in the case of personal injury where damage for example could consist in the development of cancer as a result of exposure to radiations after a nuclear incident. This kind of illness can become manifest many years after a nuclear incident and it was therefore decided in the new Vienna convention and in the new Paris convention that for personal injury or death the limit should be extended to 30 years after the nuclear accident for the remaining kinds of damage is still 10 years. So it's 10 years, it's still the rule except that for death and personal injury the time limitation has been extended to 30 years. Now this may be in practice not a very good system anyway for the victims because the more time elapses after a nuclear incident the more difficult it will be to prove that the cancer that a person has suffered is due to the nuclear incident that occurred 20 years before and is not due to some other environmental cause. But of course this depends on the courts these are rules that have to be applied in court if the operator doesn't pay then the victim sews the operator and the court will decide and in some countries courts are more favourable to victims than they are to the tort visas so it really depends on how the court will in the end apply the standard of causation for personal injury. Non-discrimination among victims so another principle of nuclear liability provided that the damage is suffered within the geographical scope of the convention you cannot have legislation that simply says I will compensate my own citizens you have to compensate everyone you can't make any discriminations based on nationality, domicile or residence and finally exclusive jurisdictional competence this is also a major pillar of nuclear liability because in the normal legal world if there were no conventions let's say there was a major nuclear accident at a nuclear installation within a state surrounded by many other states and there is trans-boundary damage so damage is caused not only within the accident state but also in the neighbouring states normally in the legal world under the rules that most states have on jurisdiction for civil law cases most of the states where the damage is suffered will have jurisdiction because the victims in the state of the accident will sue the operator in the state of the accident but the victims in the neighbouring state may sue the operator or someone else in the course of their own state because it's easier to do it simply because they live there they don't want to go to a foreign state to bring illegal action because that is costly they don't have the expertise they need to hire lawyers so potentially you can have a multiplicity of lawsuits in a multiplicity of countries and then the question is once these victims have got their decision by the court that awards to them a sum of money to compensate the damage that they have suffered how do they get the money? if the operator or the person sued doesn't pay they will have to enforce this judgement but if the operator is in a foreign country and doesn't have assets in the country where the damage is suffered you will have to enforce the judgement in the operator's country and it may very well be that that country will not recognise the judgement entered into the country where the damage was suffered so the idea of the conventions is we do away with this multiplicity of lawsuits in a multiplicity of countries they will only have one country whose courts have jurisdiction in the event of a nuclear incident and the victims will have to bring their actions in the courts of that country but then the decisions of that country will have to be recognised and enforced in all the states parties to the convention that was the solution adopted in the early 60s of course this solution works if everyone is in the system because if there are states that are not within the system for them the conventions don't apply they can do what they like and then we have the same problems there will be victims suing in these non-contracting states but then it remains to be seen whether the decisions that they will get will be recognised and enforced in the state where the operator has assets otherwise they will have a beautiful court decision but they will have no money so there will only be a moral satisfaction to have a decision that says that person is liable has to pay compensation but then you will have no money to compensate so that's the situation let's assume that we are in an ideal world and everyone is part of the same convention who has jurisdiction? the basic rule is that the state of the incident has jurisdiction this is obvious in the case of an incident at a nuclear insulation the state of the incident is the insulation state so it's the state within whose territory the operator the insulation of the operator liable is situated so if there is an accident in France the French courts will have jurisdiction in case the operator doesn't pay or the operator insurers doesn't pay the victims will have to sue the operator in the French courts the situation is a little bit more complicated in transport cases because in transport cases again the rule applies that in principle the state of the incident has jurisdiction so let's say for example that there is transportation between France and Italy and there is an accident in Germany let's say they're all parties of the same convention which is the party convention the Paris convention in this case Germany will have exclusive jurisdiction under the Paris convention and the victims will have to sue the French operator because the French operator will be liable normally as the sending operator in the courts of Germany but the decisions of the German courts will then be recognized and enforced in France against the liable operator this is how the convention works in maritime transport it's the same but we have again a major difference between old Vienna and old Paris in the sense that under old Vienna and old Paris the incident state has exclusive jurisdiction only in case of an incident within its territorial sea which for those of you who know a little bit about the law of the sea may extend up to 12 miles from the coastline under the revised version of the Vienna and the Paris convention it was decided to broaden the jurisdiction of the coastal state who will then have jurisdiction under Vienna or Paris also if there is an accident within its exclusive economic zone which is an area which can extend up to 200 miles from the coast so this is a major incentive for coastal states to join because they will have jurisdiction in case of an accident in the coast of maritime transport not only within 12 miles but also within 200 miles from their coast now this is when we live in an ideal world and there is an accident in a state that is party to the same convention but let's say for example that the transport is from France to Italy but the accident occurs in Luxembourg I don't want to go into the complication of European law let's just make a theoretical example in this case the accident state is Luxembourg but Luxembourg is not a party to the convention so obviously Luxembourg cannot have exclusive jurisdiction under the Paris convention it will have jurisdiction under its national law but not under the Paris convention the Paris system is based on the idea that the state that has jurisdiction has to be a state party to the convention so in this case jurisdiction goes back to the installation state so the victims in Luxembourg or Germany from the Paris system they will have to sue the operator in the courts of France of course the victims in Luxembourg can also sue in Luxembourg based on national law of Luxembourg but then it remains to be seen whether or not the decisions entered in by the Luxembourg courts will be recognized and enforced in France leaving aside European integration process let's look at these states as if they were sovereign states and not engaged in a complicated system of integration under the European Union which makes things a little bit complicated so that is the situation as far as jurisdiction is concerned and I don't think I want to go into the complication of treaty relations because I've already exceeded my time just to say that they generally there is an accident that occurs in particular in the course of transport between nuclear material between two operators who are parties to different conventions for example there is operator A which is in a state party to Paris like France and operator B which is in a state party to Vienna like Hungary so there is transportation of nuclear material and two states are not parties to the same liability convention so don't ask me why but if there is a nuclear accident in the course of transport of nuclear material it may very well be that both conventions will apply and the result will be that because the accident if the accident has occurred in a non-contracting state the courts of France will have jurisdiction under the Paris Convention the courts of Hungary will have jurisdiction under the Vienna Convention the French operator will be liable under the Paris Convention the Hungarian operator will be liable under the Vienna Convention don't ask me why but this is what would happen in the absence of treaty relations that is what will happen and because this was regarded not to be a good idea but to those who in the 1960s wanted to have a system whereby there is only one operator liable there is only one state whose courts have jurisdiction then it was decided that there was a need to create treaty relations between these two families of states in an ideal world the best solution would have been to replace both conventions with one convention but we don't live in an ideal world so the other solution was to go back to the slide that that I used when I started my presentation was to adopt yet another treaty which was the 1988 joint protocol relating to the application of the Paris and the Vienna Convention this treaty doesn't have rules on liability it doesn't have substantive rules on nuclear liability only about establishing treaty relations between Paris and Vienna states so in the example that I have given to you both France and Hungary although they are parties to different conventions they are also both parties to the joint protocol because they are parties to the joint protocol and they are in treaty relations then these problems that I have mentioned will disappear or at least in theory they are supposed to disappear because if there is transport between France and Hungary only the French operator will be liable because that will be the sending operator and if there is an accident in a non-contracting state the French courts will have jurisdiction if the accident occurs already in Hungary at least under my interpretation of the joint protocol the jurisdiction will be with the Hungarian courts I know there are some who have a different view so that's the purpose of the joint protocol the same goes for the CSE except that the CSE would like to establish treaty relations not only within Paris and Vienna but also for those states that are not parties to either one or the other like the United States, like Japan like Canada, like India these states are not parties to Vienna or Paris so the joint protocol will not help if there is a transportation between France and the United States for example they need to devise a bilateral agreement which can only go that far as far as nuclear liability is concerned in the future if the European United States decide this is at the moment looks like a remote possibility but it may become a possibility in the distant future if the European United States decide to join the CSE then the transportation between France and the United States will be regulated as if it were a transportation between parties of the same convention then only one operator will be liable and only one state will have jurisdiction I will stop here because it's a very complicated subject and I know that many of you will probably want to have clarifications on one or another issue Thank you very much Adria, it's quite a performance to deal with such a complex and why do I need subject within the such a short period of time Mr. Ganesan has very kindly offered us to go until 1 p.m. so we have a short period of two accommodate questions if you have any before we adjourn Yes, please introduce yourself Well you know this is not about liability but I know that China is in the process because I was in China recently and China is in the process of adopting legislation I think I understand they have a number of drafts and they still haven't decided whether they want to have a draft that covers everything atomic law that deals with the regulatory aspects and then a specific law on nuclear safety and then another one on nuclear liability but they are in the process of adopting legislation I don't know how much this will take how long this will take but they are in the process of