Principles of international environmental protection - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 105

because there were reasonable grounds to doubt the quality of the Soviets'
management processes. However, in the end, many countries decided that
although they had incurred extensive damage, legal action would have been
useless.
As is often the case with international environmental regulation, it took a
disaster to motivate the international community to take steps to prepare for
such a situation should it ever happen again. A few months after the Chernobyl
disaster, two conventions were adopted under the auspices of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): the Convention on Early Notifi cation of a
Nuclear Accident 20 and the Convention on Assistance in Case of a Nuclear
Accident or Radiological Emergency. 21 This development was also recorded
in Principle 18 of the Rio Declaration: states shall immediately notify other
states of any natural disasters or other emergencies that are likely to produce
sudden harmful effects on the environment of those states. The notifi cation
and assistance rules soon developed into rules of customary international law.
As we have seen above, an affected party - that is, a state under the threat
of a signifi cant transboundary environmental impact - has no veto over any
legal activities in the territory of the party of origin if they do not result in
signifi cant transboundary pollution. The party of origin is therefore free to
damage the environment of the affected party, albeit only to a limited extent.
In contrast, in order to deliberately transport harmful waste or hazardous
substances to the territory of another state, a licence must usually be received
from a competent authority in the affected party. In this context, the veto
would normally apply, contrary to situations where the hazardous substance
enters the territory waterborne or airborne.
Trends in the popularity of nuclear power
The popularity of nuclear power in energy production declined after the Cher-
nobyl plant disaster. It was even anticipated to be a 'sunset industry'.
Paradoxically, increased knowledge about the consequences of climate change
resulted in a renaissance in the nuclear power sector in the 1990s. As nuclear
power produces low greenhouse gas emissions in comparison with other forms
of energy production, its popularity rose when the climate change convention
system required governments to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
The trend was bucked, at least temporarily, when an immense undersea earth-
quake of magnitude 9.0 about 70 kilometres off the Oshika Peninsula triggered
a tsunami on the eastern Japanese coast causing the Fukushima Daiichi power
plant nuclear disaster on 11 March 2011.
The impact was at fi rst assessed as low, until the real state of affairs was gradually
revealed: the Fukushima disaster is considered to be as severe as the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant disaster. The IAEA later confi rmed that the cores of three
reactors had melted, at least partially. The worldwide consequence has seen the
closing down of nuclear power plants and a reassessment of the entire nuclear
power policy.