CYIL 2012

JAKUB HANDRLICA CYIL 3 ȍ2012Ȏ Facing the current process of 2004 Protocol ratification, in its sixth year, and dealing with numerous problems of a different nature, 34 it can be expected that amending the Paris Convention in a way enabling Euratom to participate as a contracting party, will be a painful and long procedure. 2.3.2 OECD – membership as a precondition for accession to the Amended Paris Convention However, even if the wording of the Paris Convention is changed to enable Community accession to the Amended Paris Convention, the membership of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development or the consent of all Paris Convention states would still be an accession precondition. Based on current observation, fully-fledged Community membership in the Organisation is not probable in the next few years. 35 The new governance structure of the Organisation adopted in 2006 does not alter the mode of Commission participation. Furthermore, a very recent legal study, “ Accession of Euratom to the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy,” also pointed out this problem in the perspective of questioning the future nuclear liability regime in Europe, describing it as a very hypothetical scenario. 36 2.3.3 Preliminary conclusions: Euratom’s accession to the Amended Paris Convention as a very hypothetical scenario Consequently, one might argue that both sides of the problem present considerable legal barriers. The consent of the Community’s treaty-making powers is still considered very unclear over what nuclear liability concerns. Yet, the current version of the Amended Paris Convention does not foresee Community participation as a contracting party. Therefore, the problem of the Euratom’s accession to this treaty is recently considered as merely the object of academic discussions. III. European nuclear liability legislation vis-á-vis the nuclear liability treaties The idea of governance over nuclear liability by the legislative means of European law is not entirely new. 37 However, it was the publication of the study on “ Accession of Euratom to the Paris Convention.., that opened the recent discussion of this method for a nuclear liability agreement and stressed that: “No action would expose the European Atomic Community to possible claims based on a breach of the general Community law principle on non-discrimination, as 34 See Schwartz, J. (2010), cit. 22, pp. 54 et seqq. 35 See Wouters, J. and Vidal, M. (2008) ‘The OECD Model tax Convention Commentaries and the European Court of Justice: Law, Guidance, Inspiration?’, in Douma, S. and Engelen, F. (eds): Legal Status of the OECD Commentaries , p. 199 et seqq., International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD), Amsterdam. 36 See TREN/CC/01 – 2005, at 66. 37 Faure, M. and Fiore, F. (2009) ‘An economican alysis of the nuclear lability subsidy’, 26 Pace Environmental Law Review 2, p. 419 et seqq.

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