CYIL Vol. 5, 2014

THE BRUSSELS CONVENTION ON THE LIABILITY OF OPERATORS OF NUCLEAR SHIPS whether the Convention would contain only rules applicable for operation of nuclear- powered vessels on the High Seas, or also govern issues of their entry to the ports of other than licensing states. Furthermore, it was obvious that, while land-based reactors might easily mitigate possible dangers by locating them far from populated areas, nuclear-powered vessels were designed to sail into harbors. Consequently, while the installation state was expected to appropriately compensate a nuclear incident created by its land-based reactor (situated in its territory), the licensing state would be not under such intermediate pressure where the incident occurs in a distant harbor, where the nuclear-powered ship bearing its flag is anchored. 7 Thus states involved in further development of nuclear shipping had to face all these challenges and deal with them during negotiations, which will be subject of the following paragraphs. The 11 th session of the Brussels diplomatic conference on maritime law: paving the way to a deadlock The first draft convention in these matters was detailed in 1959 at the Nineteenth Conference of the International Maritime Committee ( Comité Maritime International, CMI ) in Rijeka ( hereinafter “the Rijeka Draft” ). 8 In the following year, a representative panel of 150 experts met under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Because the existing “Panel of Experts on Civil Liability and State Responsibility for Nuclear Hazards” had decided to restrict its study and drafts to land-based reactors, a “Panel of Legal Experts on Liability for Nuclear Propelled Ships” was charged with reviewing the “Rijeka Draft”. Pursuant to the request of the Panel and following its substantive recommendations, the Secretariat of the International Atomic Energy Agency prepared a new draft convention. All these documents were subsequently submitted to the Eleventh Session of the Diplomatic Conference on Maritime Law (hereinafter “the Conference” ). Those were held under the sponsorship of the Belgian Government (which had traditionally convened maritime law conferences) and of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Brussels from 17 to 29 April 1961. 9 The circumstances, under which the Conference initiated its Session on 17 April 1961, were following: A working group of the United States Academy of Sciences assumed, two years earlier (1959), that there would be approximately 300 nuclear- powered ships by 1970. 10 However, at the time the Session was opened, the number of nuclear vessels had been considerably lower: 21 nuclear submarines and 2 surface 7 Seaver, R. The Impact of Nuclear Propulsion of Ships on Admiralty and Shipping Law, Atomic Energy Law Journal, 1960, at p. 303. 8 The text if the “Rijeka Draft” was reproduced in the Progress in Nuclear Energy, Vol. 3, New York: Pergamon Press (1962), at pp. 321 et seq. 9 Belli, G . La conferenza diplomatica per una convenzione sulla responsibilitá civile degli utilizzatiori di navi nucleari, Diritto ed economia nucleare, 1961, at p. 353. 10 Hardy, M . The Liability of Operators of Nuclear Ships, International and Comparative Law Quaterly, 1963, at p. 779.

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