CYIL Vol. 5, 2014

JAKUB HANDRLICA CYIL 5 ȍ2014Ȏ Taking all these objections into account, some important concessions were made towards those states opposing inclusion of the nuclear-powered vessels in the Convention: – pursuant to the Article III (3), the obligation to maintain insurance or other financial security does not apply to the cases where the operator of the vessel is the state itself. However, the liability of the licensing state, pursuant to the Article III (2), has not been touched by this provision and, consequently, this exception was more symbolic, – pursuant to the Article X (3), nothing in the treaty shall make warships or other state- owned or state-operated ships on non-commercial service liable to arrest, attachment or seizure, or confer jurisdiction in respect of warships on the courts of any foreign state. It is a matter of fact that an attempt to find a compromise between two different positions was made. A proposal to exclude nuclear-powered military vessels from the scope of the Convention implied negotiating a separate protocol which would extend some of the basic principles of the NS Convention to these ships. However, such attempts failed. The attempts to amend the NS Convention and to exclude the nuclear-powered military vessels faced the same fate. Subsequently, both major states operating nuclear military fleets remained reluctant to join the Convention. Contemporary authors pointed out that the inclusion of the warships into the Convention was the sole reason why the United States, reflecting the views of the Navy Department and of the American Bar Association , hesitated to adopt this treaty. 49 However, such a result is curious if the fact is taken into account that the Convention was in most of its features an American convention. 50 The views of the United States delegation prevailed concerning the limit and channeling of liability, jurisdictional issues, on the barring of recourse actions, and finally on many of final clauses of the treaty, in particular what concerns the Article XIX, ensuring the continued application of the treaty for as long as twenty five years of operation to those nuclear- powered vessels licensed prior to the termination of the Convention. 51 Failure of plans to increase the nuclear-powered fleets While the subject of much expectation, nuclear propulsion failed to prove its ability to be a prospective means of marine propulsion. There have been only four nuclear-powered merchant cargo ships in operation until now. 52 The United States launched the NS Savannah (in operation 1962-1972), Japan launched the NS Mutsu (in operation 1970-1992), the Federal Republic of Germany the NS Otto Hahn (in operation 1968-1979) and the Soviet Union the NS Sevmorput, a nuclear-powered cargo ship with ice breaking abilities in operation since 1988. The fate of the NS Savannah illustrates the entire issue. The NS Savannah is considered a demonstration of the technical feasibility of nuclear propulsion for

49 Op. cit. sub note 4, at p. 563. 50 Op. cit. sub note 3, at p. 36. 51 Op. cit. sub note 11, at p. 110. 52 Op. cit. sub note 3, at p. 37.

136