CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

CYIL 14 (2023) THE VIENNA CONVENTION ON CIVIL LIABILITY FOR NUCLEAR DAMAGE … accession has caused a major region of the Central and Eastern Europe to be incorporated under the Vienna Convention. On the other, the accession of these states to the Vienna Convention quite naturally caused a major division concerning the regime of nuclear liability in the geographical region of Europe. While most of the States of Western Europe nowadays belong to the regime of the Revised Paris Convention and of the Revised Brussels Supplementary Convention, the states of Central and Eastern Europe belong to either the Vienna Convention, or the Revised Vienna Convention. 2.4 Change of the liability regime Apart of the participation of another international regime, or ideological reservations, there was another factor why a state would decide not to participate in the international regime, as established by the Vienna Convention. Here, we refer to the case of termination of the Vienna Convention that occurred in the case of Slovenia. The fact is that, as a successor state of the formerly existing Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slovenia originally declared its notification of succession to the Vienna Convention, with effect from 25 June, 1991. However, on 9 November, 2001, Slovenia notified the termination of its application of the Convention. Pursuant to the rules on termination, the Vienna Convention ceased to apply to Slovenia as of 12 November, 2002. 64 The termination of the Vienna Convention by Slovenia was done because of the country’s desire to join the regional regime of liability, as established under the Paris Convention. 65 As explained in detail above, a dual membership in both the “Viennese” and the “Paris” regime of nuclear liability is not considered possible. Consequently, termination of the Vienna Convention represented the only viable option for Slovenia to joint the regime of the Paris Convention. The fact is that so far there has been no other Contracting Party to the Vienna Convention terminating its liability regime and leaving for another international regime of liability. No other state in Central Europe followed the example of Slovenia until now. Consequently, the case of Slovenia was unique in the history of the Vienna Convention. It also re-confirmed again the arguments declaring the impossibility of simultaneous membership of the same state in the Paris and Vienna Conventions. 2.5 A universal regime too distant Lastly, there was another reason the Vienna Convention failed to establish a worldwide regime of nuclear liability. For several nuclear states, the territory covered by the “Viennese” regime was simply too far distant to attract accession to that Convention. 66 This was the case for Canada, South Africa, the Republic of Korea and Japan. None of these states were surrounded by territories, covered by the regime of the Vienna Convention. Consequently, accession to this instrument was considered as representing very little benefit, as nuclear damages are most likely to arise in the perimeters nearby the nuclear incident. 67 Therefore, 64 The Vienna Convention, art. XXV.2. 65 See GREGORIC, M. Harmonisation of Slovenian nuclear legislation with EU in GORTNAR, O., STRITAR, A. (eds), International Conference on Nuclear Energy in Central Europe 99 , Portoroz (Slovenia), 6th – 9th September 1999, Ljubljana: Nuclear Society of Slovenia, 1999, at pp. 25–32. 66 See LAMM, V. Reflections on the Development of International Nuclear Law (2017) Nuclear Law Bulletin , at pp. 38–40. 67 See HAGEN LANG, T. Nuclear liability – a comparative assessment of the legal situation in South Africa and

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