CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ HURDLING TOWARD THE PYRAMIDS OF THE NUCLEAR AGE: … fuel in their territories could be discussed here. However, such solution must be based on a special international agreement. 74 5. Conclusions The following famous words of David A. Funk, introducing the doctrine of “legal futurism”, are clearly applicable also vis-á-vis the subject of this study. “ Most legal thought is lavished on interpreting records of the past or reinterpreting them for guiding behavior in the present and immediate future. Even legal policy analysis and legal impact studies typically deal with effects of one legal rule or another over a few decades. Most of our attention should be devoted to immediate problems. But a few legal scholars much of the time, and many legal scholars some of the time, can afford to project their thought concerning law further into the future. Those who do may find the exercise beneficial, even for study of our legal past and present .” 75 In fact, “legal futurism” does not deal with formulating an exact prediction of the future. 76 Rather, it deals with the prospective application of law to certain model situations in the distant future. While the necessity to dispose existing spent fuel to the underground repositories has been formulated by technical experts and this necessity is recently commonly understood as an obligation towards future generations, we have to bear in mind that there are also other scenarios for these future developments. When discussing the application of law to the prospective underground repositories in a 100 year future, we must bear inmind that alternative technologies are under development in parallel. Such technologies may potentially provide cheaper, safer and more environmentally friendly alternatives to deep-geological disposal, in particular by developing new reprocessing technologies. Theoretically, other viable methods of the disposal may be further developed in the distant future, such as disposal in space. 77 Such developments could avoid the necessity to establish underground repositories and to dispose spent fuel in deep geological formations. From this perspective, this article was not only intended to contribute to the scholarship of international nuclear law, but also to the scholarship of “legal futurism” from the point of view of international nuclear law – a point of view, which has been very much neglected for very long time and has called for immediate special attention. 74 Establishing of a common financial fund, which will accumulate resources available to cover potential damages, represents one of the prospective alternatives of the further developments. Here, the Convention Supplementary to the Paris Convention (“Brussels Supplementary Convention”), adopted by the Contracting Parties to the Paris Convention in 1963, can serve as a valuable inspiration. 75 Funk, n 13, pp. 625-626. 76 Beebe, n 13, p. 10. 77 While this option is for the time being not considered as technologically viable, there is a considerable debate on potential use of this solution in the distant future. See for example (i) COOPERSMITH, J., ‘Creating an infrastructure for space exploitation: Space disposal of high-level nuclear waste’ in Space 2000 – Proceedings (American Society of Civil Engineers 2000), pp. 624-630. (ii) KIM, Hyungjin, PARK, Chul and KWON, Oh Joon, ‘Conceptual design of the space disposal system for the highly radioactive component of the nuclear waste’ (2016) 115 Energy, pp. 155-168. (iii) COOPERSMITH, J., ‘Nuclear waste disposal in space: BEP’s best hope?’ in Beamed Energy Propulsion – 4th International Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion (American Institute of Physics 2005), pp. 600-605.

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