Chapter 1. Introduction
On March 11th, 2011, an earthquake occurred with the epicenter located at 130 kilometers east of the city Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The magnitude of the earthquake was 9.0, the largest ever recorded in Japanese history. The earthquake caused a 15-meter-high tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people. Right after the earthquake, eleven operating nuclear reactors automatically shut down, including three in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Station. At that time, Units 1, 2 and 3 nuclear reactors in the Fukushima Station were operating, and they automatically shut down after the earthquake. Units 4, 5 and 6 were under a routine maintenance, so they were not operating.
Although Units 1, 2 and 3 automatically shut down, continued cooling was necessary in order to remove the residual heat of the nuclear reactors;
however, the station loss power from the local electric grid because it was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. Although each nuclear reactor was equipped with a diesel generator for backup electricity, it was also damaged by the tsunami, so the Fukushima Station experienced the ―station blackout‖, a dangerous situation that the cooling system was supported only by the batteries. It requires several days of continuous cooling to remove the entire residual heat, but the batteries can only sustain for several hours. Eventually, the reactor cores were melted, and the radioactive pollution damaged the health of the local residents. The soil, water, crops, and infrastructures around the nuclear station were also radioactively polluted.1
Right after the nuclear damage, the compensation was urgently in need to mitigate the adversity on the victims,2 and the international conferences started to discuss the adequacy of the existing nuclear liability conventions.3 More importantly, if the nuclear safety conventions were adequate enough, the nuclear accident might not happen. The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster indeed underscored the importance to overhaul the international legal framework especially on the nuclear safety regime. Additionally, Taiwan is in a special circumstance right now where the license expiration dates of the nuclear reactors are around the corner. On the other hand, due to the special identity in the international community, Taiwan was not allowed to join any of the international conventions on nuclear safety. As a result, it is necessary to do a case study to examine whether or not Taiwan could follow up the progress of the international legal framework. If not, it is important to identify the good legislative examples that Taiwan should learn from.
As a result, this thesis explores the provisions of the six international nuclear safety conventions and the domestic laws in Taiwan to see if there are some necessary improvements that must be made urgently in order to enhance the safety of nuclear power and prevent the accidents from
1 Burns, G. S. (2018). The impact of the major nuclear power plant accidents on the international legal framework for nuclear power. In Nuclear Law Bulletin No. 101 (Nuclear Energy Agency, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Ed., pp. 7-30).
(Nuclear Law Bulletin, No. 101). Boulogne-Billancourt, France: OECD/NEA.
2 Cheng, M.-S. and Jhang, H.-D. (2011). An Examination on Taiwanese Nuclear Liability Laws (plans_04_e-100_03). Taipei, Taiwan: Library of Soochow University. (程明修主持(2011)。我國
核子損害賠償法制度之研修(行政院原子能委員會研究計畫期末報告，plans_04_e-100_03)。臺
北，東吳大學圖書館。)
3 Burns, supra note 1, at 28-29.
happening again in the future. Rather than the nuclear engineering experiments, the standard operation procedures on nuclear reactor facilities, or the prevention of complex natural disasters, this thesis focuses on the examination of the regulatory framework established by the international nuclear safety conventions. Meanwhile, the study compares the nuclear safety laws in Taiwan with the international nuclear safety conventions to see if the domestic laws could fulfill the obligations and core values of the international regime on the security of reactor facilities. Hopefully with the main findings and suggestions of the research, the international legal framework on nuclear safety would become more robust, so the reactor facilities could operate in a safer manner. On the other hand, the case study in Taiwan that was done by this thesis may also boost the domestic legislation to catch up with the pace of the international legal framework, apply the good practices from other countries, and resolve the intractable issues in Taiwan such as the disposal of high-level radioactive wastes, the environmental pollution of ionizing radiation, and the lack of consideration about the intergenerational justice.
In terms of the methodology, this thesis analyzes each nuclear safety convention and each Taiwanese nuclear safety law with respect to the objectives, implementing measures, assisting measures, and equitable measures. By referring to the relevant papers, reports and articles, this thesis analyzes the pros and cons on each of the four aspects for each convention and domestic law, and then provides the practical recommendations accordingly. This thesis also puts together the matching convention and domestic law to see which one did a better job on each specific aspect so that the convention and domestic law can both improve by learning from its counterpart. Moreover, this thesis makes the most of the results from such comparison by applying the results—the good practices from each convention and domestic law—to address the issues that Taiwanese nuclear stations are facing, wishing that the good practices from the international society can enhance the nuclear security, environmental protection, and the intergenerational justice in Taiwan whereas the merits of Taiwanese nuclear safety laws and practices could be taken into account by other countries and improve as a whole.
When it comes to novelty and significance, this thesis may be one of the first researches, if any, to discuss all six of the nuclear safety conventions, all four Taiwanese nuclear safety laws, and compare between the international legal framework and Taiwanese legislation with regard to the objectives, implementation, assisting measures, and equity. While the laws and conventions are highly complicated and diversified, it is much more well-organized and systematic by categorizing the articles into the four aspects.
This method indeed provides a comprehensive interpretation on the nuclear safety regime that not only allows future works to research even further from this fundament, but also encourages scholars from all kinds of fields to discuss the international conventions and domestic laws based on the four components. Moreover, it is almost a decade from the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, and human beings tend to forget the pain of past lessons as time passes. While climate change issues are more and more severe and the deadline of carbon reduction comes closer and closer, many countries have started to evaluate the possibilities of restarting, or increasing, the use of
nuclear power. While the fear of Fukushima gradually diminished, this thesis indeed serves as a timely reminder about the need of nuclear safety enhancement.
As for the structure of this thesis, Chapter 2 evaluates the international nuclear safety conventions, Chapter 3 examines the nuclear safety laws in Taiwan, Chapter 4 focuses on the case study in Taiwan, and Chapter 5 is the conclusion. To be more specific, in Chapter 2.1., there will be an overview on the development of the six nuclear safety conventions in the past, followed by Chapter 2.2., which introduces the method that this thesis utilizes to analyze the conventions and laws. Then, from Chapter 2.3. to Chapter 2.8., the thesis discusses each of the six nuclear safety conventions one by one. In Chapter 2.9., there is a general statement on the merits and flaws of the six nuclear safety conventions. In terms of Taiwan‘s nuclear safety laws, Chapter 3.1.
introduces each of the four domestic laws using the same method that was applied in Chapter 2. Then, in Chapter 3.2., each Taiwanese law is compared with the relevant nuclear safety convention which serves the same purpose. In Chapter 3.3., there is a general statement about the merits and flaws of Taiwan‘s nuclear safety laws. After that, there are two case studies that Taiwan is facing right now—Chapter 4.1. discusses the license renewal application of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Taiwan, and Chapter 4.2. illustrates the environmental concerns and radiological threat of the decommissioning issues of Taiwanese nuclear reactors. Last but not least, Chapter 4.3. briefs the main findings of the two case studies as well as the limitation of this research.