Nuclear liability conventions

The IAEA serves as depositary for several international legal instruments on civil liability for nuclear damage, which aim to ensure compensation is available for damage, including transboundary damage, caused by a nuclear incident at a nuclear installation or in the course of transport of nuclear material to or from an installation. These include the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage and the Protocol to amend it, the Joint Protocol Relating to the Application of the Vienna Convention and the Paris Convention and the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage.

In its work on nuclear liability, the IAEA is supported by INLEX, the International Expert Group on Nuclear Liability.

Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage

The Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage aims at harmonizing the national law of the Contracting Parties by establishing some minimum standards to provide financial protection against damage resulting from certain peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Joint Protocol Relating to the Application of the Vienna Convention and the Paris Convention

The international legal regime of civil liability for nuclear damage, as laid down in the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage is largely mirrored in the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy, which is deposited with the Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Joint Protocol is designed to establish treaty relations between the Contracting Parties to the Vienna Convention and the Contracting Parties to the Paris Convention, and to eliminate conflicts that may arise from the simultaneous application of both Conventions to the same nuclear incident.

Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage

The Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC) aims at establishing a minimum national compensation amount and at further increasing the amount of compensation through public funds to be made available by the Contracting Parties should the national amount be insufficient to compensate the damage caused by a nuclear incident.

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