Download pdf
State Responsibility for Transboundary Pollution and Its Assumption: The Case of Japan's Discharge of Nuclear Sewage
- 1 Southwest University of Political Science and Law
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
In recent years, the unilateral decision and behavior of Japanese government in discharging Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water without any guarantee of safety and reliability, despite the international community’s skepticism , have aroused the concern and anger of the people of the world. The act of discharging the nuclear-contaminated water was carried out under the authorization and control of the Government of Japan, which is contrary to the obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention on Nuclear Safety and other conventions to which Japan is a party, so it should be subject to the corresponding national responsibility. Regarding the assumption of responsibility, as the strength of the States themselves mainly promotes international legal obligations and responsibilities, Japan should withdraw its wrongful practice and assume its corresponding duties and responsibilities as soon as possible. The ocean makes the world's countries closely connected, and all countries' interests are closely intertwined, so it is necessary to build a national responsibility mechanism for transboundary pollution under the framework of international law. Based on the existing achievements, this paper discusses and analyzes the national responsibility for transboundary pollution and its assumption and the construction of the national responsibility mechanism, taking Japan's discharge of nuclear-contaminated water as an example in order to strive to provide helpful theoretical support for judicial practice.
Keywords
Nuclear effluents, international wrongful liability, State responsibility
[1]. Draft articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. Part one ChapterⅠ Article2, Part one ChapterⅤ.
[2]. Wang Tieya. (1995) International law(first edition). Law Press· China.
[3]. Luo Huanxin. (2023) Analysis of legal liability for Japan's action to discharge nuclear-contaminated water into the sea. The China Review, 11.
[4]. Huang Huikang. (2021) Four paradoxes surrounding Japan’s discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea.PLA DAILY,4.
[5]. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. PART XII.SECTION 1. Article 195.
[6]. LIU Y, GUO X Q, LI S W, et al. (2002) Discharge of treated Fukushima nuclear accident contaminated water: macroscopic and microscopic simulations. National Science Review,9(1), 209.
[7]. DUAN H Y, TANG X J, DUAN Z Y, et al. (2024) Compensation mechanism for ecological environment damage caused by Japan's nuclear-contaminated water discharged into the sea. China population. Resources and Environment, 34(2), 119-130.
[8]. Na Li. (2023) Japan's decision to discharge nuclear sewage into the ocean and international law: unfulfilled environmental protection, environmental impact assessment, notification and consultation obligations.Pacific Journal, 29, 10.
[9]. Que Zhanwen. (2020) Cross-boundary environmental impact assessment obligations and their performance. Journal of Political Science and Law, 6.
[10]. Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter. ArticleⅢ, a(i).
[11]. Zhang Yixuan. (2024) Study on International Environmental Damage Responsibility of Nuclear Contaminated Water Discharge to Sea. Hebei University.
[12]. Huang Maorong. (2001) Jurisprudence and Modern Civil Law.China University of Political Science and Law Press.
[13]. Pei Zhaobin, Jiang lunrong. (2022) Study on the legal issues surrounding the discharge of nuclear sewage in Japan and their countermeasures. The South China Sea Law Journal, 1, 191.
[14]. Mei Hong. (2022) Legal Construction of Compensation for Marine Ecological Environment Damage from Global Perspective, 4.
[15]. HUA Feng, DU Juntao, ZHENG Xuntao, TANG Lianhua, ZHANG Lianjie, ZHANG Zhenchao, ZHANG Zhuo. (2019) The Recent Status and Future Development Trend of Nuclear Instrumentation Technology of Nuclear Power Plants.Nuclear Electronics & Detection Technology, 4.
[16]. The 1997 Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage. Article VII.
[17]. Convention on Third Party Liability OECD Legal Instruments in the Field of Nuclear Energy. Article 10(c).
[18]. He Zhipeng. (2023) The theory of international law.Peking University Press, 1-2.
[19]. James Crowford. Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. Retrieved from https://Legala.un.org/avl/pdf/ha/rsiwa/rsiwa_e.pdf.
[20]. Quan Yongbo. (2022) State Responsibility for Transboundary Governance of the Marine Environment.Social Science in Chinese Higher Education Institution, 4.
[21]. Li Jiasui. (2009) The rule creation and system evolution of national responsibility: To see the perfection of the national responsibility mechanism from the Lockby case. Lanzhou Academic Journal, 12.
[22]. Yang Hua. (2017) The theory of maritime law power. Social Science in China, 9,170.
[23]. Luo Huanxin. (2021) An Analysis of Legal Issues and Countermeasures Concerning Japan’s Plan to Discharge Contaminated Water into Ocean: Coordinating the International Law and Domestic Law on Liability Relief.Japanese Studies, 4.
[24]. CHANG Yenchiang, LIU Fanyu. (2024) Legal Analysis of Domestic Remedies for the Discharge of Contaminated Water into the Sea in Japan: A Focus on Judicial Litigation Channels. Journal of Hainan University (Humanities & Social Sciences),9, 150-155.
Cite this article
Xiao,Y. (2025). State Responsibility for Transboundary Pollution and Its Assumption: The Case of Japan's Discharge of Nuclear Sewage. Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media,79,1-10.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of ICGPSH 2024 Workshop: Industry 5 and Society 5 – A Study from The Global Politics and Socio-Humanity Perspective
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).