Abstract:

It is undeniable that nuclear energy may cause very serious transboundary damages. In dealing with this problem, three different liability schemes have been put forward, namely state’s strict liability, state responsibility and current regime in which operator is strict liability. Amongst them, operator’s strict liability and some elements of state responsibility have been accepted in dealing with nuclear damages and states generally have absented themselves from strict liability discussions. But, after Fukushima, it is now very urgent that state’s strict liability issue must be clarified given the fact that the current nuclear liability scheme is very deficient. As a result of deficiencies in current nuclear liability system, there may be some cases of uncompensated transboundary victims. Considering the urgent need of clarification of state’s strict liability for transboundary nuclear damages, this article will try to answer if there is a firm ground for state’s strict liability in international law and if so, how this concept could be incorporated into legal system. During the research, transnati-onal environmental law, related cases and International Law Commission’s works were used as main sources when analysing the legal status of state’s strict liability. It can be briefly concluded that international law is not clear on the state’s strict liability, but this ambiguity should not prevent states to create new mechanisms in which both current nuclear liability and state’s strict liability elements are included.

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