Status of the revision of the Vienna Convention

The existing international liability regime for nuclear damage, established by the Vienna Convention of 1963, cannot solve satisfactorily the question of adequate compensation of the victims. That was the main legal conclusion drawn after the Chernobyl disaster, the victims of which would not have been provided with appropriate compensation, even if the Soviet Union had ratified the Convention. A number of other problems of application were raised by experts, for example the geographical scope of the Convention, applicability to non-peaceful installations and the definition of Installation State in respect of these installations, the concept of nuclear damage, and settlement of disputes. These also call for improvement of the regime. This paper is a report on the present status of negotiations on the revision of the Vienna Convention. 13 refs