TED Analysis Cases

RESEARCH PAPER NUMBER: X5

RESEARCH PAPER MNEMONIC: XNUCLEAR

RESEARCH PAPER NAME: Nuclear Energy and Trade

DRAFT AUTHOR: Jay Krasnow

• Issue Background
• Relevant TED Cases
• Policy Implications

I. Issue Background

This paper looks at seven cases in which nuclear energy and trade is an issue. These seven cases include: IRANNUKE, ARCTIC, MOCHO, JAPANSEA, JAPANPL, CHERNOBYL, and TEMELIN. These cases are similar in that they all consider the legal, commercial, environmental, and cultural implications of nuclear energy. They also raise sovereignty and human rights issues while taking geography into account. It's important to study the issues involved in nuclear energy policy because many other forms of energy like coal have been destroying our environment for years. Many scientists would encourage consumers to switch to nuclear energy because they believe it is more eco-friendly if it is used properly. These nine cases demonstrate, though, that nuclear energy can also be dangerous if used improperly.

II. Relevant TED Cases

A. Case Listings and Brief Descriptions

In the SMUGGLE case, Russia, its neighbors, and its allies have become increasingly concerned that nuclear weapons-grade material is being smuggled across the border to Germany and to other nations. This post-Cold War phenomena worries Western leaders because they don't know who's stealing this plutonium and uranium and because they don't know if these materials are being sent to rogue states or terrorist organizations. Theft of weapons-grade material by increases the likelihood that dangerous groups will become nuclear powers.

The MURUROA case provoked many states, groups, and individuals to condemn France's nuclear testing because of their fears that this testing is dangerous to both humans and the wildlife that inhabits the area near Mururoa. The French have insisted that these tests are necessary to develop laboratory simulations methods which would eliminate the need to conduct tests in the future. Opponents of the testing contend that France can get this information from the United States and that further tests will harm the people and environment of many South Pacific nations.

Russia has come under U.S. scrutiny in the IRANNUKE case for its nuclear reactor deal with Iran. According to the agreement, Russia would help Iran complete the construction of two nuclear reactors that were built during the time of the Shah. The United States has condemned both Iran and Russia for their alliance and for jointly advancing nuclear technology in Iran. The U.S. has long worked to deny Iran any type of nuclear technology and has tried to use diplomatic and financial leverage to prevent Russia from continuing this deal. The construction of these reactors in Iran also has many environmental implications. Some of these include the impacts of radiation leakage during the shipping of the nuclear materials and the ecological consequences of Iran NOT building a new and safer reactor.

The most infamous nuclear energy case, CHERNOBYL, became front page news in August 1986 when the temporary shutdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, U.S.S.R. inadvertently caused the reactor of the plant to overheat. Without the safety mechanisms running, no one could predict or prevent a meltdown, which sent a giant cloud into the atmosphere, from occurring. This cloud, which drifted across much of Europe, still affects many the people and environment in many countries --including Ukraine--ten years after the blast.

The ARCTIC case became an important environmental issue when it was revealed that Russia has been dumping radioactive waste in the Arctic Sea since the 1950's even though this practice has been banned globally for more than thirty years. This dumping has international implications because the toxic chemicals may be damaging Scandinavian fishing grounds and because the disclosure of Russia's practice damages its image and relations with neighboring states. Even worse, because the Arctic Sea is frozen for much of the year and because its environment is so fragile, it would be difficult to remove these wastes from this area. Russia recognizes the danger of dumping chemicals but claims that it will have nowhere else to put them unless it is given international assistance.

In the JAPANSEA case, Greenpeace reported, Russia has been dumping radioactive wastes in the Sea of Japan since the 1950's. Russia admits that it has been disposing of nuclear wastes the sea's fishing grounds, but continued to do so for at least eight months after this fact was reported. Many countries in the area are concerned that these toxic wastes will diffuse into their waters even though Russia has agreed to stop the dumping.

The TEMELIN case focuses on two Soviet nuclear reactors designed in Temelin, Czech Republic. If completed, the Temelin reactors would generate 2000 Megawatts of electricity, a quarter of which would be available for export to Europe. Though the project has been endorsed by the Import-Export bank, the Clinton administration, the U.S. Regulatory Commission, and the National Security Council, opponents of the plant --including the Austrian government and groups in the United States, Austria, and the Czech Republic-- are concerned that about the safety of Soviet technology. Supporters say that the plant is a viable, more eco-friendly alternative to coal, but the opposition argues that adequate safety measures have not been considered and that evacuation plans (in the event of an accident) have been ignored.

Japan's use of plutonium imports for many years has worried many groups in Japan and other countries across the globe. The JAPANPL case examines the concern these groups have over the shipment of plutonium from France to Japan as well as over their usage of it. Japan imports the plutonium because it has desperately tried to diversify its resource requirements since the oil shocks of the 1970's. Though spent plutonium can be reprocessed, many groups are concerned about accidents that could occur during the shipping or the reprocessing of the plutonium.

The MOCHO case (on the completion and renovation of the Mochovce nuclear plant in the Slovakian Republic) has caused a conflict between the Slovakian Republic and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on the one hand and among environmental organizations and both the EBRD and the Slovakian Republic. The EBRD has attached strict conditions (such as safety regulations) to the loan that they say that the Slovakians must accept if are to receive the loan. Environmental organizations, on the other hand, have protested the deal because they say that it would threaten the local environment and could result in a catastrophe of the magnitude of that occurred at Chernobyl. The plant itself would permit the Slovakian government to become energy self-sufficient and would boost foreign exchange reserves from electricity exports.

B. LEGAL FILTERS

Of the nine cases, the discourse of the legal filters four are AGRee (AGR) and five are DISagree (DIS). The cases in which the parties AGR are CHERNOBYL, SMUGGLE, ARCTIC, and JAPANSEA. In the SMUGGLE case, all parties agree that the illegal smuggling of nuclear materials is a problem, but they don't know how to stop it.

In the JAPANSEA and ARCTIC cases all parties agree nuclear waste dumping should be stopped, but in both these cases Russia says it has no other alternative. All parties in the CHERNOBYL case are also in agreement that the 1986 meltdown still poses great environmental problems for the area, but don't know what to do about it. The five cases in which the parties DIS are MURUROA, TEMELIN, IRANNUKE, JAPANPL, and MOCHO. In all of these five cases, the parties disagree about the relative danger of the nuclear materials involved, the benefits of using them, the safety mechanisms, and the alternatives to using them in their respective forms.

In the CHERNOBYL case, since the meltdown in Chernobyl is still affecting the people in Europe and because other nations are still trying to prevent the hazard from spreading, the CHERNOBYL case is still technically INPROGress (INPROG). Other cases listed as INPROG include: MURUROA, SMUGGLE, IRANNUKE, JAPANSEA, and TEMELIN. Little else needs to be said about this large group of cases except that once a legal challenge is made against the legitimacy of trade measures it is seldom resolved quickly. In the ARCTIC case, Russia has admitted that it has dumped in the waters (but no solution has been arrived at) so this case is also still INPROG.

The single largest group of these cases --ARCTIC, CHERNOBYL, SMUGGLE, MURUROA, and JAPANSEA have multilateral scopes. This is not surprising in a world where we increasingly have come to understand that the actions of one actor can have broad implications on many others. In the SMUGGLE case, nuclear weapons-grade material has primarily been imported to Germany, but has also been found in other Western European countries. It is unknown, moreover, whether any of these materials have been secretly smuggled to rogue states like Iraq and North Korea. Both Russia and the United States are extremely concerned about the possibility that this may happen. The United States has also demonstrated its concern about France's nuclear testing in the MURUROA case but the countries most worried about these tests are South Pacific nations like Micronesia, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand which are located near the island of Mururoa. The spread of radiation in the CHERNOBYL case clearly has had implications that stretch far past its borders and have drawn the interest of countries as far away as Japan and the United States. In the JAPANSEA case, France, the United States, and Japan were the three principle parties, but an accident or a hi-jacking could have had ramifications on any number of countries. Russia's dumping of nuclear wastes in the ARCTIC case has angered Norwegian fishermen, but because of the delicate environment of the Arctic Circle and the Berents Kara Seas, this case has global environmental implications.

The amount of groups affected by any legal decision in these nine cases ranges from three (in TEMELIN) to seventy-two (in ARCTIC) Since it's very difficult, with great certainty to say the exact number of groups, states, or individuals that would be affected by decisions in many of these cases, this area will not be explored in great detail. It should be noted that legal standing of six of the nine cases are treaties. The treaties invoked in these six cases have been the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Non- Proliferation Treaty (NTP), the London Convention on Dumping, the Vienna Convention on Civic Responsibility for Nuclear Accidents, and the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy. Parties in some of these cases have invoked more than one treaty, but the only treaty invoked in multiple cases was the NPT which was invoked in SMUGGLE, IRANNUKE, and CHERNOBYL. Three cases in which domestic laws were invoked were JAPANPL, MOCHO, and MURUROA. While other cases might have involved domestic laws, these three are the most obvious instances.

Opponents of the French nuclear testing contest that the French government's tests on Mururoa violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), but France has not yet signed this agreement.

C. GEOGRAPHIC FILTERS

The fact that none of these nine cases were influenced by significant sub-national factors demonstrates the extent to which nuclear policy issues are viewed as a global problem. The habitat in four of these cases, MURUROA, ARCTIC, JAPANSEA, and JAPANPL were in oceans, some of them isolated. That these cases, particularly the MURUROA case, were so controversial despite this fact demonstrates the great concern that people have about the dangers of all types of nuclear power. The habitat of the CHERNOBYL and TEMELIN cases were both temperate, the habitat of the IRANNUKE case is dry, and the habitat in the SMUGGLE case varies depending on where the materials are smuggled to. None of the geographic domains were anywhere in the Western Hemisphere or Africa. The domains of these cases most often involved European and Asian nations, including Iran, Norway, the Ukraine Republic, the Czech Republic, India, Japan, and the Slovakian Republic. While the Unites States was a political force in many of these cases, Russia's involvement is seen in almost all to them (especially IRANNUKE, SMUGGLE, CHERNOBYL, ARCTIC, JAPANSEA, TEMELIN, and MOCHO).

D. TRADE FILTERS

In the JAPANPL case, the trade measure invoked in the case is licensing (LICEN). The trade measures implemented in the SMUGGLE and IRANNUKE cases were ExportBANs (EXBAN) while the one implemented in the JAPANSEA and TEMELIN cases were REGulatoryBANs (REGBAN). The mechanism involved in the MOCHO case was a REGulatorySTanDard (REGSTD) but the one involved in the MURUROA case was an IMportBAN (IMBAN). No mechanism was implemented in the CHERNOBYL, so no trade measure is applicable. In the ARCTIC case, no trade measure was implemented, so this category is not applicable to the case. Five out of the seven cases, thus, have chosen some type of ban as a regulatory measure. That the trade measure in six of cases were direct (MURUROA, JAPANSEA, and TEMELIN were the exceptions) may demonstrate that the opposition groups used every resource to stop a trade practice. In the MURUROA case, for example, the people who opposed the nuclear testing could stop it so they boycotted other French products.

These nine cases have demonstrated the wide range of products and industries that are affected by nuclear energy disputes. In these cases, UTILities (UTIL) and Nuclear TECHnology (TECH) are the industries affected in almost all of them: SMUGGLE (TECH), IRANNUKE (UTIL and TECH), TEMELIN (UTIL and TECH), JAPANPL (UTIL and TECH), CHERNOBYL (UTIL and TECH) and MOCHO (UTIL and TECH). The industrymost affected in ARCTIC, MURUROA, and JAPANSEA is FOOD.

Exact economic figures of the trade measures are difficult to assess because economic impact is a matter of perspective. In the MURUROA case, French tourist industries in South Pacific colonies have lost millions of dollars because France's nuclear testing. The information in the SMUGGLE case reveals that nuclear smuggling is a multi-million dollar industry but that it's impossible obtain clear figures because it is illegal and therefore purchases are made in the black market. In the IRANNUKE case, the U.S. trade ban on Iran might cost the country $600 billion. The economic impact of the meltdown in the CHERNOBYL case was devastating. The Soviet government may have lost up to $16 billion because of the disaster but many other countries will also lose millions of dollars because of the disaster. The nuclear dumping in the ARCTIC case will cost $2.9 billion dollars in displacement of workers and loss of income and the electricity exported 1993 in the TEMELIN case was worth $2 billion. The MOCHO case demonstrates that increased efficiency would be more economically sound for the Slovakian Republic and will cost its government $190 million in the next two years, costs of the trade measure in the JAPANPL and the JAPANSEA cases are difficult to assess.

Russia's implementation of the EXportBAN (EXBAN) on nuclear materials in the SMUGGLE case has not stopped would-be smugglers from stealing and taking plutonium across the border of Russia to other countries. In three of the other cases, the trade measures had high impacts, they had medium impacts in two cases, and low impacts in three cases. The case importers and exporters were varied, but Russia and other former Soviet block countries were involved in many of them, including in the SMUGGLE, IRANNUKE, JAPANSEA, TEMELIN, and MOCHO cases.

E. ENVIRONMENTAL CLUSTERS

In every single case, MANY species were affected because of the nature of RADIATION. The environmental problems of the MURUROA and SMUGGLE cases are HABITat (HABIT) destruction while all the other cases were listed as POLutionSea (POLS), POLlutionLand (POLL), or POLlutionAir (POLA). Of the nine cases, three had MEDium (MED) range impacts while the other six had HIGH impacts. The effect of resource depletion in the MOCHO, JAPANPL, TEMELIN, IRANNUKE, and ARCTIC cases are PRODuct (PROD), in the MURUROA and SMUGGLE cases the effect is STRuCTure (STRCT), and in the CHERNOBYL case it is SCALE.

The urgency of many of the cases are HIGH, but at the same time it might take hundreds of years for that impact to be seen. Russia's dumping in the JAPANSEA case may not cause any immediate danger, but the SMUGGLE case demonstrates that the danger is immediate and HIGH. It is not possible at this time, though, to specify exactly how this danger will manifest itself.

The substitutes in the nine cases vary and in some case there may be more than one substitute for the product. For the MURUROA, ARCTIC, and MOCHO cases the LIKE as the substitute, but in the MOCHO case CONSerVation (CONSV) is also a substitute. The TEMELIN and CHERNOBYL are other cases in which CONSV is a substitute. The TEMELIN case was the only one in which SYNTHetic (SYNTH) is a substitute for the product. The CHERNOBYL case, like the IRANNUKE ALTernate (ALT) forms of energy are substitutes for the product. In the JAPANPL and JAPANSEA cases BIOdegradable (BIO) are the substitutes for the products.

F. OTHER FACTORS

The MURUROA case, surprisingly, is the only case in which culture is viewed as a significant factor. In this case, culture is important because the testing may destroy culture. Culture may also be a factor in the dispute because the conflict may also be seen as a conflict of cultural perceptions.

The cases in which human rights are considered issues were MURUROA, SMUGGLE, ARCTIC, JAPANSEA, and TEMELIN. In the MURUROA case, the nuclear testing was conducted on a small island, but the affects of that testing might be hazardous to the health of many of the people of the island nations in the area. The SMUGGLE case involves human rights because the radiation from the stolen nuclear materials may endanger unsuspecting humans who come in contact with them. The ARCTIC case involves human rights because the contaminated Berents Sea and the fish in it could increase the health risks of the people who inhabit the area. Health risks to the people who live near the Sea of Japan and consume the fish in it, likewise, make human rights an issue in the JAPANSEA case. In the TEMELIN case, human rights is a factor because an accident at the plant would be very dangerous to the people who live nearby as well as to people who live in neighboring countries.

Trans-border issues are considered significant in eight of the cases. They are not considered important in the TEMELIN case but is an important issue in the JAPANSEA case. The SMUGGLE case has international implications and trans-border issues because the smugglers are stealing plutonium and sneaking it across the Russian border to Germany and other countries. The ARCTIC involves trans- border issues because the Russian nuclear waste is contaminating Norway's fishing waters in the Barents Sea. The MURUROA case involves trans-border issues because the testing will have implications far from the island of Mururoa. The IRANNUKE also involves trans-border issues because radioactive pollution from Iran could cross the country's borders damage the environment of the country's neighbors and because Iran's neighbor's would find the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran quite unsettling. The trans- border issue in the CHERNOBYL case involves the permeating of radioactivity from the reactor after its meltdown across its borders to other European countries. In the JAPANPL case, trans- border issues are important because an accident during the transport of plutonium from France to Japan would result in an international nuclear crisis. The MOCHO case has trans-national factors because any serious accident would, as in the CHERNOBYL case, have ramifications beyond the borders of the Slovakian Republic.

III. Policy Implications

The preceding cases demonstrate that nuclear power is a highly coveted form of energy in both industrial and developing countries. Though none of these cases directly involved Latin American or African countries, the arguments above clearly show that nuclear power is viewed as the energy source of the future. Accidents like the 1986 meltdown in Chernobyl, Soviet Union (Ukraine Republic) make it apparent that the utilization of nuclear power is a double-edged sword.

The need to increase the safety mechanisms of nuclear energy has never been clearer. Years of usage of fossil fuels like coal and petroleum have already begun destroying the ozone and polluting our air. Many heads of state and congressional leaders in their respective countries recognize this problem but do not have other energy alternatives. While it is true that General Motors is designing proto-types of electric automobiles, these cars are widely regarded as inefficient and too dangerous.

Though the time machine/car of the Back to the Future movies were run by nuclear materials, turning this idea into a reality would seem to be a far-reaching goal which has hardly been discussed. The global non-proliferation regime under the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (and the soon to be ratified Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty make it clear that the nuclear powers would look disapprovingly upon the proliferation of nuclear technology to non- nuclear powers. Except for Japan (which is highly dependent on nuclear power) and several other nations nuclear technology has been hoarded by the five recognized nuclear powers and several 'secret' nuclear powers. Indeed, all of these cases have some type of military-industrial link -- the TEMELIN and CHERNOBYL cases were no exception to this rule.

For the time being, it seem that any foreseen (or even unforeseen) nuclear power advancements will be only enjoyed by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and perhaps Russia. Most of the other former Soviet Republic want no part any post-Cold War nuclear energy race and are more than happy to turn their warheads over to Russia. Except for Japan, many of the G-7 nations feel the same. While France and England will remain nuclear powers, it is almost certain that nuclear experiments will be restricted to secret laboratories. Under these circumstances, it's clear that many nations will be forced to use fossil fuels for a long time to come.