Daily Times

Emphatically, India’s expanded nuclear program via US-India nuclear deal –endorsed by the Bush-Obama administration in 2005-2009–represents grave challenges to environmental law for two prime reasons. First, it shows that western support for India’s civilian nuclear program, despite the exclusion of nuclear energy for safety and security does not yield timely emissions reduction benefits because of sketchy India-IAEA agreement of 2009 accompanied by India’s poorly aligned emissions reduction and energy diversification goals. Second, the expansion of India’s civilian nuclear program demonstrates that global powers have given scant attention to developing an adequate legal framework for managing serious associated environmental problems such as nuclear waste management, siting, and liability. India’s 22 operational nuclear reactors must adhere to the IAEA established safety protocols vis-à-vis international environmental law in order to prevent the South Asian environment from the upcoming dangers of global warming.

India’s nuclear chiefs have long maintained that ill health in the region is caused by endemic poverty and unsanitary conditions. But the testimony and reports document how nuclear installations, fabrication plants and mines have repeatedly breached international safety standards for the past 20 years. Doctors, as well as international radiation experts, say that nuclear chiefs have repeatedly suppressed or rebuffed their warnings. India is now the planet’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide.

Every nuclear generating station spews about two-thirds of the energy it burns inside its reactor core into the environment. Only one-third is converted into electricity. Another tenth of that is lost in transmission. All nuclear reactors emit Carbon 14, a radioactive isotope. One environmental consequence peculiar to nuclear power is that among all electricity generating technologies, it alone produces waste that stays radioactive for tens of thousands of years, posing potential health and environmental hazard to thousands of future generation.

According to the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC), any nuclear industrial activity results in the generation of some waste material. Nuclear industry is no exception and the presence of radiation emitting radioactive materials which may have adverse impact on living beings and which is likely to continue to the subsequent generation as well is what sets nuclear or radioactive wastes apart from other conventional hazardous wastes. The Indian nuclear waste managers who exploit the argument that the radioactivity of the radioactive waste decays with time are virtually responsible of managing all types of radioactive wastes –generated from the entire nuclear fuel cycle right from mining of uranium, fuel fabrication through reactor operations and subsequent reprocessing of the spent fuel.

The application of the IAEA safety principles ensures that the environment is adequately protected from radiation. As regards any nuclear activity, New Delhi has to comply with the international protocols to protect the South Asian region from the scowling threats of global warming.

The U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement with India grants New Delhi consent to reprocess nuclear material transferred pursuant to the agreement, as well as “nuclear material and byproduct material used in or produced through the use of nuclear material, non-nuclear material, or equipment so transferred.” However, the agreement also includes a requirement that India first build a new national reprocessing facility to be operated under IAEA safeguards. The two countries signed a subsequent arrangement July 30, 2010, which governs the procedures for operating two new reprocessing facilities in India.

The agreement also describes procedures for U.S. officials to inspect and receive information about physical protection measures at the new facilities. The arrangement would not have taken effect if Congress had adopted a joint resolution of disapproval within 30 days of continuous session; Congress did not adopt such a resolution. If India were to construct any additional facilities to reprocess fuel from U.S.-supplied reactors, a new subsequent arrangement would need to be submitted to Congress.

A recently published discussion paper by The Harvard Belfer Centre of Science and International Affairs argues,’’ the IAEA-India 2009 agreement gives India flexibility to move safeguarded nuclear material in and out of its unsafeguarded, “strategic” nuclear program, and allows safeguarded nuclear material to be used for the production of unsafeguarded nuclear material. As a result of this flexibility there is in fact no clear separation between facilities designated as “civilian” and facilities serving military or strategic purposes. This situation not only contradicts India’s commitment to separate its civilian and military nuclear programs and undermines the fundamental purpose of providing assurance of the peaceful use of safeguarded materials and facilities, it also appears inconsistent with the IAEA’s Statute, which requires the IAEA to ensure it does not further any military purpose’’.

Pakistan Meteorological Department, has complained about ‘black carbon’ emitted from steel mills in the north of India that were carried by winds into Pakistan. “Winds carrying the black soot had been settling and accumulating on the glaciers in Pakistan’s northern areas. The black soot absorbs more heat, causing the glaciers to melt faster,” the expert explained. Since 2010, a fundamental incompatibility between India’s civil liability law and international conventions limits foreign technology provision. The importance of coal for India’s nuclear fuel means that CO2 emission reduction is not a high priority and the government declined to set targets ahead of the 21st Conference of the Parties on Climate Change held in Paris in 2015. Interestingly, India has transgressed the environmental law despite some international mechanisms or bindings on nuclear emissions.

The Joint Convention came into force on i18 June 2001, is the first legal instrument to address the issue of spent fuel and radioactive waste management safety on a global scale. It does so by establishing fundamental safety principles and creating a similar “peer review” process to the Convention on Nuclear Safety. The Convention applies to spent fuel resulting from the operation of civilian nuclear reactors and to radioactive waste resulting from civilian applications. It also applies to spent fuel and radioactive waste from military or defence programmes.

The Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) is a legally-binding international treaty under which 80 Contracting Parties commit to maintaining a high level of safety at civilian, land-based nuclear power plants by setting international benchmarks to which the Contracting Parties subscribe. The obligations cover siting, design, construction, operation, financial and human resources, the assessment and verification of safety, quality assurance, and emergency preparedness.

The Nuclear Regulatory Research, the NRC strongly supports efforts of the IAEA to promote global implementation of the Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources (Code), its Supplementary Guidance on the Import and Export of Radioactive Sources (Import-Export Guidance) and its Supplementary Guidance on the Management of Disused Sources (Disused Sources Guidance. As of March 2020, 140 IAEA Member States, including the United States, have made a political commitment to act in accordance with the Code,

Nevertheless, radioactive waste/GHGs emission remains an important item on the agenda of many countries. The application of the IAEA safety principles ensures that the environment is adequately protected from radiation. As regards any nuclear activity, New Delhi has to comply with the international protocols to protect the South Asian region from the scowling threats of global warming. The Biden administration must also review the deal. Disputes between States concerning international environmental law can be heard in the International Court of Justice if the concerned states ungrudgingly accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ.

The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan