§ Mr. JoplingTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what approaches have been made to the Governments of the former Soviet Union, under the principles of the polluter pays, to seek compensation for the effects in the United Kingdom of the Chernobyl explosion. [11154]
§ Sir Nicholas BonsorJust after the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, on 10 July 1986, we notified the Soviet Union that we were reserving the right to file claims for damage which had occurred in the United Kingdom.
However, we came to the conclusion that it was unrealistic to expect the Soviet Union to honour such claims.
It was not possible to base a claim for compensation against the Soviet Union on relevant international conventions, in particular the 1968 Vienna convention on civil liability for nuclear damage, as it was not a party to 227W these conventions. The Soviet Union now no longer exists. The Russian Federation and Ukraine are considering accession to the 1968 Vienna convention. However, any such accession would not have retrospective effect.
We are participating in the work in progress internationally to achieve an enhanced global regime for nuclear liability. We expect that this issue will be discussed during the G7/G8 nuclear safety summit in Moscow in April.