nuclear-news

The Convention on Supplementary Compensation, or CSC, for nuclear damage, will come into force on April 15. The decision taken by Japan, with the world’s third-biggest installed nuclear capacity, ended a 17-year wait for the treaty to become legally binding……….

The convention will allow countries and companies to offset liability in the event of a nuclear accident. The U.S., with the world’s largest installed nuclear-power base, has championed the convention but struggled to get other leading atomic powers on board. Argentina, Morocco, Romania and theUnited Arab Emirates are the only other signatories………

Countries have struggled to reassure populations about the safety of nuclear power after a 2011 tsunami caused three Japanese reactors to melt down and forced 160,000 people to evacuate their homes. At a meeting next month in the Austrian capital, nations will consider a Swiss-led European initiative forcing nuclear operators to mitigate against accidents.

While the new compensation fund is intended to encourage nuclear trade between companies located in countries adhering to the pact, it won’t come without costs for U.S. manufacturers. Nuclear suppliers will be on the hook to pay at least $70 million in compensation in the event of an accident, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, which asked industry for comments last month.

“Initial great expectations for the CSC have been tempered by the long road to its entry into force,” James Glasgow, a partner at Washington-based Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw LLP, wrote last month in an article sent via e-mail. There are still “doubts that the CSC will gain sufficient members to constitute a global regime.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at jtirone@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net Ben Sills, Leon Mangasarian http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-16/nuclear-accident-fund-opens-as-japan-signs-after-17-years.html