2003 JAPAN LAW: NUCLEAR POWER
Keywords: Atomic Power, Nuclear Power, Energy Law, Defense
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved Attorney Roderick H. Seeman
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In January, 2003 the Nagoya High Court nullified the government’s approval of 1983 contract for the Monju fast breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture. This was the first case ever of a court finding in favor of the plaintiffs and against the government with respect to Japan’s nuclear power plants. The plant had a massive accident in 1995 which officials initially tried to cover up. This decision now calls into question Japan’s nuclear policy of extracting spent fuel from other nuclear reactors and using it in fast breeder reactors by utilizing the extracted plutonium. The US, the UK, Germany and France have all scrapped their fast breeder reactor programs due to the dangers involved.

In the words of the presiding judge of the Nagoya High Court;

 “The possibility of a concrete danger that radioactive material could be emitted into neighboring areas from the reactor in a core-disruption accident can not be denied.”

While this obviously follows the 1995 accident at the Monju reactor itself, it also follows the massive nuclear accident in Chiba prefecture, but precedes the scandal involved in the safety inspections of the nuclear reactors at TEPCO, Japan’s largest electric utility which as the largest number of nuclear reactors.

Local governments in Japan, in extremely dire financial straits, can really be accused of kicking the dog while he is down. The nuclear power industry, being hit by one scandal after another in recent years over unbelievably lax standards despite the obviously highly dangerous field in which they are engaged, the most recent involving by TEPCO, formerly Tokyo Electric Power, the largest of the electric utilities with the largest number of nuclear reactors. Being politically vulnerable, the local governments are hitting the utilities with one tax after another. They assess taxes on nuclear fuel stored within their borders and they have recently added taxes on spent nuclear fuel. As these taxes are not mandated by the Local Tax Law, the tax should be approved by the Ministry of Public Works, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications. The ministry has basically only told the local governments to “work it out with the taxpayer” and the local governments have not even bothered to give the utilities the opportunity to express their opinions. Such is the level to which they have fallen, no one cares what they have to say.

As part of the measures to be taken under the new defense laws passed in mid-year, in the event of an invasion or attack on Japan, it is expected that the national government will be taking over the operations of nuclear power reactors.