A Comparative Study of the Competent Court and Applicable Law in Civil Liability Caused By Nuclear incidents under International Conventions, Japanese and Iranian Laws

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD.Department of Private Law, East Azarbaijan Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Private Law, Tabriz University, Tabriz, Iran

3 Associate Professor, Department of Law, Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, Tabriz University, Tabriz, Iran

4 Assistant Professor, Department of Private Law, Ilkhchi Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ilkhchi, Iran

Abstract

 The expansion of nuclear activities has been accompanied with increased  nuclear  transboundary  risks. One of the legal issues is the determination of the competent court and law. Civil nuclear conventions consider a single competent forum to deal with all actions, that is the court of the country within the territory of which the nuclear incident occurred or the courts of  Installation  State. The applicable law is to be the provisions of the conventions or national legislation of the competent court . Even though Japan is not a party to any of the international nuclear liability conventions, it has a solid national third party liability legislation on nuclear responsibility according to which, the court of the country where the incident took place has the jurisdiction, and the applicable  law is usually the law of the place where the damage has occurred. Since Iran it is not a member of civil nuclear liability conventions and it does not have any relevant domestic law in this field, it has used general rules such as defendant’s domicile to determine the competence court and the applicable law, which in many cases will be ineffective. Therefore, the specific legislation or at least membership of the relevant conventions is necessary.

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References

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Comparative Law Review
Volume 9, Issue 1
Spring & Summer
April 2018
Pages 231-255

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