Barnidge: The 2008 United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement and the Work of the International Law Commission

Robert P. Barnidge, Jr. (Univ. of Reading - Law) has posted The 2008 United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement and the Work of the International Law Commission on International Liability for Injurious Consequences Arising Out of Acts Not Prohibited by International Law (Asian Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here’s the abstract:

This article examines the 2008 Agreement for Cooperation Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of India Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (123 Agreement) within the context of the International Law Commission (ILC)’s work on international liability for injurious consequences arising out of acts not prohibited by international law. It begins by sketching the black letter law of the 123 Agreement and situates it within a particular context of geopolitical change. It then explores the two international instruments that resulted from the ILC’s work on international liability for injurious consequences arising out of acts not prohibited by international law and examines how the underlying international environmental law principles that they reflect might interact with the 123 Agreement in practice. Attention is paid to three issues in particular, namely how international environmental law has developed to interact with vaguely-worded environmental protection provisions, such as those in the 123 Agreement, and the role of experts in this regard, the issue of civil nuclear liability, and the question of what international law might require for environmental impact assessments under the 123 Agreement to pass muster. Reference is made to the International Court of Justice’s 2010 decision in Case Concerning Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay.