Regulatory System related to Industrial Utilizations of Nuclear Energy in Korea - Present Status and Future Directions -

This article concerns, mostly in a descriptive way, the regulatory system of Korea in context of nuclear energy and its industrial utilizations. Following the introductory of overviewing the nuclear industry in Korea, it provide a brief introduction and history leading to the present establishment of Korean nuclear industry as well as policy framework to support the industry. Second, it devotes to explaining the regulatory framework related to nuclear industry in Korea, mainly following the IAEA’s guideline on nuclear law. As depicting nuclear law as “the body of special legal norms created to regulate the conduct of legal or natural persons engaged in activities related to fissionable materials”, it divides the framework into six categories: Regulatory hierarchy ․ institutions, nuclear installations, nuclear managements of nuclear radiation and materials, nuclear energy and environment and nuclear liability, which are expounded in turn. In conclusion, some suggestions from policy and regulatory viewpoint were advanced, bearing the increasing significance of nuclear energy in mind. On the policy side, Korean system needs to more ensure that citizens and other stakeholders receive balanced information and take part in an open dialogue on the benefits and risks of nuclear facilities and their waste management; Putting differently, necessity for enhancing transparency. At a more normative aspect, Korean nuclear liability regulations are required to be reviewed for more sophistication: First, it is necessary to clarify the coverage and conceptional distinction between state liability and civil liability regarding nuclear liability; Second, it is time to consider economic channelling of liability in parallel with the legal channelling mechanism current Korean Act takes. Especially, it is worthy to discuss how to optimize the combinations of the economic channelling and legal channelling mechanism, since Korea has high foreign dependency on original nuclear technology with increasing exports of nuclear power plants; Third, study on the substances of Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC) is needful, since it is expected that major nuclear power generating states including Korea, who have not joined the Paris and Vienna international nuclear regimes, could join the CSC in a forseeable period of time.