The paper deals with the civil law relationships for the nuclear damage caused by the nuclear incident that are, due to their specific character and potential cross-border consequences, regulated by means of international law. The emphasis in the paper is put on questions of the potential application and limits of the European Union (“EU”) legislation, represented by the Regulation Brussels I that is applicable to legal nuclear liability relations (eventually, their procedural aspects by application of this right by legitimate subjects) and mutual relationships between the Regulation and international nuclear liability conventions as well as questions of definition of concrete rules setting the jurisdiction of courts in matters of nuclear damages where the Regulation Brussels I may be applicable. An attention is given also to the question of potential application of the Regulation Rome II to legal relationships of nuclear damages and to the legal relationships that are closely connected with the nuclear damage compensation, though these are not directly regulated by international nuclear liability conventions.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the procedural aspects of the exercise of the right to compensation for nuclear damage. The right to compensation for nuclear damage is derived from the fundamental questions dealing with nature of the case, jurisdiction and definition of active and passive legitimized participants as well as status of the provider of financial security for nuclear liability in civil proceedings. Detailed explanation of procedural aspects of nuclear damages is followed by an analysis of the substantive provisions of the Vienna Convention on Liability for Nuclear Damage - as an international source of nuclear liability legislation, provisions of the Atomic Act and the new Act on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage and its Financial Coverage (effective from the 1st January, 2016) - as a national source of nuclear liability legislation, which are considered to be the essential prerequisites of decisions relating to the compensation for nuclear damage. The paper also points out the specifics the nuclear liability legislation is dealing with (statutory limitation of the amount of compensation for nuclear damage, absence of distribution mechanisms of available funds etc.) and the court in the decision-making process shall solve.
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