Ireland's latest action against Britain over Sellafield, which opened yesterday before an international tribunal in The Hague, has been described as a "landmark" case with major consequences for the nuclear industry worldwide.
According to Mr Duncan Currie, a legal expert following the case for Greenpeace, it is the first full-blown action to come before international courts dealing with radioactive pollution and the dangers of transporting spent nuclear fuel by sea.
"It is a legal landmark for the simple reason that a small country is taking on a large country on nuclear matters."
He add that its outcome could impact on other countries like France and Japan which also ship nuclear waste without consulting with their neighbours on security.
The case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration is being taken under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is over radioactive pollution of the Irish Sea from the operations of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing facility in Cumbria.
Other issues include the alleged inadequacy of the environmental assessment undertaken by the British government before Sellafield's MOX plant was commissioned, and the alleged failure to assess the risk of terrorist attacks on the site or on ships carrying radioactive materials.
This new action is one of two cases initiated by Ireland against Britain over Sellafield.
A ruling on another legal action, taken last October under the OSPAR (Oslo/Paris) convention on marine pollution, in which Ireland is seeking access to documents relating to the MOX plant, is still awaited.
The Attorney General, Mr Rory Brady, who is leading this new case for Ireland, claimed that Britain had "violated numerous provisions" of UNCLOS.
He also claimed that the British side had not properly consulted with the Government before giving the green light to the MOX plant.
Mr Brady said the case was concerned with the nature and extent of rights and duties under UNCLOS. What Ireland was seeking was a ruling that would prescribe Britain's duties in the context of the Sellafield operation and the radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea.
"Ireland does not seek to impeach the decision of the United Kingdom to opt for the perceived benefits accruing to it from nuclear power ... That is its political decision." Its focus was on the extent to which the consequences of operating Sellafield imposed duties on the UK.
"In permitting the MOX plant to proceed, the \ authorities have taken a leap in the dark. They have required Ireland to take a leap of faith in their decisions. Ireland is not obliged by UNCLOS to take that leap of faith," Mr Brady told the five-member tribunal.
Court officials told AFP that the hearings in The Hague were expected to last three weeks. "It will be a full-blown action, and I understand that the British side will be putting up a strong defence," the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Ahern, told RTÉ radio yesterday.
He said Irish concerns had been raised substantially because of the "less than convincing arguments" made by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd in relation to protecting Sellafield against terrorism in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, has described the case as "an action to protect Ireland's interests". It was taken after the Government's "strongly held objections" to the commissioning of the MOX plant, conveyed repeatedly to the British government, were "disregarded".
The MOX plant was commissioned in December 2001 after Ireland failed to obtain an interim injunction to prevent it opening at an UNCLOS hearing in Hamburg. The current proceedings before a tribunal in The Hague are a continuation of that action, with the British government's agreement.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration is an independent inter-governmental organisation created in 1899 under the Hague Convention to rule in disputes between states or states and private persons.
Additional reporting by AFP