On 24 June 2013, Mauritius became the sixteenth country to sign the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC). Resident Representative of Mauritius to the IAEA, Ambassador Israhyananda Dhalladoo, signed the CSC in the presence of IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and IAEA Legal Adviser, Peri Johnson, at the IAEA Headquarters in Vienna, Austria.
The CSC currently has 4 contracting states that have ratified it: Argentina, Morocco, Romania and the United States of America. The CSC is set to come into force on the ninetieth day after the ratification, acceptance or approval by at least five signatory states with a minimum of 400 000 units of installed nuclear capacity. The ceremony was a further step towards establishing a uniform global regime for the compensation of victims of a nuclear accident.
Background
Adopted on 12 September 1997, the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage was opened for signature at the IAEA's 41st General Conference in Vienna that same month. The Convention aims at establishing a worldwide liability regime in which all States may participate. Accordingly, the Convention is open not only to States that are party to either the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage or the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy (both Conventions being defined so as to include any amendment thereto), but also to other States provided that their national legislation is consistent with uniform rules on civil liability laid down in the Annex to the Convention. In addition, the Convention aims at establishing a minimum national compensation amount and at further increasing the amount of compensation through public funds to be made available by the Contracting Parties in the event that the national amount is insufficient to compensate the damage caused by a nuclear incident.