Irish application for Sellafield information rejected

The OSPAR Tribunal in the Hague has rejected an Irish government application to compel Britain to provide it with confidential information about the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The Government had claimed that Britain had failed to fully disclose information about the impact the MOX (mixed oxide) plant on the Cumbrian coast would have on the Irish Sea.

This information was contained in several consultants reports on the MOX nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield. The Government argued that the construction of the plant was illogical, as according to the consultants reports, it would never recoup the €600 million cost of its construction.

Britain insisted the information was commercially sensitive and it was not legally obliged to make it public.

However, the court rejected Ireland's application by two votes to one. It ruled that the information Ireland sought did not concern the state of the maritime area or activities affecting or likely to affect it, and was therefore not the type of information that governments are required tomake available under the OSPAR convention.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr Martin Cullen, today attempted to put a positive spin on the ruling. He accepted that the information sought by the Government did not come within the scope of the OSPAR Convention, which was set up to protect the marine environment of the Atlantic.

But, he said, Ireland had established an important international precedent as Britain "is now accountable to an international tribunal for information it must disclose to another State under OSPAR".

"In rejecting the United Kingdom's claim that we had no right to sue in the international Tribunal, the award enables us to keep open further options under OSPAR," Mr Cullen said.

"Our objective is to build the case, piece by piece, in every available international forum that the operations at Sellafield constitute a clear and present threat to the Irish Sea. At the very minimum, we want to bring an end to all discharges into the Irish Sea."

The court also ruled that both sides must pay their own legal costs, which could run into millions of euros.

A second case brought by Ireland to the tribunal established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was also rejected on June 13th.

In that case Ireland claimed the MOX plant would lead to pollution of the Irish Sea. However, the tribunal ruled that Ireland failed to establish that "serious" harm would be caused to the marine environment by operation of the plant.