NFLAs back letter to United Nations alleging human rights violations at Fukushima

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities have endorsed an appeal to the United Nations by anti-nuclear and environmental activist groups from the Pacific Region alleging the dumping of radioactive water from the Fukushima site constitutes a violation of Japan’s obligations under international law to human rights.

A letter co-sponsored by Ocean Vision Legal and the Pacific Network on Globalisation to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is backed by panel of scientific experts, and signed by 56 NGOs, including the NFLAs.

In the letter, sent on 14 August to the Special Rapporteurs, officials charged with the oversight of the compliance by nations of their human rights obligations, the correspondents allege that the Japanese Government has, in authorising the commencement of dumping of 1.3 million tons of irradiated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, violated the legal obligations and duties it has agreed to respecting the:

• Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment
• Right to Access Information and Public Participation, including in Environmental Matters
• Rights to Information, Consultation and Free, Prior Informed Consent and Indigenous People
• Right of Future Generations
• Rights of the Child
• Right of Every Individual to Life
• Right to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health
• Right to an Adequate Standard of Living
• Right to Human Development

And that it also constitutes a violation of Japan’s obligations under the 1982 United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea ‘to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, for the present and in the long term’.

This is the latest action of the NFLAs in registering their opposition to the Fukushima water dumping after having already submitted multiple previous letters of objection to Japanese government ministers, executives of Japanese nuclear operator TEPCO, the United Nations Law of the Sea Office, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Like this latest letter these have all called for the cessation of the nuclear water dumping. The waste water release has provoked numerous mass protests in Pacific nations.

The full text of the letter can be found at: https://oceanhealth.github.io/special_communication/

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For more information please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk