浅论核损害赔偿责任制度在涉外合同中的适用

A brief study on application of nuclear damage liability mechanism in foreign contract practice

核损害赔偿责任制度在我国现行法律框架下还不甚健全,同时由于立法理念的不同,导致我国在涉外合同中与其他国家的合作伙伴存在很多不同的理解。鉴于核事故的特殊性,我国立法采用了与国际上主流观点一致的绝对责任原则和唯一责任原则,由核设施的营运者承担责任,其他任何人不承担责任。但是这种责任也存在免责事由,我国的责任豁免纳入了战争、武装冲突等不可抗力情形及受害人故意,也是基本与国际公约一致的。对于核损害责任的赔偿,我国规定的责任限额相对于国际上提倡的尽可能多的赔偿理念有一定距离,这是与我国核能产业发展阶段和社会经济发展水平,息息相关的。此外,我国也保留了核事故发生后对于造成核事故发生的责任人的追索权的内容,差强人意的是将追索权的行使主要留给了合同双方的约定,在实践中往往被供货商通过合同条款规避。核损害赔偿责任是与社会经济发展水平及核能行业成熟程度密不可分的,将来我国该制度的完善也应当充分考虑到保护社会公众利益并给核能行业发展留出一定的生存空间。

Nuclear liability mechanism is not comprehensive enough in Chinese current legal system,and because of the different legislative concepts among different countries,we are facing different understandings in the foreign contract practice.Whereas the particularity of nuclear damage,we choose the same idea on the principle of sole responsibility and absolute responsibility,which means the operator of civil nuclear facility is the sole legal person to undertake the responsibility of damages,and no one else should be held liable.However,this principle has its exemptions under the circumstances of war,conflicts and some other force majeure situations as well as intentional act from the victim,which legal concept is not far from the international conventions.As to the compensation of the nuclear damages,current limit of the nuclear liability is concerning the development level of nuclear industry and social economy.Our nuclear liability mechanism also contains right of recourse,even though it leaves the right of recourse to the mutual agreement in the contract instead of mandatory requirements.In practice,the suppliers always avoid such recourse by the contract clauses.The nuclear liability should be considered to adapt the development level of social economy and nuclear industry.The future improvement of the nuclear liability mechanism should both consider the protection of the public interests and the development space of the nuclear industry.