Current International Legal Issues of Nuclear Safety

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the current problems of international legal regulation of nuclear safety. The relevance of the study stems from the growing number of states using nuclear energy, escalating geopolitical risks, the unprecedented threat to nuclear facilities in armed conflict, and the erosion of the established arms-control architecture. The aim is to identify and analyse the most pressing international legal problems of nuclear safety and to propose ways of resolving them. Six key problems are examined: the military use of peaceful nuclear technologies, the limitation of nuclear tests, the inviolability of nuclear materials, the correlation between the non-proliferation regime and state sovereignty, the disposal and storage of radioactive waste, and the safety of nuclear facilities in armed conflict. The methodological basis includes the formal-legal, historical-legal and comparative-legal methods, as well as the method of periodisation. The study substantiates the need to universalise key treaties, unify international standards for the handling of nuclear materials and waste, establish a legal regime for the demilitarisation of nuclear facilities, and develop a nuclear-risk insurance system. It is substantiated that the identified problems are particular manifestations of a broader tendency towards the weakening of the binding character of international law – the replacement of agreed obligatory norms with selectively applied 'rules'. The novelty lies in examining traditional non-proliferation problems together with the newest challenges of the 2020s.