Last year, the Espoo Convention Implementation Committee concluded that the UK had failed to meet its obligations under the Espoo Convention to discuss the possible impact of an accident at Hinkley on neighboring countries.
See the report of the Implementation Committee on its thirty-eighth session, page 21: http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/documents/2016/EIA/IC/ece.mp.eia.ic.2016.2.advance_unedited_8Apr2016.pdf
The Implementation Committee has now gone a step further and said the UK should consider refraining from further works on the site of the new reactors until an transboundary environmental impact assessment as been conducted. The UK followed the Committee’s suggestion to send out a notification of the project to potentially impacted countries. It even went the extra mile and notified all parties to the Espoo Convention. At date, at least the Netherlands, Norway and Germany have reacted positively on the invitation to participate in a transboundary environmental impact assessment.
See the report of the Implementation Committee on its thirty–fifth session, page 13: https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/eia/documents/ImplementationCommittee/2017/IC_38/ece.mp.eia.ic.2017.2_IC38report_13.03.2017_as_adopted_for_web.pdf
More information:
– Bloomerg, “UN Asks U.K. to Pause Hinkley Nuclear Plant Work for Assessment”, 18 March 2017: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-18/un-asks-u-k-to-pause-hinkley-nuclear-plant-work-for-assessment
– The Guardian, ” UN asks UK to suspend work on Hinkley Point”, 20 March 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/20/un-asks-uk-suspend-work–hinkley-point-c
– Press release from StopHinkley “A United Nations body has asked the UK to suspend Hinkley Point C pending an environmental assessment ” from StopHinkley” : http://stophinkley.org/PressReleases/pr170320.pdf
– A report for the Green MSPs by Pete Roche “Plant Life-Time Extensions for Scotland’s Ageing Reactors the Lack of Public Participation in the Decision-Making Process”: https://greens.scot/sites/default/files/Nuclear%20lifetime%20extensions%20-%20Pete%20Roche.pdf