The OSPAR Arbitration (Ireland – United Kingdom): Award of 2003: 5 (Permanent Court of Arbitration Award Series) - Hardcover

FOREWORD This volume contains the Award of the Arbitral Tribunal established under the dispute resolution provisions of the 1992 Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (“OSPAR Convention”), to consider an international environmental dispute between Ireland and the United Kingdom which dates back to the early 1990s. The dispute concerns alleged potential radioactive pollution of the Irish Sea from a mixed oxide (“MOX”) manufacturing plant at Sellafield, England. The OSPAR Arbitration was the first round of the notable MOX Plant Case. Ireland commenced arbitral proceedings against the United Kingdom under two different treaties in 2001. Both arbitrations were administered by the Per- nent Court of Arbitration (“PCA”). The first – the OSPAR Arbitration – was initiated in June of that year on the ground that the United Kingdom had failed to provide access to certain information regarding its decision to commission the MOX plant, in breach of Article 9 of the OSPAR Convention. The second arbitration – the MOX Plant Case – was brought under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”) in October, and concerned the authorization and operation of the MOX Plant. The dispute also gave rise to proceedings in which Ireland requested provisional measures from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea pending constitution of the UNCLOS tribunal, as well as infringement proceedings brought by the European Comm- sion against Ireland before the European Court of Justice.

The century-old Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), an independent intergovernmental organization, was established by the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, concluded at The Hague in 1899 during the first Hague Peace Conference. There are over 100 Member States which are parties to one or both of the Conventions.