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Landmark Win for Plaintiffs in Nuclear Lawsuit—-
Court Verdict Nullifies Fast Breeder Reactor Monju’s Government Approval

For Immediate Release: 27 January 2003
Contact: Aileen Mioko Smith
Cell: +81-90-3620-9251

Kanazawa, Japan—- Plaintiffs in Fukui Prefecture today won a lawsuit verdict against the Japanese government and the owner operator of Japan’s prototype fast breeder reactor Monju located in Fukui Prefecture. The lawsuit sought to stop the construction and operation of Monju. The epochmaking court verdict overturned a lower court ruling and is the first ever plaintiff victory addressing nuclear power in Japan. Monju had been shut since it had a sodium leak and fire accident in December 1995.

Citizens nationwide will be petitioning Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission on 29 January in Tokyo, seeking scrapping of the entire plutonium fast breeder reactor program including Monju. 910,000 signatures have been gathered to date demanding that the government scrap Monju.

The Japanese government was working assertively to re-start the troubled reactor and in December 2002 had granted the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC), the government corporation that owns and operates Monju, approval for a new post-1995 accident safety assessment. The ruling today, however, stated there were fundamental flaws in the original safety assessment made by the government. The court decision effectively guts the partially revised safety assessment that had been granted JNC.

“Today marks the beginning of the end of Japan’s fast breeder program. Monju would have to be rebuilt from the ground up if it were to meet the standards presented by the court today” said Aileen Mioko Smith, director of Green Action an environmental NGO based in Kyoto which works on stopping Japan’s plutonium program.

Ogiso Miwako, head of the Monju lawsuit plaintiff administrative office stated, “It has been a long 18 years but we have won. There is still a long fight ahead, but we have been vindicated today.”

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