Will We Learn Lessons from Japan?

Anyone writing about a disaster has to be extremely cautious to avoid being insensitive and arrogant and so it is with extreme humility and sympathy for the suffering of those affected by the combined earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan that I venture the following thoughts.

In fact, it is out of respect for the Japanese people that I raise the issue of human rights and the social responsibility of companies operating nuclear power stations.

Right now a few hundred of the bravest people on the planet are trying to prevent a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power station. They are being exposed to extremely dangerous levels of radiation and their rights at work have had to be sacrificed to save hundreds of thousands of people from harm. At the same time the policy makers and company directors who took the decisions that made the disaster possible insist that they could never have foreseen such a series of events.

Unforeseeable Disaster?

Or could they? Did they plan for the worst-case scenario or did they take calculated risks based on some mathematical model and cost-benefit analyses? Most importantly for the future, will they learn the lessons of this disaster and will they be held accountable for any negligence?

The reasons for Japan’s reliance on nuclear energy are well known. So were the risks. The policy makers and officials involved in authorizing the nuclear energy facilities, and the companies that built and operated them all did so in full knowledge that they could be struck by earthquakes, after-shocks and tsunamis. They therefore designed them to withstand those assaults of nature. That is the socially responsible thing to do. Whenever the health and safety of people (workers and the public) are threatened the risks have to be assessed and appropriate precautions taken.

When planning safety the engineers must have asked themselves the “what if” question. What if this system fails? What if the backup fails? At a certain point however they assume that they have enough backups. In addition, budget constraints mean that each of the safety systems is subjected to a cost-benefit analysis and trade-offs are inevitable. However, when the health and safety of the public are at risk the true cost of safety is not the cost of ensuring it but rather the cost of NOT ensuring it.

At Fukushima three back-up systems failed. Were the risks properly assessed? A second and equally important question: were the appropriate safety measures in place and practiced?

Many nuclear facilities built in earthquake zones in Japan and the US are designed to withstand quakes up to the magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale. This seems to be optimistic in the extreme. According to the US Geological Survey there is an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 8 each year on average, but in 2007 there were four quakes above 8. If earthquakes stronger than 7 are an annual event surely the prudent thing to do would be to plan on 8 and then add a margin for safety? The same applies to the sea wall – higher waves have been known to exist, and if the wall was not high enough, did it make sense to place the emergency generators in the basement? Hence I am not at all sure that the risks were adequately assessed and catered for.

I am no expert on the safety of nuclear power stations so I cannot comment on the decisions to place so many reactors in one location, or to store spent fuel rods (which represent a huge risk in themselves) at the same site, in some cases on the roofs of the reactors. But I do know that many of those decisions have been challenged by nature and that nuclear power stations around the world will have to review their designs, their procedures and their performance standards to avoid a repetition of the Fukushima disaster.

Were safety practices properly implemented?

In response to my second question regarding whether safety practices at the facilities were in place and implemented, there is evidence to suggest they were not. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that operates the Fukushima plant has a history of false reporting to the Government and a lack of transparency towards the public.

Hundreds of records were falsified and serous incidents not reported. After a Governmental inquiry in 2002 all 17 plants operated by TEPCO were shut down for inspection.

Throughout this crisis both TEPCO and the Government have under-reported the severity of the situation. Perhaps they thought they would avert panic by trying to allay people’s worst fears but given the availability of information in today’s connected world they should have realized that people could access international and independent information that would contradict their own attempts to manage reality.

Credibility undermined

It takes people only a second to test any official version these days and when they realize that the authorities are not being fully transparent they doubt every subsequent statement, true or not. The same will apply to the review of this disaster. Official attempts to obscure or manipulate facts will ultimately be exposed and will call the credibility and legitimacy of the process into question.

Social responsibility - and accountability, for responsibility without accountability is a hollow concept - demands that the Government of Japan address these issues rigorously, unflinchingly and transparently. There is considerable reason to doubt whether this was the case in the past when these facilities were authorized and monitored.

Social responsibility means accountability and the brave men and women fighting to contain the situation on the ground, and the global public that could be affected if they fail, deserves no less. However, radiation respects no borders and the fall-out could affect people in many jurisdictions and so the responsibility of the company, and the access of victims to adequate remedies, will become a supra-national issue that goes beyond the scope of the Japanese regulators alone.

The UN backed Protect, Respect, and Remedy framework on business and human rights provides a very useful way of looking at this case and offers clear guidance for preventing future such abuses.

A reminder to us all

The tragedy in Japan is a reminder for all countries around the world. Governments have a duty to protect human rights and this must be pursued more rigorously just as companies’ responsibility to respect those rights requires more due diligence, more independent monitoring and more transparency to assure the public of the integrity of their operations. Finally, the public has a right to effective remedies, either through the courts of alternative forms of dispute resolution, wherever the harm takes place. All three components are critical, but the challenge of ensuring we live up to them remains.