Chernobyl: International Cooperation and Environmental Protection

The article analysis various stages of the international cooperation, and of Ukrainian legislation aimed at facing the consequences of the explosion at Chernobyl nuclear power plant, on April 26, 1986. It is aimed to assess the impact of Chernobyl accident on law and policies in the field of environmental protection. The reaction to the Chernobyl accident gave in fact a boost to the evolution of international treaty law in various sectors (nuclear safety, emergency preparedness and response, environmental law), and, according to the Authors, contributed to the assertion in general international law of the right to environmental information. Since 1986, the UN organizations and programmes, the EU and the Development Cooperation of various countries, as well as NGOs and foundations, have launched and carried out more than two hundred different research and assistance projects in the fields of health, nuclear safety, socio-psychological assistance, economic rehabilitation, environmental information and restoration, food quality control. At the national level, more than a thousand acts of various legal nature have been adopted, aimed at determining the legal status and safe management of the territories affected by the Chernobyl accident. Notwithstanding this, nuclear contamination that resulted from the 1986 Chernobyl accident still is a priority environmental problem in Ukraine.