Legal problems may stall Australia- India uranium sales deal
It is not clear whether that agreement will have been finalised before Mr Roy’s committee is due to report its findings to government at the end of March.
The committee is expected to conduct public hearings next month.
India uranium deal faces legal challenge, New Daily, Jan 14, 2015 GEORGE LEKAKIS Financial Services Editor The Australian government’s controversial agreement to sell uranium to India may face a legal challenge from a conservation group. The agreement is controversial because India will be the first country permitted to buy Australian uranium without being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“We will look at those legal options available to us and explore what we think are pretty clear legal inconsistencies between the terms of the agreement with India and Australian laws,” Mr Sweeney said.
“The ACF has real concerns that the wording of the agreement is inconsistent with sections of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Safeguards Act and Australia’s obligations under the South Pacific Nuclear Free-Zone Treaty that was signed by the Hawke government.”
Safeguards weakened
Under the watershed deal struck with India last September, Australia has loosened some of the safeguards that usually apply on international sales of uranium.
The Safeguards Act requires Australia to be able to account for what happens to locally produced uranium once it enters nuclear processing cycles in other countries.
In the longstanding deal with Japan, for example, Australia is able to track the movement of the energy resource through different stages of the nuclear fuel cycle.
The motive for such auditing and tracking requirements is to ensure that Australian uranium is only used for peaceful purposes and not in the production of nuclear weapons.
India, which has an expanding nuclear arms industry, argues that the tracking requirement is costly and should not be made a condition of the supply agreement.
Australia has agreements to export uranium to 41 countries, all of which provide tracking data and other rights to local nuclear regulators.
Former nuclear regulator slams export deal
Prime Minister Abbott is keen to negotiate a free trade agreement with India before the year is out, but those talks would likely falter if the parliamentary committee recommends that the uranium deal be reworked.
A sign that the committee might be concerned with aspects of the deal will be if it requests access to a top secret “administrative agreement” that instructs both countries on how the uranium deal is to be implemented.
It is not clear whether that agreement will have been finalised before Mr Roy’s committee is due to report its findings to government at the end of March.
The committee is expected to conduct public hearings next month. http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/2015/01/14/india-uranium-deal-faces-legal-challenge/
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