MEDIMUN XV Annual Session 2020
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MEDIMUN XV Annual Session 2020 RESEARCH REPORT Historical Security Council The Events of 1986 Mediterranean Model United Nations XV 2020 Contents Topic 1: The Response to Chernobyl’s Nuclear Disaster, 1986...3 Topic 2: The Situation in South Africa, 1986.................................4 Topic 3: The Iran-Iraq War, 1986...................................................4 Mediterranean Model United Nations XV 2020 Topic 1: The Response to the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Introduction The Chernobyl Disaster was a nuclear accident which took place on the 26th of April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat, north of The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was the result of a flawed reactor design (RMBK- 1000) that was operated with inadequately trained personnel. It is considered the most disastrous nuclear accident of all time. General Overview The accident started during a safety test on an RBMK-type nuclear reactor. The test was a simulation of an electrical power outage to aid the development of a safety procedure for maintaining cooling water circulation until the back-up generators could provide power. This operating gap was about one minute and had been identified as a potential safety problem that could cause the nuclear reactor core to overheat. The test was delayed by 10 hours, so the operating alteration that had been prepared was not present. The test supervisor then failed to follow procedure, creating unstable operating conditions that, combined with the RBMK reactor design flaws and the intentional disabling of several nuclear reactor safety systems, caused an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction. Research Report | Page 3 of 44 Mediterranean Model United Nations XV 2020 A large amount of energy was suddenly released, superheating hence vaporising cooling water, and rupturing the reactor core in a highly destructive steam explosion. This was immediately followed by an open-air reactor core fire that released considerable airborne radioactive contamination. Mediterranean Model United Nations XV 2020 Impact The reactor explosion killed two of the reactor operating staff. In the emergency response that followed, 134 firemen and station staff were hospitalized with acute radiation syndrome due to absorbing high doses of ionizing radiation. Of these 134 men, 28 died in the days to months afterward. The accident caused the largest uncontrolled radioactive release into the environment ever recorded for any civilian operation, and large quantities of radioactive substances were released into the air for about 9 days. This caused serious social and economic disruption for large populations in Belarus, USSR, and Ukraine. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located next to the Pripyat River, which feeds into the Dnieper reservoir system, one of the largest surface water systems in Europe, which at the time supplied water to Kiev, and was still in spring flood when the accident occurred. The radioactive contamination of aquatic systems therefore became a major problem in the immediate aftermath of the accident. In the most affected areas of Ukraine, levels of radioactivity in drinking water caused concern in the continuing months. An increased incidence of thyroid cancer was observed for about 4 years after the accident and slowed in 2005. The large increase in incidence of thyroid cancer happened amongst individuals who were adolescents and young children living during the time of the accident, and residing in the most contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The economic damage caused by the disaster is estimated at $235 billion. Responses and Aftermath Pripyat was evacuated on 27 April (45,000 residents). By 14 May, some 116,000 people that had Research Report | Page 5 of 44 Mediterranean Model United Nations XV 2020 been living within a 30-kilometre radius had been evacuated and later relocated, hence The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone was setup. To reduce the spread of radioactive contamination from the wreckage and to protect the site from further weathering, the remains of reactor No. 4 The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus was built and finished by December 1986, and would also provide radiological protection for the crews of the undamaged reactors at the site, with No. 3 continuing to produce electricity until 2000 and later in 2017 Chernobyl New Safe Containment was built. Two months after the disaster, the Kiev water supply was switched from the Dnieper to the Desna River. In the meantime, massive silt traps were constructed, along with an enormous 30-metre deep underground barrier to prevent groundwater from the destroyed reactor entering the Pripyat River. In the morning of 28 April, radiation levels set off alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, over 1,000 kilometres from the Chernobyl Plant. Workers at Forsmark reported the case to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, which determined that the radiation had originated elsewhere. That day, the Swedish government contacted the Soviet government to inquire about whether there had been a nuclear accident in the Soviet Union. The Soviets initially denied it, and it was only after the Swedish government suggested they were about to file an official alert with the International Atomic Energy Agency, that the Soviet government admitted an accident took place at Chernobyl. In direct response to the Chernobyl disaster, a conference to create a Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident was called in 1986 by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The resulting treaty has bound signatory member states to provide notification of any nuclear and radiation accidents that occur within its jurisdiction that could affect other states, along with the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency. Mediterranean Model United Nations XV 2020 The first official explanation of the accident, later acknowledged to be inaccurate, was published in August 1986. It effectively placed the blame on the power plant operators. To investigate the causes of the accident the IAEA created a group known as the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG), which in its report of 1986, INSAG-1, on the whole also supported this view, based on the data provided by the Soviets and the oral statements of specialists. In 1991 a Commission of the USSR State Committee for the Supervision of Safety in Industry and Nuclear Power reassessed the causes and circumstances of the Chernobyl accident and came to new insights and conclusions. Based on it, in 1992 the IAEA Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG) published an additional report, INSAG-7. Multiple Resolutions were passed by the Economic and Social Council in the coming years with the title Strengthening of international cooperation and coordination of efforts to study, mitigate and minimize the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, and by the General Assembly. First Inter-Agency Task Force meeting on Chernobyl 24 May 1991, Vienna was set up. Major Parties and Figures Involved The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic: one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from the Union's initiation in 1922 to its breakup in 1991. The republic was governed by the Communist Party of Ukraine as a one-party socialist soviet republic. The Ukrainian SSR was a founding member of the United Nations. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR): a federal sovereign state in northern Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991; a union of multiple national Soviet republics, in practice its government and Research Report | Page 7 of 44 Mediterranean Model United Nations XV 2020 economy were highly centralized. The country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party (Bolshevik Party) with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Viktor Brukhanov: Director of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station. Appointed by the Communist Party. Boris Scherbina: Deputy chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers; chairman of the government commission in Chernobyl. Scherbina was responsible not only for bringing the catastrophe under control but investigating its consequences. He dismissed calls for immediate evacuation of the city of Pripyat. It was not until almost 36 hours after toxic radionuclides began pouring from the wreckage of the reactor that the city’s residents were finally allowed to evacuate. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organisation on 29 July 1957. The KGB (The Committee for State Security): the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. It was suspected to cover up and release altered facts to the international bodies mainly due to the inaccuracies of the INSAG-1 Report. Mediterranean Model United Nations XV 2020 Official Policy advice proposed by the UN “In an effort to facilitate a reorientation in spending on Chernobyl, UNDP offers recommendations on policy change to the governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. These efforts will focus on overcoming the culture of dependency that has developed among many affected communities, and on targeting scarce funds to the truly needy as well as to investments that promote growth and new jobs. Specific policy proposals include an overhaul