The Case of Radioactive Waste Dumping as an Environmental Security in Northeast Asia

Northeast Asia countries have experienced fast economic growth during the past few decades. With it, the level of energy consumption has increased rapidly. To meet the increasing demand of energy consumption, some of the countries in the region have been building nuclear power industry. One of the major issues emerging in the Northeast Asia depending highly on nuclear power is the safe management and disposal of radioactive wastes. The issue of radioactive wastes is very crucial, especially, considering the relevancy among the regions. This paper tries to focus on the issue of radioactive wastes from the ‘regional environmental security complex’ prospective. This paper will seek answers to two categories of questions. The first category is on security concern; why and how radioactive waste issue can be considered as a security problem, what kind of threat is involved, who is threatening whom, and who is a major actor to lessen or resolve the insecurity. The second category includes the questions regarding regional perspective; why a regional approach is preferable to a national or global one, what kind of regional security complex emerged in this issue area, and what should be done to promote regional cooperation on the management of radioactive wastes in Northeast Asia.