57

This article analyzes the historical process related to the international organization of responsabilities and the management of the damages in case of a nuclear disaster. The author shows that the political and legal settings on which the discourse of an “international regime of civil responsability” (that emerged in the 1960s) relies, have globally aimed at maintaining a “historical and spectacular gap” between the damages the nuclear operators are taking responsibility for, and the real and extensive damages engendered by a major accident. She argues that the existence of such a “gap” is inherent to the nuclear sector, that it is a form of government (both of economic affairs and of the public space) which was historically constructed, and that the existence of such a gap is crucial for the survival of the nuclear industry itself. Thus the notion of “responsability” in the nuclear sector appears to serve mainly as a discursive regime, as a means to organize not only responsabilities but also irresponsabilities, whatever the geographic scale (national or international) at which they should be managed.