Nuclear Material (Offences) Act 1983

Nuclear Material (Offences) Act 1983
	Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to implement the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material; and for purposes connected therewith.
Citation	1985 c 39
Territorial extent	England and Wales; Scotland; Northern Ireland; extraterritorial jurisdiction
Dates
Royal assent	9 May 1983
Commencement	2 October 1991 [1]
Other legislation
Amended by	Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008
Status: Amended

Last updated April 28, 2019

The Nuclear Material (Offences) Act 1983 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It implemented the 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, and to that end it granted the UK courts extraterritorial jurisdiction over offences involving "nuclear material used for peaceful purposes."^[2] (Offences involving nuclear weapons are dealt with under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.)

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known internationally as the UK Parliament, British Parliament, or Westminster Parliament, and domestically simply as Parliament, is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and the overseas territories. Parliament is bicameral but has three parts, consisting of the Sovereign, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The two houses meet in the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster, one of the inner boroughs of the capital city, London.

The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material was adopted on 26 October 1979 in Vienna, Austria. The initial signing ceremony took place in Vienna and at New York on 3 March 1980, and the convention entered into force on 8 February 1987. The convention is deposited with the International Atomic Energy Agency. In July 2005 a diplomatic conference was convened to amend the Convention and strengthen its provisions, as a result of which it was renamed the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities.

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which makes significant changes in many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In particular, it changes the law relating to custodial sentences and the early release of prisoners to reduce prison overcrowding, which reached crisis levels in 2008. It also reduces the right of prison officers to take industrial action, and changed the law on the deportation of foreign criminals. It received royal assent on 8 May 2008, but most of its provisions came into force on various later dates. Many sections came into force on 14 July 2008.

Provisions

According to section 6(1) of the Act, the Act only applies to "material which, within the meaning of the Convention, is nuclear material used for peaceful purposes." Schedule 1 to the Act reproduces Article 1 of the Convention, which defines "nuclear material" in detail. The definition includes certain types of plutonium and uranium (but not thorium).

Plutonium Chemical element with atomic number 94

Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation states. It reacts with carbon, halogens, nitrogen, silicon, and hydrogen. When exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that can expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder that is pyrophoric. It is radioactive and can accumulate in bones, which makes the handling of plutonium dangerous.

Uranium Chemical element with atomic number 92

Uranium is a chemical element with symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weakly radioactive because all isotopes of uranium are unstable, with half-lives varying between 159,200 years and 4.5 billion years. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 and uranium-235. Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead, and slightly lower than that of gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few parts per million in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite.

Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately hard, malleable, and has a high melting point. Thorium is an electropositive actinide whose chemistry is dominated by the +4 oxidation state; it is quite reactive and can ignite in air when finely divided.

Sections 1 and 1A

Article 7 of the Convention requires State Parties to create criminal offences prohibiting the use or possession of nuclear material in a way that might cause death or injury, or "substantial damage to property," or to steal nuclear material. Section 1 of the Act implements Article 7 by giving the courts of England and Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland the jurisdiction to try certain offences (such as murder and robbery) even if they were committed outside the United Kingdom by people of other nationalities, provided that the offence was committed "in relation to or by means of nuclear material". If any person is prosecuted for such an offence before a court in any part of the UK, they may be tried and punished for that offence as if they had committed it there.

The United Kingdom (UK), officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.

Section 1 was amended by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 to extend the courts' jurisdiction to try certain offences if they were committed by doing an act directed at a nuclear facility which causes death, injury or damage as a result of radiation or the release of radioactive material, even if done out of the UK and irrespective of the nationality of the person doing it. (Note that the damage does not have to be "substantial.")

A nuclear power plant or nuclear power station is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As it is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces electricity. As of 23 April 2014, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports there are 450 nuclear power reactors in operation in 31 countries.

The 2008 Act also increased the maximum penalties for some of the offences mentioned in section 1, if they were committed in certain circumstances set out in a new section 1A, to life imprisonment.

Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted persons are to remain in prison either for the rest of their natural life or until paroled. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, blasphemy, apostasy, terrorism, severe child abuse, rape, child rape, espionage, treason, high treason, drug dealing, drug trafficking, drug possession, human trafficking, severe cases of fraud, severe cases of financial crimes, aggravated criminal damage in English law, and aggravated cases of arson, kidnapping, burglary, or robbery which result in death or grievous bodily harm, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and in certain cases genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, certain war crimes or any three felonies in case of three strikes law. Life imprisonment can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offenses causing death. The life sentence does not exist in all countries, and Portugal was the first to abolish life imprisonment, in 1884. For more info about life imprisonment in other countries worldwide, refer here.

Section 1B

Section 1B, inserted by the 2008 Act, makes it an offence for a person of any nationality, and whether in the UK or not, to receive, hold or deal with nuclear material, or do an act directed at a nuclear facility, intending to damage the environment or being reckless as to whether the environment will be damaged. The offence is punishable with life imprisonment.

Section 1C

This section, inserted by the 2008 Act, makes it an offence to be "knowingly concerned in" the importation or exportation of nuclear material from one country or territory to another, if done in prohibition of the law of that country or territory. The maximum sentence is 14 years.

Section 2

Article 7 of the Convention also required that it should be an offence to threaten to use nuclear material to cause death, injury or substantial damage, or threaten to steal it. Section 2 implemented this part of Article 7 by creating three new offences. However the whole of section 2 was replaced with a new version of section 2, which was substituted by the 2008 Act. The new section 2 creates four offences, which may be committed in the UK or elsewhere and by a person of any nationality:

receiving, holding or dealing with nuclear material for the purpose of causing death, injury or damage;
interfering with a nuclear facility, intending to cause death, injury or damage or being reckless as to whether that would occur;
threatening to cause (by either of the means described above) death, injury, damage to property or damage to the environment, intending that the recipient of the threat will fear that it will be carried out;
threatening to steal nuclear material in order to influence a state, international governmental organisation or person.

These offences are punishable by life imprisonment.

Section 2A

This section, inserted by the 2008 Act, extends the jurisdiction of the UK courts to offences of attempting or conspiring to commit an offence covered by section 1 of the Act, or created by sections 1B to 2 of the Act, or inciting such an offence.

Section 3

Section 3 requires that an offence which would not already be an offence but for the Act may not be prosecuted in England and Wales without the permission of the Attorney General for England and Wales, and may not be prosecuted in Northern Ireland without the permission of the Attorney General for Northern Ireland.

Section 3A

Section 3A, inserted by the 2008 Act, states that the 1983 Act does not apply to anything done by the armed forces of any country.

Sections 4, 5 and 6

Section 4 made minor amendments to other legislation. Section 5 was to have implemented Article 11 of the Convention, which required State Parties to make the offences described in Article 7 extraditable offences. However, before the 1983 Act came into force in 1991, section 5 was replaced by the Extradition Act 1989.

Section 6 deals with the interpretation of certain provisions of the Act, and allows the Secretary of State to determine whether any nuclear material or nuclear facility was being used for peaceful purposes. His determination is binding on the courts.

Sections 7 and 8

Section 7 authorises the Queen (by Order in Council) to extend the Act to the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and any British overseas territory. Section 8 gave the Act its short title, and provided that the Act was to come into force on a date to be appointed by Order in Council. The date appointed was 2 October 1991.

Related Research Articles

An assault is the act of inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in either criminal and/or civil liability. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and tort law.

A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval England and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.

Extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) is the legal ability of a government to exercise authority beyond its normal boundaries.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Culpable homicide is a categorisation of certain offences in various jurisdictions within the Commonwealth of Nations which involves the illegal killing of a person either with or without an intention to kill depending upon how a particular jurisdiction has defined the offence. Unusually for those legal systems which have originated or been influenced during rule by the United Kingdom, the name of the offence associates with Scots law rather than English law.

False arrest is a common law tort, where a plaintiff alleges they were held in custody without probable cause, or without an order issued by a court of competent jurisdiction. Although it is possible to sue law enforcement officials for false arrest, the usual defendants in such cases are private security firms.

The Offences against the Person Act 1861 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It consolidated provisions related to offences against the person from a number of earlier statutes into a single Act. For the most part these provisions were, according to the draftsman of the Act, incorporated with little or no variation in their phraseology. It is one of a group of Acts sometimes referred to as the criminal law consolidation Acts 1861. It was passed with the object of simplifying the law. It is essentially a revised version of an earlier consolidation Act, the Offences against the Person Act 1828, incorporating subsequent statutes.

Murder is an offence under the common law of England and Wales. It is considered the most serious form of homicide, in which one person kills another with the intention to cause either death or serious injury unlawfully. The element of intentionality was originally termed malice aforethought although it required neither malice nor premeditation.

In UK criminal law, the term "offence against the person" usually refers to a crime which is committed by direct physical harm or force being applied to another person.

The Public Order Act 1986 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates a number of public order offences. They replace similar common law offences and parts of the Public Order Act 1936. It implements recommendations of the Law Commission.

Rape is a type of sexual assault initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, or where the person is under threat or manipulation, or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. It is the name of a statutory crime in jurisdictions such as England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, California, and New York, and is a legal term of art used in the definition of the offence of sexual violation in New Zealand.

In English law, causing criminal damage was originally a common law offence. The offence was largely concerned with the protection of dwellings and the food supply, and few sanctions were imposed for damaging personal property. Liability was originally restricted to the payment of damages by way of compensation.

An immigration officer is a law enforcement official whose job is to ensure that immigration legislation is enforced. This can cover the rules of entry for visa applicants, foreign nationals or those seeking asylum at the border, detecting and apprehending those that have breached the border and removing them, or pursuing those in breach of immigration and criminal laws.

The British Nationality Act 1948 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the status of "Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies" (CUKC) as the national citizenship of the United Kingdom and its colonies.

The Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft, commonly called the Tokyo Convention, is an international treaty, concluded at Tokyo on 14 September 1963. It entered into force on 4 December 1969, and as of 2015 has been ratified by 186 parties.

The powers of the police in England and Wales are defined largely by statute law, with the main sources of power being the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Police Act 1996. This article covers the powers of police officers of territorial police forces only, but a police officer in one of the UK's special police forces can utilise extended jurisdiction powers outside of their normal jurisdiction in certain defined situations as set out in statute. In law, police powers are given to constables. All police officers in England and Wales are 'constables' in law whatever their rank. Certain police powers are also available to a limited extent to police community support officers and other non warranted positions such as police civilian investigators or designated detention officers employed by some police forces even though they are not constables.

In traffic laws, a hit-and-run is the act of causing a traffic accident and not stopping afterwards. It is considered a supplemental crime in most jurisdictions.

In the United Kingdom, there are time limits after which court actions cannot be taken in certain types of cases. These differ across the three legal systems in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is almost unique in the world in that it has no statute of limitations for any criminal offence tried above magistrate level.

This page is about the penalties juveniles are subject to if found guilty of trafficking Cannabis. Most juveniles suffer the same, or very similar, penalties as adults. However this varies between countries, cultures and according to where the nation's minimum age of criminal responsibility lies. Information and laws regarding minors are difficult to find as they are usually classified or protected. This is due to laws preventing crimes committed, under the minimum age of criminal responsibility, being kept on a criminal record.

References

External links

Text of the Act as enacted (.pdf file)
Text of the amended Act, as in force before 30 November 2009
Text of amendments to the Act which came into force on 30 November 2009 (Schedule 17 to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008)
Text of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material from the International Atomic Energy Agency website

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Nuclear Material (Offences) Act 1983 (Commencement) Order 1991

[2] Section 6(1)

[3] Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (Commencement No.13 and Transitory Provision) Order 2009