The Legal Value of General Principles, Technical Norms and Standards in European Nuclear Safety Law: The Imbalance Between Soft and Hard Law and the Need for Global Regulatory Governance

In this article we try to draw a global picture of the international regulatory regime on nuclear safety, using standards and optimization principles and highlighting the imbalance between "the rule of law" (meaning hierarchical and legitimate set of rules and norms, established along the lines of a democratic regulatory process) and the many soft laws. The findings of this article underscore the urgent need to move towards establishing a coherent framework for global regulatory governance.