In revising the ICRP recommendations, the position of members participating in the revision work from Japan, hit by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, should be at least specified in the text of the recommendations.
The committee member Toshimitsu Homma is a senior nuclear disaster prevention specialist in the Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority under Japanese government, and the committee member Michiaki Kai is a professor of Oita University of Nursing and Health Sciences. Mr. Kai filed a written opinion with the defendant witnesses against the claim of the plaintiffs, the victims of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster, in a trial against the defendants, the Japanese government and TEPCO.
Both members of the committee involved in the revision have the same position as the Japanese government. In view of the objectives of the ICRP, which is an NGO aiming at the cooperation of various parties concerned, the fact that the revision of the recommendations is carried out based on information provided by members who share the same position with the Japanese government should at least be shared and clearly stated in the recommendations.
In the above trial, Yasuhito Sasaki, a former member of the ICRP main committee, testified as a government and TEPCO witness after indicating his title in his career. Kazuo Sakai, a member of the panel, was also a government and TEPCO witness in the trial. According to the written opinion of the defendant, Mr. Sasaki was the first, Mr. Kai the fourth, and Mr. Sakai the fourteenth signer. In the trials in which this opinion was submitted or cited, the defendant Japanese government continued to lose cases, but these facts are not mentioned in the text of the proposed revision of the recommendation nor in the annex.
In specifying the position of the committee members, the relationship between these facts and the recommendations should be examined, and the content and results of the examination should also be recorded. It is important for readers and users of the recommendations to know the nature of the ICRP recommendations and the members.