Under the circumstance of energy transition policy of the previous government in which nuclear energy portion will be gradually reduced, some R&D study looking for alternatives other than Pyro- SFR recycling could be very valuable and timely suitable. New alternative study started to evaluate the possibility of it if there are some advantages in terms of waste burden in case that the spent fuel are appropriately treated and disposed of in a disposal site, instead of recycling of spent nuclear fuels (SNF). The alternative study separate the fission products (minor actinides and rare earths) from SNF in a molten salt medium. The molten salt coming from the alternative study is radioactive and heat generating because it contains the fission products chlorides. It is necessary to collect the fission products from the waste molten salt for minimization of the high-level waste volume and to generate a final waste form containing the fission products compatible to the disposal site. Based on the results of a review for various precipitation methods, phosphorylation (phosphate precipitation) of metal chlorides selected as a proper treatment method for recovering of the fission products in a molten salt. Phosphate precipitation has the potential for removing most of fission product elements from a molten salt arising from the treatment of spent nuclear fuel. The performance of phosphate precipitation method evaluated using a salt mixture with the actinide and rare earth chlorides. The molten salt containing uranium as surrogate of the actinides and three rare earths (Nd, Ce, La) chloride was used for testing a phosphate precipitation method at experimental condition (temperature 500°C, salt stirring 200~300 rpm, and 1~1.2 eq. of phosphorylation agent). A cyclic voltammetry (CV) method monitored in-situ phosphate precipitation progress for determining the precipitation rate and conversion ratio evaluated. The phosphorylation reaction increased greatly at a salt stirring 300 rpm.

Today, as fragmentation of international law has become a reality, the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO, being one the most essential adjudicatory bodies, has often been criticized for its overly-textualist approach to interpretation and use of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). This commentary analyses the decision rendered by the Dispute Settlement Body in the China-Rare Earths Case. It explains how the textualist reading given by the Appellate Body could not look into the corresponding GATT regulation, while interpreting the Accession Protocol of China. It argues that this erroneous decision is a result of the DSB’s reliance on textualism through the use of Article 31 of the VCLT. It looks into the travaux préparatoires of Article 31 of the VCLT to argue that the concerns raised during the Vienna Conference are still relevant and get reflected even today in the decisionmaking in the China-Rare Earths case.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are considered to be vital to modern industry due to their important roles in applications such as permanent magnets, automobile production, displays, and many more. The imbalance between demand and supply of REEs can be solved by recycling processes. Regarding the needs of industry and society, the International Organization for Standardization, Technical Committee 298 (ISO/TC298) Rare Earths has been recently launched for developing international standards on rare earth elements. In accordance with the suggestion of its constituents, it is tentatively working to develop the appropriate standards under five working groups (WG) on terms and definitions (WG1), element recycling (WG2), environmental stewardship (WG3), packaging, labelling, marking, transport, and storage (WG4), and testing analysis (WG5). The scope and structure of ISO/TC298 on the topic of rare earths is discussed in this document.

Over its 20 years of practice, the Appellate Body gradually established a de facto stare decisis rule similar to that exists in common law system. Given the tight time constraint as provided in the DSU for an appeal process, the Appellate Body may face a situation where there is no sufficient time available for it to consider thoroughly all the elements for the interpretation of a provision, especially arguments or evidence of law that have not been raised even by the parties nor by the panel. If the issue whether Article XX of GATT 1994 can be invoked by China to justify a violation of paragraph 11.3 of its Accession Protocol had been decided in China-Raw Materials, can this issue be reopened and assessed again in China-Rare Earths? The author explored these two cases in light of the relevant WTO precedents as well as the common law thinking. This article concludes that it is both necessary and technically feasible to correct certain previous interpretation. Such a correction will contribute to further improvement in the clarification and interpretation of the covered agreements and accession protocols; hence give more confidence to Members that their rights and obligations under the treaty can be well preserved by a system with a built-in self-correction mechanism.

China is the world’s biggest producer and export of rare earths. China is taking active steps to rare earths for the conservation of exhaustible natural resources and protection of the environment. First China is implementing export licenses to rare earths, therefore companies that acquired export license can engage in rare earths export. China is also taking export quotas, it formed dual barrier by combining with export license, because companies have license for export of rare earths can be assigned quota of rare earths. Export duty rates have increased over the years and rare earths export rebates were abolished to curb export. China also announce a number of policies to limit quantity of mining, producing and exporting rare earths, to prohibit sino-foreign joint-venture cannot enter industry of mining and smelting, and to tighten environmental standards. However, these Chinese domestic measures to rare earths have possibility that inconsistent with WTO rules. China already lost a case that related with raw-materials and the United States, Japan and the EU were initiating WTO case against China’s restrictive measures on rare earths this year. Learning from past experience, China will try to take active actions.