Anti-nuclear Movement - Anti-nuclear Organizations

Anti-nuclear Organizations

See also: List of anti-nuclear groups, List of anti-nuclear power groups, and List of anti-nuclear groups in the United States

The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement which operates at the local, national, and international level. Various types of groups have identified themselves with the movement:

• direct action groups, such as the Clamshell Alliance and Shad Alliance;
• environmental groups, such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace;
• consumer protection groups, such as Ralph Nader's Critical Mass;
• professional organisations, such as Union of Concerned Scientists and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; and
• political parties such as European Free Alliance.

Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public protests and acts of civil disobedience which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Other salient strategies have included lobbying, petitioning government authorities, influencing public policy through referendum campaigns and involvement in elections. Anti-nuclear groups have also tried to influence policy implementation through litigation and by participating in licencing proceedings.

Anti-nuclear power organisations have emerged in every country that has had a nuclear power programme. Protest movements against nuclear power first emerged in the USA, at the local level, and spread quickly to Europe and the rest of the world. National nuclear campaigns emerged in the late 1970s. Fuelled by the Three Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl disaster, the anti-nuclear power movement mobilised political and economic forces which for some years "made nuclear energy untenable in many countries".

Some of these anti-nuclear power organisations are reported to have developed considerable expertise on nuclear power and energy issues. In 1992, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that "his agency had been pushed in the right direction on safety issues because of the pleas and protests of nuclear watchdog groups".