The Legal Heritage of the Atom 157
(depending on the exposure category), additional paid holidays, retirement
at a younger age, higher pensions and salary top-ups for state employees,
extended maternity leave for up to 184 days, and free medical treatment for
children. Since 1995, an Interdepartmental Expert Council has been in operation and has made judgments on the question of the relationship between
the individual’s exposure to radiation and disease (or death). A positive expert
decision served citizens as legal grounds for applying for additional social
benefits. But in practice, due to the economic situation in Kazakhstan in the
1990s, the government was partly unable to fulfill its obligations, and many
had to wait years before they received the compensation they were entitled
to. Moreover, claimants have criticized the poor size of the compensation
payments. 84 In particular, the most deprived inhabitants of the affected rural
regions had difficulties in asserting their claims to social benefits. 85 It was not
until the Kazakh state’s capital gains from the oil industry at the beginning
of the twenty-first century that compensation programs reached the people
in the affected regions. The construction of oil pipelines to Russia and China
and oil exports abroad secured the financing and implementation of compensation laws in Kazakhstan. At the same time, a new nuclear program based
on large-scale uranium mining began in Kazakhstan, so that the Republic
of Kazakhstan soon became the world leader in uranium exports. With clear
economic considerations to save government resources, the Kazakh state
moved to limit its compensation and social benefits to those who had actually
been diagnosed with diseases that were attributable to radiation according
to agreed lists. It was therefore no longer sufficient to have lived in radioactively contaminated regions. A new dividing line was introduced between
an exposed versus an affected individual. 86 With short delay, Kazakh law also
radiated into Russia: in August 1995, the Russian Federation also passed a law
on social security for Russian citizens who had suffered damage as a result of
the nuclear tests in Semipalatinsk. 87 The law provided social guarantees for
citizens who lived in settlements within and outside the Russian Federation
(included in the special lists of settlements approved by the government) and
were as a result of the above-ground nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk test site
(between 1949 and 1963) exposed to radiation. Also included were children
under 18 years of the first and second generation of these citizens suffering
from diseases caused by radiation exposure to one of their parents. 88
The Russian law on the victims of Semipalatinsk illustrates the double
challenge for the Russian state: on the one hand, it had to deal with the
cross-border character of the radioactive contamination, affecting also some
Russian border regions close to Semipalatinsk. On the other hand, it had to
cope with the heritage of strong personal ties and exchange across republic
borders in the former Soviet Union.
A decade after the law had passed in Kazakhstan, victims of the nuclear testing became part of the official cultural memory, represented by the monument
“Stronger than Death,” which was opened in August 2001 in Semipalatinsk
(Semey). Just as in Ukraine and Belarus, victim narratives played a certain
(depending on the exposure category), additional paid holidays, retirement
at a younger age, higher pensions and salary top-ups for state employees,
extended maternity leave for up to 184 days, and free medical treatment for
children. Since 1995, an Interdepartmental Expert Council has been in operation and has made judgments on the question of the relationship between
the individual’s exposure to radiation and disease (or death). A positive expert
decision served citizens as legal grounds for applying for additional social
benefits. But in practice, due to the economic situation in Kazakhstan in the
1990s, the government was partly unable to fulfill its obligations, and many
had to wait years before they received the compensation they were entitled
to. Moreover, claimants have criticized the poor size of the compensation
payments. 84 In particular, the most deprived inhabitants of the affected rural
regions had difficulties in asserting their claims to social benefits. 85 It was not
until the Kazakh state’s capital gains from the oil industry at the beginning
of the twenty-first century that compensation programs reached the people
in the affected regions. The construction of oil pipelines to Russia and China
and oil exports abroad secured the financing and implementation of compensation laws in Kazakhstan. At the same time, a new nuclear program based
on large-scale uranium mining began in Kazakhstan, so that the Republic
of Kazakhstan soon became the world leader in uranium exports. With clear
economic considerations to save government resources, the Kazakh state
moved to limit its compensation and social benefits to those who had actually
been diagnosed with diseases that were attributable to radiation according
to agreed lists. It was therefore no longer sufficient to have lived in radioactively contaminated regions. A new dividing line was introduced between
an exposed versus an affected individual. 86 With short delay, Kazakh law also
radiated into Russia: in August 1995, the Russian Federation also passed a law
on social security for Russian citizens who had suffered damage as a result of
the nuclear tests in Semipalatinsk. 87 The law provided social guarantees for
citizens who lived in settlements within and outside the Russian Federation
(included in the special lists of settlements approved by the government) and
were as a result of the above-ground nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk test site
(between 1949 and 1963) exposed to radiation. Also included were children
under 18 years of the first and second generation of these citizens suffering
from diseases caused by radiation exposure to one of their parents. 88
The Russian law on the victims of Semipalatinsk illustrates the double
challenge for the Russian state: on the one hand, it had to deal with the
cross-border character of the radioactive contamination, affecting also some
Russian border regions close to Semipalatinsk. On the other hand, it had to
cope with the heritage of strong personal ties and exchange across republic
borders in the former Soviet Union.
A decade after the law had passed in Kazakhstan, victims of the nuclear testing became part of the official cultural memory, represented by the monument
“Stronger than Death,” which was opened in August 2001 in Semipalatinsk
(Semey). Just as in Ukraine and Belarus, victim narratives played a certain