Management of high level radioactive waste with reference to long-term responsibility

Ethics as rational conflict resolution

Judging by the prolonged protests and debates in Germany and other countries over the management of radioactive waste, the issue of finding an adequate waste management strategy seems to be afflicted with a considerable potential for conflict. The easily raised tempers and the emphasis and passion with which arguments are put forward are just an external indicator of this – and not a particularly reliable one. Clearly, the heated mode in which the conflict is sometimes carried on in public is a characteristic trait of the debate and deserves closer attention, especially if one is interested not only in the theoretical development of strategies, but in the practical resolution of the conflict. And if a solution is to be brought about by resolving factual issues rather than issues of power, the conflict must also be analysed in terms of its social and political dimensions, in order to test how the partisan insistence on a particular position can be transformed into a constructive discourse about rational strategies acceptable to all parties (see below, section B 3.3). This is the only way to find a legitimate as well as legitimized solution.