ABSTRACT
Standards that determine the safety of our daily lives are formulated by experts on the basis of both scientific and non-scientific factors. This chapter elucidates the vulnerability of transnational science-based standards by discussing the domestic adoption of transnational radiation standards in the specific context of Japan, which encountered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in March 2011. Domestic contestations against the Japanese government's deference nevertheless highlight the scientific fragility in domestically-accepted transnational radiation standards. The scientific evidence regarding ‘stochastic’ (non-deterministic) effects of low-level exposure can be contradictory and the controversy cannot readily come to a closure. Amid ongoing controversies, the decentralized web of scientific and regulatory bodies, including the UNSCEAR and ICRP, extracts the best available scientific findings and endorses radiological standards which, perhaps inevitably, invite criticism from a segment of the scientific community.
