I don’t think intl pressure made them do anything. They’re doing it because they want to (and PR-wise it looks good) They claim it was intl pressure but I’m not sure about that given:

“Even today, about 30 projects remain, including facilities that will not be scrutinized for their impact on the environment due to their limited scope of power generation.”

And in addition what the environment ministry says is more of guidance than law and METI has the final say.

It seems to me they feel nuclear is a better solution to their power demand than coal.