IAEA Director General Dr. Hans Blix opens Diplomatic Conference on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management
Concerns for safety has been a special hallmark of nuclear activities since the beginning and the technology exists to safely manage both spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. The IAEA has over the years contributed to the development of agreed international spent fuel and waste safety norms. "Today we have reached the point where nations are prepared to commit themselves as a matter of law to abide by a set of fundamental principles on spent fuel and radioactive waste management. We could only wish that other major industries of the world had acted similarly in their various fields." These points were underlined by the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Dr. Hans Blix, at the opening of the Diplomatic Conference which meets in Vienna from 1 to 5 September 1997 to adopt a Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. This joint convention will be the first legally binding international undertaking on the safe management, storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive wastes in countries with and without nuclear programmes.
Dr. Blix stated that the IAEA has been and remains a major contributor to the development of agreed international norms in the area of radiation and waste safety. The safe management of spent fuel and radioactive wastes have historically been considered to be largely national in nature. The general responsibility for safety has rested and continues to rest with the national authorities. However, gradually, agreed international norms including binding conventions and standards on a range of safety related issues have come to be seen as an element of promotion of a global safety culture.
By the late 1980s radioactive waste disposal, even though the amounts were relatively small and the technology was known, had acquired increasing interest. The IAEA responded by creating a high profile family of safety documents - the Radioactive Waste Safety Standards, RADWASS - to document the international consensus in this area.
Dr. Blix said that the development of the draft Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management is a major step beyond the IAEA's consensus standards which existed before. He asked the delegates from over 50 states in the diplomatic conference to adopt this convention. It contains two parallel sets of requirements governing the safety of spent fuel management and of radioactive waste management and also some requirements common to both. The common requirements include the establishment and maintenance of a legislative and regulatory framework for the safety of spent fuel and radioactive waste management, the provision of adequate financial and human resources and adequate quality assurance, radiation protection and emergency preparedness programmes. Additional requirements specified relate to the transboundary movement of spent fuel and radioactive waste, to the discharges of radioactive materials into the environment and to the handling of disused radiation sources. Spent fuel and radioactive waste from military programmes are covered if those materials have been permanently transferred to exclusively civilian programmes.
The Convention will involve peer review of reports of the contracting parties. The Director General observed that this was a process for subjecting the practices of all states parties to critical scrutiny. A by-product of this transparent process ought to be an increased acceptance of spent fuel and radioactive waste management practices and an increase in public confidence. Dr. Blix stated that the world had reached an important milestone in spent fuel and radioactive waste management. The fundamental safety principles have broad international support, the technology exists to act on them - indeed it is already being put into practice.