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The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2008

Amelia de Kageneck  and
Cyril Pinel
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Extract

The importance of the safe and environmentally sound management of radioactive wastes had been strongly reaffirmed by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This question was dealt with in Chapter 22 on “safe and environmentally sound management of radioactive wastes” of Agenda 21, adopted at the time of the Conference, which specifically referred to the necessity for States to “support efforts within IAEA to develop and promulgate radioactive wastes safety standards or guidelines and codes of practice as an internationally accepted basis for the safe and environmentally sound management and disposal of radioactive waste”. This political statement was probably the first step in the process which has led to the adoption, in September 1997, of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (hereafter the “Joint Convention”). In 1994 the importance of elaborating safety standards for radioactive waste management appears again in the Convention on Nuclear Safety of 20 September 1994, the Preamble to which (paragraph ix) reads: “Affirming the need to begin promptly the development of an international convention on the safety of radioactive waste management as soon as the ongoing process to develop waste management safety fundamentals has resulted in broad international agreement.”

Type
Shorter Articles, Comments and Notes
Information
International & Comparative Law Quarterly , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , April 1998 , pp. 409 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 1998

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References

1. This document is referred to in para.(xv) of the Preamble to the Joint Convention.

2. Art.31: “This Convention shall apply to the safety of spent fuel management when the spent fuel results from the operation of civilian nuclear reactors. Spent fuel held at reprocessing facilities as part of a reprocessing activity is not covered in the scope of this Convention unless the Contracting Party declares reprocessing to be part of spent fuel management.”

3. Art.2(o): “Spent fuel management” means all activities that relate to the handling or storage of spent fuel, excluding off-site transportation. It may also involve discharges.

4. Convention for the Safety of lif e at Sea (SOLAS) adopted 1 Nov. 1974. Convention on International Air Transit Services adopted in Chicago 7 Dec. 1944. European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR ) and International Regulations concerning the Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID). IAEA Regulations for the safe transport of radioactive materials as revised in 1996.

5. This interpretation of art.3.1 was not shared by all States which had participated in the negotiations. A minority of States considered that the words “as part of a reprocessing activity” mean “intended for reprocessing more or less in the near future”. Consequently, these countries consider storage of spent fuel on site of a reprocessing facility, as intended for reprocessing, outside the scope of the Convention.

6. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was concluded on 1 July 1968 and extended for an indefinite period in 1995.

7. The initial draft had been submitted to the delegations for consideration in Dec. 1995 at the second meeting of the Group of Experts.

8. Some experts consider defence programmes to cover, inter alia, military programmes. In other words, some defence programmes are undertaken by military bodies (under the Ministry of Defence) and others by civilian agencies (CEA in France, DoE in the US, etc.).

9. Art.3.3 provides: “This Convention shall not apply to the safety of management of spent fuel or radioactive waste within military or defence programmes, unless declared as spent fuel or radioactive waste for the purposes of this Convention by the Contracting Party. However, this Convention shall apply to the safety of management of spent fuel and radioactive waste from military or defence programmes if and when such materials are transferred permanently to and managed within exclusively civilian programmes.”

10. The inclusion of spent fuel of military origin follows the same lines as the decision to extend the scope of application of the Convention to spent fuel.

11. Arts.5 and 20 of the Nuclear Safety Convention and Arts.30 and 32 of the Joint Convention.

12. The Basel Convention was adopted on 22 Mar. 1989, whereas the Code of Practice for the International Transboundary Movement of Radioactive Waste was adopted by the IAEA on 21 Sept 1990.

13. The Antarctic Treaty was adopted in Washington on 1 Dec 1959.

14. Art.39 of the Fourth Convention between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries with the EEC signed in Lomé on 15 Dec 1989 states that the Community bans any direct or indirect export of hazardous and radioactive wastes to the ACP States. It should also be noted that the Bamako Convention on the Ban of the Import into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within Africa (adopted in Bamako on 29 Jan. 1991) prohibits, as its title suggests, any imports of hazardous waste, including radioactive waste, into Africa. This is a regional convention which is open exclusively to countries of the African Continent. Similarly, another regional instrument, the Convention to Ban the Importation into Forum Countries of Hazardous and Radioactive Wastes and to Control Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within the South Pacific Region (adopted in Waigani on 16 Sept. 1995) bans the import of radioactive waste in the South Pacific Region.

15. Convention on the Law of the Sea adopted at Montego Bay on 10 Dec. 1982.

16. It should be noted that the project to ship 60,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste from Taiwan to North Korea did not have any impact on the Joint Convention negotiations. The countries found out about the planned shipment at the beginning of 1997, when the negotiations concerned were reaching the final stage.

17. Convention on Third Party liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy adopted in Paris on 29 July 1960 and the Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage adopted in Vienna on 21 May 1963.