C. JACK Nepean,

Ontario, Canada

E-mail: george.j@sympatico.ca

Abstract

The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, commonly known as the ‘Joint Convention’, came into effect in June 2001. The paper describes the development of the Convention, from 1992 to the present day, summarizes its current status, discusses some aspects of the scope of the Convention, and explains the review process that will be used in its implementation.

The paper’s main emphasis is on the Convention’s implications for Contracting Parties concerning decommissioning of nuclear facilities. In describing that, the paper compares some details of the differences in scope of applicability of the Joint Convention and the Convention on Nuclear Safety, and hence explains why decommissioning came within the scope of the Joint Convention. Specific articles of the Convention are identified that are pertinent to countries engaged in decommissioning activities. A Contracting Party should ensure that each of those articles is considered during the preparation of its National Report, which is to be submitted prior to a Review Meeting.

1. INTRODUCTION

The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (hereafter called the ‘Joint Convention’) came into effect in June 2001. The first Review Meeting of the Parties to the Convention will be held in November 2003, and the National Reports from those Parties are due to be submitted by early May 2003.

This paper will review the history of the Joint Convention, summarize its current status, and present some of the Convention’s implications for Parties concerning the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.

2. HISTORY OF THE JOINT CONVENTION.

To track the origins of the Convention, one must go back to 1992, to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. At that conference, under the heading of “safe and environmentally

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sound management of radioactive wastes”, one of the resolutions adopted called for “support efforts within IAEA to develop and promulgate radioactive waste 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”.

At about the same time, negotiations started in Vienna that resulted in 1994 in the Convention on Nuclear Safety. One of the preambular statements in that Convention affirmed 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”. That statement appears fairly insignificant in retrospect, but at the time was quite controversial. It resulted from a considerable amount of animated discussion about whether the Convention on Nuclear Safety should include radioactive waste management in its scope, and also referred to intense discussions under way at the time to attain such internationally agreed radioactive waste safety fundamentals. Later in 1994, in the light of imminent agreement on those fundamental safety principles, the IAEA General Conference invited the IAEA Board of Governors and the Director General to “…commence preparations for a convention on the safety of radioactive waste management…”.

A Group of Legal and Scientific Experts was then created, which proceeded to undertake the negotiation process that ultimately resulted in the Joint Convention. The Group held seven meetings under the chairmanship of Professor Alec Baer, during which there was sometimes intense debate on various aspects of the proposed Convention. Principal among the points of contention was whether the Convention should include the safety of spent fuel management, the issue of radioactive wastes arising from military programmes, and the issue of transboundary shipments of radioactive waste. The Group completed its task in early 1997, and in September of that year the IAEA convened a diplomatic conference, which was attended by 84 States and 4 international organizations. It resulted in the adoption of the Joint Convention, which was then opened for signature.

The text of the Convention specified that it would enter into force three months after ratification by 25 States, of which at least 15 had an operational nuclear power plant. That threshold was attained in March 2001. There followed a formal Preparatory Meeting of the Parties (in December of 2001), which adopted three important documents — the “Rules of Procedure and Financial Rules”, “Guidelines regarding the Review Process”, and “Guidelines regarding the Form and Structure of National Reports”. These three documents govern the future implementation of the Convention, including the conduct of the review meetings.

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3. CURRENT STATUS OF THE JOINT CONVENTION

At the time of writing, there are 29 Parties to the Convention. It is hoped that this number will increase as the deadline approaches for submission of National Reports for the first review meeting. That meeting is scheduled for November 2003, with an organizational meeting scheduled for April 2003. The rules adopted by the Parties in 2001 stipulate that the organizational meeting is open to all Contracting Parties, i.e. those who have ratified the Convention. The

“Guidelines on the Review Process” stipulate that the latest date at which a State can ratify the Convention in order to become a fully participating Party at the review meeting is 90 days in advance of that meeting. Thus, the identities of all the Parties for the first review meeting will only be known in August 2003.

States that are already Parties or which expect to become Parties before the first review meeting should note that National Reports must be submitted by May 2003, with an extension to August for those States that ratify between May and August 2003.

4. SCOPE OF THE JOINT CONVENTION

As mentioned above, negotiation of the Joint Convention was started after the Convention on Nuclear Safety was opened for signature. There was animated debate on several aspects of the scope of the Convention, some of which will be discussed briefly here.

First, through several meetings there was an impasse over whether spent fuel should be included in the Convention. Several countries argued that for them spent fuel is a valuable resource and should not appear in juxtaposition to “waste” in any convention. Eventually, since all agreed that the same principles of safety apply to the management of spent fuel and to the management of radioactive waste, it was decided to deal with both in the same document, on parallel tracks — hence the ‘Joint’ in the Joint Convention.

Second, there was the question of whether the Convention should apply to material arising from military programmes. That was resolved by a two part approach that appears in Article 3.3 of the Convention. The Convention does not apply to military programme material unless the Contracting Party declares that it will apply; the Convention does apply to material from military programmes if and when transferred to exclusively civilian programmes.

Third, it was eventually agreed that the Convention would not apply to naturally occurring radioactive material unless such material originates from the nuclear fuel cycle, or unless the material is in the form of a disused sealed source, or unless a Contracting Party declares that it will apply.

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Fourth, the Convention on Nuclear Safety applies to a “nuclear installation”, which it defines as “…a nuclear power plant…, including such storage, handling and treatment facilities for radioactive materials as are on the same site and are directly related to the operation of the nuclear power plant…”. Thus, the Convention on Nuclear Safety already applied to spent fuel management and radioactive waste management in some limited cases. There was therefore some discussion about how to manage the interface between the two conventions. It was agreed that overlaps between the two conventions would be less undesirable than gaps, and that if overlaps existed, the review meetings of the two conventions would find a way to minimize the negative consequences. During this discussion, it was realized that the main thrust of the Convention on Nuclear Safety was and would be the safety aspects of operating nuclear power plants, and therefore the overlap caused by including on-site spent fuel management and radioactive waste management in the Joint Convention would not be likely to cause a significant problem.

The definition of nuclear installation in the Convention on Nuclear Safety continues from the above quotation, to say that a nuclear plant ceases to be a nuclear installation when the fuel has been removed permanently and a decommissioning programme agreed to by the regulatory body. The nuclear plant would then cease to come within the scope of the Convention on Nuclear Safety. In order to avoid a situation where such nuclear plants would no longer be subject to international review at this stage, the Group of Experts in the negotiating meetings for the Joint Convention therefore agreed to include decommissioning within that Convention. But they went further. In the Joint Convention, “decommissioning” is defined as a radioactive waste management function. In addition, “decommissioning” in the Joint Convention refers to a

“nuclear facility”, which is defined in that convention to be much broader than a nuclear power plant. It covers the gamut of processing, fabrication, storage, research reactor, etc., and so the Joint Convention covers the decommissioning of virtually all kinds of nuclear establishments.

Throughout the negotiations, the Group of Experts referred repeatedly to the safety fundamentals document mentioned earlier, entitled ‘The Principles of Radioactive Waste Management’. That document comprised an international consensus on what constituted best practices in the field of radioactive waste management at the time when the document was drafted, and formed the basis for the numerous safety requirements that appear in the text of the Joint Convention as obligations on Contracting Parties. It is interesting that the radioactive waste management experts attached such importance to the safety principles that they agreed to elevate the status of these fundamental safety statements to obligations in an international convention.

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5. DECOMMISSIONING OBLIGATIONS IN THE JOINT CONVENTION

In the Joint Convention,Article 26 specifically addresses decommissioning.

It must be remembered, however, that in this Convention, decommissioning is but one function within the broader topic of radioactive waste management. It would therefore be inadequate if one examined only the text of Article 26, in deciding what should be included in a National Report on the topic of decommissioning pursuant to the Convention. The entire Chapter 3, on “Safety of Radioactive Waste Management”, as well as Chapter 4, on “General Safety Provisions”, and certain sections of other parts of the Convention, must be read carefully in order to determine the complete set of obligations.

For example, Article 7(ii), which addresses design and construction of facilities for spent fuel management, requires Contracting Parties to ensure that at the design stage, conceptual decommissioning plans are prepared and taken into account. This requirement is further developed during the operational phase of a spent fuel management facility in Article 9(vii), which requires the decommissioning plans to be updated using data obtained during the operating period. Analogous requirements are found for radioactive waste management facilities in Article 14(ii) and Article 16(viii).

Other examples stem from Articles 5 and 12(i), which deal with existing facilities for spent fuel management and radioactive waste management, respectively. The text in these articles requires Contracting Parties to review the safety of existing facilities, and take all practicable steps to improve safety if necessary. If such steps were to include the decommissioning of the respective facilities, rather than upgrading them, the details of the envisioned decommissioning would be reportable to a review meeting.

Article 19 requires Contracting Parties to “establish and maintain a legislative and regulatory framework to govern the safety of spent fuel and radioactive waste management”. Since decommissioning has been defined in the Convention as a function within the overall field of radioactive waste management, this article requires the Parties to have a regulatory framework for decommissioning nuclear facilities in general. And of course the Contracting Parties are obliged to report to the review meetings on how or to what extent they meet this obligation.

Article 22(ii) requires Contracting Parties to “take the appropriate steps to ensure that financial resources are available to support the safety of facilities for spent fuel management and radioactive waste management during their operating lifetime and for decommissioning”. This brief requirement is obviously of great importance in terms of long term safety and environmental protection, but can be controversial because of its financial impact.

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And after all those requirements for decommissioning, one comes to the text of the Article 26 in the Convention whose title is “Decommissioning”! This article, quite brief if one counts the number of lines, again has somewhat hidden ramifications, because it calls up two other Articles. In summary, Article 26 requires Contracting Parties to:

— ensure the availability of qualified staff;

— ensure the availability of adequate financial resources;

— ensure that radiation protection measures such as the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) principle and dose limits are respected;

— ensure that unplanned releases to the environment are prevented;

— limit discharges to the environment;

— take corrective measures in the event of an unplanned discharge;

— have emergency preparedness plans and test them as appropriate.

Thus the Joint Convention stipulates a wide array of requirements on Contracting Parties concerning decommissioning. These requirements envision the same degree of planning and operational control with respect to safety for decommissioning nuclear facilities, as is required for their operation.

6. REVIEW PROCESS UNDER THE JOINT CONVENTION

The Joint Convention, like the Convention on Nuclear Safety, incorporates a review meeting at intervals not exceeding three years. Approximately six months in advance of each review meeting, there will be an organizational meeting. Both these meetings are open only to Parties to the Convention. At each organizational meeting, decisions will be taken concerning officers for the upcoming review meeting, observers that would be invited to the review meeting, the budget and timetable of the review meeting, and what groups will be created and their composition, for discussion of the National Reports at the review meeting.

These groups will primarily be groups of countries, each being composed of, for example, six Parties. Because of the diversity of topics covered by the Convention, some Parties have expressed the view that certain topics would be more effectively discussed in a group specifically created for that subject, rather than in country groups in which perhaps only one or two Parties have expertise in the particular topic.The organizational meeting must therefore decide whether there would be topic sessions in addition to country groups at the review meeting.

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must be submitted not later than six months before the start of the review meeting. Copies of each National Report will be distributed to all Parties for review. Any Contracting Party can submit questions on any other Contracting Party’s National Report, up to two months before the review meeting.

At the review meeting, each Contracting Party in turn will present its report to the country group to which it has been assigned, and respond to the questions that were submitted. A summary of the proceedings in each country group will be presented in plenary session.

7. GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE JOINT CONVENTION

The Joint Convention, like the Convention on Nuclear Safety, is a so-called ‘incentive convention’. That means that the Convention does not impose sanctions or penalties for violators; rather, each Contracting Party is subjected to peer review pressure, and thus encouraged to improve the level of safety in its management of spent fuel and radioactive waste.

It is a modern convention, which reflects many of today’s societal expectations. High among those are the emphasis placed in the Convention on environmental protection. Other examples are the references to public information, consultation, consideration of neighbouring States, and consid-eration of the needs and well-being of future genconsid-erations. States that have ratified the Convention are displaying a sense of responsibility by making a commitment to reporting to other States on what they are doing, and how well they are doing it.

The Convention covers a wide range of topics. Operational safety and environmental protection will be reviewed in the context of low and intermediate level radioactive waste storage and disposal, uranium mining tailings management, spent fuel reprocessing, spent fuel storage, spent fuel and high level radioactive waste disposal, management of disused sealed sources, radioactive discharges, and decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Thus, one can expect the review meetings to be complicated, with several specialists probably being in any one delegation. In addition, there is a wide variation in the size and complexity of the nuclear programmes of Contracting Parties, and therefore in the quantities and types of radioactive waste. But each of those Parties will present a National Report. So there will also be a wide variation in the complexity and content of reports to be reviewed. All this will represent an interesting challenge to those charged with the responsibility of organizing the review meeting!

The benefit to be gained from the Convention is very great, at least in theory. There is probably no greater motivating factor for individuals or even

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nations than peer pressure. Associated with that is the desire to be recognized as performing well, and to avoid public criticism or embarrassment. And it is hoped that peer pressure will have its usual effectiveness when applied through the Joint Convention. Of course, to achieve that, one must have a wide representation of the world’s States signing on as Contracting Parties. To date that is perhaps the biggest concern, because of the 54 States that are Contracting Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety, only 29 are Contracting Parties to the Joint Convention at present. Since virtually all States have some radioactive waste, one would intuitively expect the Joint Convention to have more Parties than the Convention on Nuclear Safety. Perhaps that will be the case in the future. At the time of writing, however, some very prominent States are not yet Parties, and one hopes that their governments will ratify the Convention as soon as possible, preferably before the organizational meeting in April 2003 so that they can be full participants at the Convention’s first review meeting in November of that year.

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