IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE JOINT CONVENTION

The effectiveness of the Joint Convention in enhancing the global safety of spent fuel and radioactive waste management depends on two key factors:

— The number of Contracting Parties;

— The effectiveness of the review process based around the National Reports and the Review Meeting.

The ratification process for the Joint Convention has been at a much slower rate than that for the Convention of Nuclear Safety (CNS) and it needs to be speeded up. Only 34 States will be Contracting Parties to the Joint Convention at the time of the Second Review Meeting in 2006 compared to the 54 Contracting Parties that attended the Second Review Meeting of the CNS in 2002. The Contracting Parties and the IAEA Secretariat should therefore keep up their current efforts to promote the Joint Convention, which is hoped eventually to include all countries making use of ionizing radiation, i.e. not only countries operating Nuclear Power Plants but, in practice, almost all countries in the world.

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Regarding the effectiveness of the review process, the First Review Meeting produced substantial positive results and it gave a real opportunity for participants to focus on spent fuel and radioactive management in both a comprehensive and detailed manner. Contracting Parties clearly demonstrated a strong commitment to the objectives of the Joint Convention and to achieving its objectives. The Review Process worked well but there is room for improvement on two different levels: improvement of the National Reports, and improvement of the Review Meeting.

When elaborating its National Report, a Contracting Party should focus not only on formal (legal) compliance with the obligations of the Joint Convention but should also address the compliance at a practical level, i.e. the implementation of the obligations and the practical activities being carried out to meet the objectives. It should highlight good practices, but also, the diffi-culties encountered and give consideration to recent past actions and future planned actions to improve the situation. Above all, difficulties should not be kept hidden if it is desired to make progress. If such National Reports could be produced — and there is no reason why they cannot be — the review process during the Review Meeting would be easier and more useful. It would then be possible to get nearer to the original spirit that prevailed during the drafting of the Joint Convention: to provide an opportunity for Contracting Parties to present progress and difficulties in an open and frank manner. For this purpose, the commitment of the Head of each Safety Authority to the production of the National Report and to the exchange of views during the Review Meeting is essential — in order to facilitate the open and frank debates that, ultimately, are for the benefit of all.

From the results of the first Review Meeting, one recommendation seems to reflect the very spirit of the Joint Convention: it is the recommendation to develop and implement integrated decommissioning and radioactive waste management plans. Such plans should be comprehensive and take into account all radioactive waste streams, including the waste arising from decommis-sioning. For each type of radioactive waste, the plan should present the associated management route (existing or under development) in order to identify possible gaps in the current practices and to enable the preparation of plans and decisions on the ultimate management solutions for all waste streams.

5. CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, the Joint Convention is a major tool for the worldwide improvement of the safety of spent fuel and radioactive waste management

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programmes. The exchange of information and of views on management solutions allows the conclusion to be drawn that, in more and more countries, spent fuel and radioactive waste are being adequately treated, stored and disposed of.

Let us work to keep the Joint Convention process alive and efficient and to extend the number of Contracting Parties to include all the countries that must face these matters.

DISCUSSION

C. McCOMBIE (Switzerland): It has been stated that one reason why so few countries have become Parties to the Joint Convention is that the preparation of national reports involves a very substantial effort which might be considered excessive by countries with very little in the way of nuclear activities. Could the IAEA do something to ease the reporting burden for such countries?

A.-C. LACOSTE (France): I think there are many explanations for the small number of countries which have become Parties to the Joint Convention as compared with the Convention on Nuclear Safety. For example, the countries with nuclear power programmes were under a kind of ‘social pressure’ to become Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety, whereas no such pressure exists in the case of the Joint Convention.

The IAEA recently held a meeting in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for the purpose of informing a number of African countries about the Joint Convention. At that meeting it became clear that the countries in question were aware of the problems associated with radioactive waste, but that they had many higher priorities. It will take a great deal of effort to induce further countries to become Parties to the Joint Convention.

As the Joint Convention is supposed to be an ‘incentive Convention’, perhaps it could be agreed that the first national report of a new party may be a

‘light’ one, in order to launch the reporting process in that country. The new Parties should be welcomed by the long standing ones, which should not judge their early reporting efforts too severely.

T. TANIGUCHI (IAEA): Regarding the question of the small number of Parties to the Joint Convention, my perception is that, for many of the countries which are not Parties, the costs of complying with the Joint Convention look bigger than the benefits. They lack basic knowledge about the Joint Convention.

After the accession of China, the Russian Federation and South Africa, some 90% of the radioactive waste being generated in the world will be

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covered by the Joint Convention. However, the remaining approximately 10%

is very important, for an accident involving radioactive waste will affect public confidence in most countries. I therefore hope that all IAEA Member States which are already Parties to the Joint Convention will promote the Joint Convention and help new Parties to meet the obligations arising out of it, including the obligation to submit national reports.