J. GONZÁLEZ

Autoridad Regulatoria Nuclear, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Thank you for inviting me to present a brief history of our understanding in the area of the security of radioactive sources. Perhaps it would have been better to invite a historian for this, because I was part of that history and, of course, I have a biased opinion. The title of my presentation could give you the idea that I am going to talk about wine and mineral water (the road went via Evian), but in fact it shows the great commitment of the French Government to this issue. I believe we have to underline this — we have to be extremely grateful to the French Government, not only for hosting this conference, but for what has been done in this area over the years.

History always has a prehistory, which gives the context. Therefore let me talk a little about the prehistory as well. At the beginning of radiation safety, when the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) was formed, all the international recommendations and standards took the safety and security of sources for granted. The basic concept was that abnormal situations should be prevented, without it being clearly said what ‘prevented’

meant. In 1970, there was a brief moment of enlightenment when the IAEA issued a standard covering the security of thermogenerators operated by highly radioactive sources, the same thermogenerators that later caused so many problems because the guidelines were not followed. Certainly this concerned the few who were handling these thermogenerators, but it was not a universal issue. In 1988, there was a kind of awakening, at least for me. I believe that my professional life changed dramatically after this event. This event showed for the first time that this famous safety and security that we had taken for granted was not there.

Let me recall Goiânia. An insecure caesium source in a radiological clinic was scavenged and moved to a junkyard, the source capsule was ruptured with dispersal of caesium chloride, the city was contaminated, 14 people were exposed, four died, 112 000 were monitored, 85 000 were contaminated, and 5000 cubic metres of radioactive waste was produced. A similar scenario would apply to a case of malicious use, even to a terrorist attack. All this was caused by a source that was two inches wide, with 93 grams or 1000 curies of powdered caesium. That was a tremendous lesson for me.

The 1990s created an international reaction to this, establishing the basis, the fundamentals and requirements that are still in operation internationally.

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They are the first international norms that recognize explicitly that the safety of radiation sources is essential for public protection and that the security of radioactive sources is a necessity for radiation safety. Safety, as was said at the beginning, means to constrain radiation harm; security means to inhibit unauthorized possession and unlawful use of radiation sources, for instance by ensuring that control over the sources is not relinquished or improperly acquired. In the International Basic Safety Standards for Protection against Ionizing Radiation and for the Safety of Radiation Sources, therefore, security was, is and — I hope — will continue to be an integral part of safety, according to the IAEA Statute, which is the basis of all the work of the IAEA on safety.

Therefore, as was said this morning, safety and security are not separate issues, there is no question of synergies and interaction, security does not override safety, security is a part of safety, at least in international standards.

This has to be underlined very clearly, and, as was said this morning, this is because of simple logic. While a radioactive source that is secure is not necessarily safe, a radioactive source cannot be safe if it is not secure. It follows that source security is a necessary but not sufficient condition for source safety.

Within the context of radiation sources, security is just one element of safety.

Turning to the history from Dijon to Bordeaux, I can testify that reading history is less risky than making it. 1998, I would say, started an era of reason in this area. We started to understand issues with the famous Dijon conference, and I want to underline again the vision of the French Government at that time in initiating this conference at a time when many countries did not believe that this was an issue. The main message from Dijon, as you may read in the proceedings of the conference, was that keeping radioactive sources under control was a serious international challenge and that countries should undertake international obligations that guaranteed proper control. In 1998 we were saying this and we are still not there. In 1999, for the first time, we publicized the issues to a wider audience. This was in an IAEA Bulletin which can still be found on the IAEA web site.¹

In the year 2000, action started with regulatory enlightenment. This was the conference in Buenos Aires. Not only Dijon and Bordeaux have good wine.

In Buenos Aires we have a Malbec which is extremely good. The conference in Buenos Aires was attended by many top regulators, including the President of this present conference. The main message from Buenos Aires was one to the regulators: You have a serious, unresolved problem, which is under your

1 GONZÁLEZ, A.J., Timely action: Strengthening the safety of radiation sources and the security of radioactive materials, Int. At. Energy Agency Bull. 41 3 (1999) 2, http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull413/article1.pdf

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37 responsibility. What are you planning to do about it? To the international community, the message was: The time is ripe for a serious international action plan that allows all regulators to help their neighbours, which means mutual help. There were post-Buenos-Aires initiatives: strengthening national control infrastructures, appraising compliance with regulatory standards, regaining control of orphan sources, collaborating with the industry in marking sources and improving physical characteristics, and border crossing monitoring. The IAEA’s international Action Plan for the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources that had been drawn up in Dijon was finally formalized after the Buenos Aires conference. Unfortunately, 2001 was a year of terrorism and confusion, which produced a lot of obscurantism and dogmatism.

Just two events: On one day, 10 September 2001, the Action Plan was approved by the IAEA Board of Governors, and the next day, 11 September, we had the terrorist attacks. This had a tremendous impact and there were, I would say, five ingredients for obscurantism. First there was a lot of public concern and media hype. The issue went out of our hands and into the media’s. There were a lot of political demands. Politicians wanted solutions for tomorrow. Before 11 September, they were ignoring the issue; after 11 September, there was a demand for solutions tomorrow. There was certainly a lack of strategic planning. Large amounts of money were involved, which is always dangerous in such circumstances because there are always huge personal ambitions. Interest-ingly, initially there was clarity. Immediately after 11 September, the IAEA Board of Governors approved a crystal clear document on possible scenarios, divided into three groups: detonating improvised nuclear devices, sabotaging nuclear facilities and misusing radioactive sources or material for a ‘dirty bomb’. The Board recognized these were three very different issues for

‘nuclear security’. However, this clarity quickly degenerated into confusion, because at the beginning of 2002 an obscure document from the same Board scrambled approaches to existing problems.

Two main questions that may have clarified the post-September-11 situation were not answered — really three, in fact. Are radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) weapons of mass destruction? Certainly not! They are an element of terrorism but not weapons of mass destruction. Are nuclear weapons weapons of mass destruction? Oh, certainly yes! Are nuclear weapons radiological weapons? Not necessarily, as you will see. Why are RDDs not weapons of mass destruction? It is enough to see the likelihood that something will happen to people. This is the United Nations policy on the likelihood of what will happen with a given radiation dose. We can see this clinically at very high doses, epidemiologically at lower doses to a given limit, and below that not even epidemiologically. We cannot see the effects in this area, which is where doses occur that an RDD would produce. The risk is far too low to call an RDD

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a weapon of mass destruction. People forget that we cannot even detect these effects. For the range of doses that will occur because of an RDD, you need millions of people to see anything. How can you call this a weapon of mass destruction? And nuclear weapons? Well, nuclear weapons are certainly weapons of mass destruction and they need very solid security, particularly for those who have them. If you consider the case of Hiroshima, you will find that the area wiped out by the weapon is much larger than the area of deterministic effects. Believe it or not, practically nobody died in Hiroshima because of radiation. Hiroshima was not a radiological problem. The problem was the fact that tonnes and tonnes of TNT equivalent were thrown into a city. Even for the long term, the United Nations has clearly assessed that there is of the order of five hundred extra cases of cancer for the full Hiroshima study of 80 000 survivors.

Even the sigma value for detecting this is very small — at the moment 4.6 sigma.

Therefore the security of nuclear weapons and material is not comparable with that of radioactive material, but after the events of 11 September, the two were scrambled. Nuclear security experts started to play the role of radiological security experts. There was an invasion of ‘radiological security experts’ in the last two years. Some are experts in the security of nuclear weapons and material — a very important area where I am not sure that everything has been done that should have been done. Many are experts in criminal and forensic science. Most just aim to manage huge financial resources and few have experience with radioactive sources. The logic that was not followed was the relative importance of issues and solutions. Security of nuclear material is extremely important. There is a regime of safeguards and non-proliferation to which we have to adhere. Crime prevention is extremely important — not only for radioactive and nuclear material — and we have a very active organization in the United Nations system that deals with that and which is represented here at this conference. The security of radioactive sources is an issue for the radiation safety community and for the regulatory bodies because, as the repre-sentative from the International Radiation Protection Association said, in the end it is one of them that will make the source secure or not.

There are two confusing words in use: ‘holistic’ and ‘comprehensive’.

Every time that you see these two words in an IAEA document, read them with care. The last attempt at rationality was in the IAEA Bulletin in 2001², with very little success.

2 GONZÁLEZ, A.J., Security of radioactive sources: The evolving new dimen-sions, Int. At. Energy Agency Bull. 43 4 (2001) 39, http://www.iaea.org/Publications/

Magazines/Bulletin/Bull434/article8.pdf

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39 Yet in 2003 there was something that could have been a renaissance.

Many things happened in 2003. The first thing was the March 2003 Conference on the Security of Radioactive Sources, which tried to bring the situation into focus again. This was a very successful conference attended by some 800 people from all over the world. Many of you were there. The direction was very clear:

to locate, recover and secure powerful radioactive sources still at large to ensure their global and sustainable control. This clear direction still holds. In June 2003, the political understanding was added. The time was ripe and the G8 summit in Evian, France, which was originally intended to enable these leaders to meet after the Iraq crisis, was a success. It was a success not by chance but because of the work of many people. The French Government and the State Department of the United States of America — in particular Warren Stern’s group — did an enormous amount of work to make this a great success. For the first time, politicians took the matter seriously. The Tripartite Initiative was established at the same time and was a very good example of where we have to go in this area.

In July 2003, we reached a key technical consensus. For the first time, we agreed on the meaning of dangerous radioactive sources and we then knew what we were talking about in terms of curies or becquerels. Also, since September 2003 we have focused on the importance of strengthening national infrastructures. The Conference on National Infrastructures for Radiation Safety: Towards Effective and Sustainable Systems, held in Rabat, Morocco, focused clearly on what our future should be in this area. The political undertaking came the same year with the adoption of the Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources. I will not talk about this because Mr. MacIntosh will address the issue in detail during this conference.

You know that, though legally non-binding, the Code of Conduct is an important political agreement, emphasizing the importance of security from cradle to grave, which we were pushing from the beginning.

The international agreement on import/export came at the same time and was an important success as well. We arrive in Bordeaux after a brief stop in London, which Mr. Loy will talk about, and the issues continue to be simple to formulate and resolve. They are: prevalence, orphanage, loss of control and unconventionality. Prevalence: Radioactive sources are abundant and widespread all over the world. Solution: Internationalized control. There is no solution to an international problem that is not international. Orphanage:

Many radioactive sources are strays. Solution: Find them and regain control.

Loss of control: Control is relaxed even with those sources that are well regulated. Solution: Impose international prescriptive regulatory requirements for ensuring control; otherwise we are talking theory. Involve manufacturers:

This conference should recognize and promote the recently created association

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of manufacturers. Unconventionality: Many orphan sources are special and powerful. Solution: Exert pressure on the developed countries that irrespon-sibly let these sources become orphaned. The 40 000 curies irresponirrespon-sibly abandoned in poor countries are a problem created by developed countries, not by the developing world. Abandoned, powerful sources are not a universal problem. They are a problem existing in a few areas and created by a couple of countries.

Following Bordeaux? We should deal with the legacy of past activities.

The time is ripe for international binding obligations to recover orphan sources.

The same goes for sustainability and continuity of control. Tripartite and IAEA experience will be absorbed and further initiatives with a lot of money will be launched, but no international initiative can replace countries’ own action.

The Code of Conduct has been a great achievement with wide political adherence which should lead to factual implementation. There is no follow-up mechanism. International appraisal can be one of them. There must be interna-tional binding obligations to ensure that the provisions of the Code are followed by all.

Outlook — what to do if something happens. The ICRP has prepared some recommendations, and Mr. Holm will present them this afternoon.

However, you will have the problem of maintaining normality if there is a malicious act involving radioactive material, because the journalists will exaggerate, and we have not solved this problem yet.

In summary, the time is ripe for binding commitments for a harmonized, effective and sustainable international regime for the safety and security of radioactive sources. Let us not forget that the world has 192 States. Let us help them and persuade them to be committed to helping each other. Let us go back to our Dijon proposals and insist that our political masters work towards an inter-national convention on the safety and security of radioactive sources, because there will be no safety or security for any of us unless there is for all. Epilogue:

continuing to confront a difficult dilemma — overreaction and irresponsibility.