Servicing the Joint Convention

Servicing the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, and developing waste safety standards

Rationale - The Agency is required to provide the Secretariat for the meetings of the Contracting Parties to the Joint Convention. In this capacity the Agency must convene, prepare and service meetings of the Contracting Parties and transmit information received or prepared to the Parties. The Agency may also be called upon to provide other services at the request of the Contracting Parties. The third Review Meeting of Contracting Parties will take place in May 2009. In addition, the Secretariat will implement a promotion plan directed toward IAEA MSs who are not yet contracting parties. The Agency has a statutory responsibility to establish safety standards for the protection of human health from different radiation sources; in this case it is radioactive waste. Internationally agreed standards of safety for application to the management of radioactive waste are needed as a basis for establishing national laws and regulations. The corpus of Safety Standards in the area needs to be under continuous review and as necessary, existing standards will be updated and improved and new standards will be developed. A committee of national regulators, the Waste Safety Standards Committee (WASSC) reviews and approves the standards. After review by the committee, the documents are subject to final approval by the Commission on Safety Standards (CSS), and where appropriate, the Board of Governors.

Objective

To improve safety in the management of radioactive waste in Member States through the establishment of consensual international safety standards on the radioactive waste management and an effective review process under the Joint Convention.

Major Tasks for 2008-2009

For further information please contact G.Siraky