Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management and other agreements
The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management was adopted in 1997. It entered into force on 18 June 2001, with Germany becoming a Contracting Party the same day. The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) acceded to the Joint Convention as a supranational organisation on 2 January 2006. To date, 71 countries have acceded to the Convention.
Objectives
The objective of the Joint Convention is to achieve and maintain a high level of safety worldwide at facilities responsible for spent fuel and radioactive waste management and to prevent accidents with radiological consequences at such facilities. Its scope of application extends to the management of spent fuel, radioactive waste and disused sealed sources, transboundary movements of these substances and discharges from nuclear facilities.
The Parties to the Convention have committed to the following measures:
- to transpose internationally recognised technical provisions (Articles 4 to 28) into national law and to report on implementation (Articles 29 to 37),
- to upgrade existing facilities that do not comply with the provisions of the Joint Convention (Articles 5 and 12).