The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (Nuclear Materials Convention) (UN, 1980) with annexes and amendments covers a broad range of terroristic acts and possible targets, including nuclear power plants and nuclear reactors; it also covers threats and attempts to commit such crimes or to participate in them as an accomplice. The treaty stipulates that offenders shall be either extradited or prosecuted. It encourages states to cooperate in preventing terrorist attacks by sharing information and assisting each other in connection with criminal investigations and extradition proceedings, and it deals with both crisis situations (assisting states to solve the situation) and post-crisis situations (rendering nuclear material safe through the International Atomic Energy Agency).

International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (Nuclear Terrorism Convention), United Nations, New York, 2005. This Convention criminalizes the unlawful possession, use, transfer or theft of nuclear material and threats to use nuclear material to cause death, serious injury or substantial property damage. It legally binds signatory states to protect nuclear facilities and material in peaceful domestic use, storage as well as transport. It also provides for expanded cooperation between and among states regarding rapid measures to locate and recover stolen or smuggled nuclear material, mitigate any radiological consequences or sabotage, and prevent and combat related offences (UN, 2005).

Safety

Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM), IAEA, Vienna, May 1980. This convention obliges states to ensure, during international nuclear transport, the protection of nuclear material within their territory or on board their ships or aircraft (IAEA, 1980)

Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident, IAEA, Vienna, November 1986. This convention establishes a notification system for nuclear accidents that have the potential for international trans-boundary release that could be of radiological safety significance for another state (IAEA, 1986/1).

Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency, IAEA, Vienna, November 1986. This convention sets out an international framework for cooperation among parties and with the IAEA to facilitate prompt assistance and support in the event of nuclear accidents or radiological emergencies (IAEA, 1986/2).

Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), IAEA, Vienna, July 1994. This convention commits legally participating states operating land-based nuclear power plants to maintain a high level of safety by setting international benchmarks to which states would subscribe (IAEA, 1994).

Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, IAEA, Vienna, December 1997. This is the first legally binding international treaty on the safety of spent fuel and radioactive waste management. It commits participating states to achieve and maintain a consistently high level of safety as part of the global safety regime for ensuring the proper protection of people and the environment (IAEA, 1997/2).

While anti-nuclear action had yielded some local successes, the wider public remained acquiescent. What changed this was the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) in March 1979, which moved the focus of concern from nuclear proliferation to the possibility of damage to health and the environment from radioactive fallout and discharges. Without doubt, public concern was heightened by the movie The China Syndrome which, remarkably, was released earlier the same month. The accident itself played out over 10 days in the newspapers and on the television news and was followed by condemnatory speeches from national politicians and movie stars at a rally of 100,000 people in Washington DC on May 6. In the words of the NRC,12 the TMI event:

was the most serious in U. S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history,

even though it led to no deaths or injuries

TMI is a good example of an ‘availability cascade’,13 in which a relatively minor incident (remembering that no-one was killed or even injured) becomes the centre of a media fever leading to widespread panic and large-scale official action. In this case the result was a significant tightening of the regulatory regime and:12

sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator

training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas

of nuclear power plant operations.

The consequences of TMI for US nuclear plant construction were profound — all the new reactors that were then being planned were cancelled, others under construction were delayed and another 30 years would pass before the US NRC was asked to approve a new NPP licence application.16 Given the significance of the US contribution to the global nuclear industry, it is not surprising to see that the number of new constructions starts declined (Fig. 1.1). On the other hand it is evident that, even before the TMI accident, the number of construction starts had fallen from its peak of 1976. More surprising perhaps is the lack of any obvious response to the second oil crisis of 1979-1980, which followed the Iranian Revolution. This may be primarily attributed to low public acceptability for nuclear following TMI, higher than expected costs and (especially outside the USA) the early 80s’ recession. By 1985, however, it seemed that nuclear may be making a comeback. Then came Chernobyl.

2.6.1 Turn-key nuclear packages

Nuclear power plants are being planned in a number of countries without previous experience of nuclear power. The plants will be bought as turn-key packages from foreign vendors. The packages will include training for staff in the receiving country in all the nuclear disciplines needed to operate a nuclear power plant. Experience has shown the need to have appropriate legal and regulatory structures in place in countries, to have an active and capable regulatory body and competent technical support organizations. While these lessons are well known it is nevertheless difficult to create in a country, in a relatively short time, the safety infrastructure, experience and safety culture needed to ensure the safe operation of nuclear power plants. This could become an area of general concern.

The experts from these new countries would obviously benefit and learn from being able to communicate freely and to exchange information and experience with those from the well-established nuclear countries. Mechanisms exist through the international organizations for this purpose and specifically through the international conventions on nuclear safety and radioactive waste management (IAEA, 2011a).

4.1.3 Defining public acceptability

Throughout the previous section we have shown how during the past decade advances have been made with regard to the treatment of public acceptability of the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly at the back end with regard to radioactive waste management. Although these are positive changes, the following observations should be taken into consideration. First, problems of public acceptability, especially when they concern the front and back ends of the nuclear fuel cycle, are often approached as an issue of NIMBY or LULU and, consequently, the public is mainly defined as the local community. Second, issues of public acceptance have so far mainly been addressed separately within each step of the nuclear fuel cycle, with the most dedicated focus being on siting issues at the back end of the fuel cycle. This is in fact the part where the notion of acceptability is most limited in scope, as it concerns the part of the cycle that is a given (nuclear waste exists and will continue to do so in the far future, with or without a continuation of nuclear power generation).

In light of these observations, the following considerations are notable. It is only relevant to talk about public acceptability when the public is aware of a proposal and given a genuine opportunity to accept it or not. Although local communities are indeed crucial stakeholders, we are talking about ‘public acceptability’ and not about ‘local public acceptability’. This suggests that the issue needs to be defined in a way that takes it beyond NIMBY and LULU situations. We are not arguing here that the question of how to treat radioactive waste (high-level waste and spent fuel in particular) and issues of (local) acceptability could not or should not be pursued to some extent independently of outstanding issues regarding other steps of the nuclear fuel cycle. It is understandable that one may want to avoid the decision-making process on, say, radioactive waste management becoming bogged down in debates about the merits of nuclear power as a whole. Nevertheless, we do not consider that acceptance of a radioactive waste management disposal facility by an interested local community (for whatever reason) serves as a legitimate argument that the waste problem is fully solved (as that will still need to be proven in practice, and decisions on final closure will need to be made not just at the local level), and therefore that general public acceptability for the whole nuclear fuel cycle is covered.

The previous paragraph highlights the importance of further investigating and refining what public acceptability of the nuclear fuel cycle does, could and perhaps should in fact refer to. We have already pointed out that the efforts with regard to gaining public acceptability have so far focused largely on better explaining technical safety aspects. For sure this research and communication about its results are highly relevant. Advanced probabilistic risk assessments offer a quantitative characterization of the safety of a system, an estimate of the probability of failures and their consequences. Such assessments nevertheless do not say how safe is safe enough. Such a judgement firstly relates significantly to the notion of confidence as we have come to mention it several times. Risk research has repeatedly pointed out the centrality of the degree of public suspicion towards nuclear industries, utilities and implementers, and of mistrust towards the institutions that assess and regulate the risks (Kasperson et al., 1980: 16; Slovic, 1999). Reports in the media and public responses in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident once again confirm this.

But even if confidence were there, probabilistic risk assessments alone do not suffice to answer the question about how safe is safe enough. Uncertainty is, in a sense, inherent in engineering, financing and regulating advanced technologies: unless one is able to build a full-scale prototype and to test it under all the precise conditions that could be encountered in practice, there is always the uncertainty of extrapolating the safety case to new and untried circumstances (Weinberg, 1992: 6). A full-scale prototype would, for instance, mean one including realistic timeframes (e. g. keeping radioactive waste management in mind); testing all potential precise conditions would for instance mean including grave, improbable events (thinking e. g. about Fukushima). Quantitative data thus provide crucial input for safety judgements, but the meaning one attributes to numbers and figures and the remaining uncertainty they reveal, in the end always depends on the interpretation one makes of them. Such interpretations cannot take place in a vacuum, but are balanced out against and deliberated within a broader epistemological, societal, political, economic, ethical, . . . context. The question of how safe is safe enough and how much uncertainty is acceptable, and the confidence the answers to these questions do or do not evoke, is crucially framed within a broader questioning of the desirability of the benefits the technology in question offers, i. e., for our case, a questioning mainly of how badly electricity from fission is needed (Weinberg, 1992: 288).

The desirability of nuclear energy (and in fact of any technology) has to do with fundamental values and beliefs, connected to, for example, how it matches with one’s worldviews (e. g. Slovic and Peters, 1998) and with one’s opinions about justice (e. g. Behnam, 2012). Both worldviews and opinions about justice are informed by facts, but fundamentally characterised by value-based pluralism. In this context, worldviews are related to opinions about e. g. the politics of ‘neo­liberal corporate powers’, the acceptability of ‘misusable’ technology, and which, and to what extent, ‘externalities’ (such as potential environmental pollution) should be reflected in economic calculations. Opinions about (procedural and distributional) justice in this context are connected to e. g. the difficulties of democratic control of complex and centralised technologies such as nuclear, and intra — and intergenerational ethics in relation to waste.

Alvin Weinberg, known to many as the father of the light-water reactor, describes such matters with the notion of ‘trans-science’. ‘Here was a technology that sprang full-blown from science — but the many controversies that nuclear power spawned too often involved questions that could be posed in a scientific idiom yet could not be answered by science’ (Weinberg, 1992: 1). Trans-scientific questions are ‘questions that can be asked of science and yet cannot be answered by science’ (Idem: 4). Just because technologies spring from science it does not follow that the controversies they cause can be answered by science. Trans-scientific matters are inherent to all parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, in connection to siting issues, technical options and nuclear energy as a whole. A scientist may have valuable ideas on trans­scientific matters, related to safety interpretations, confidence and desirability, but these ideas are based on opinions, intuitions, beliefs and assumptions, and only partially on facts that can be proven with certainty. One of the major challenges related to public acceptability and the nuclear fuel cycle thus lies in creating fora where such trans-scientific matters can be deliberated by all stakeholders (nuclear scientists, engineers, industry leaders, implementers, regulators, politicians and all engaged members of the local, national and international civil society) willing to revive the Enlightenment motto ‘think for yourself’.

2.1.1 Beginnings

It has been recognized since the beginning of the twentieth century, as a result of observations during early studies on X-rays and radioactive minerals, that exposure to high levels of radiation can cause clinical damage to the tissues of the human body. In recognition of the need to control radiation hazards and to protect workers, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) was established in 1928 (although not named as such until 1950). Since then, long term epidemiological studies of populations exposed to radiation, for example, the survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945, medically exposed persons and some populations exposed to the fall-out from the Chernobyl accident in 1986, have demonstrated that exposure to radiation also has a potential for causing the delayed induction of malignancies. Successive recommendations of the ICRP have reflected the increasing knowledge of the harmful effects of ionizing radiation and the need to have a system that provides adequate protection to all who may be exposed to ionizing radiation both at work and in the environment. The recommendations of the ICRP have been accepted globally and form the basis of regulations for protection against the hazards of ionizing radiation in all the countries of the world. The most recent recommendations of the ICRP were issued as Publication 103 (ICRP, 2007). In forming its recommendations on radiological protection, the ICRP has taken into account the reviews and conclusions of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), in particular, in relation to the effects of ionizing radiation on humans (UNSCEAR, 2000 and 2010).

Nuclear security relates to theft, sabotage, unauthorized access and illegal transfer or other malicious acts involving nuclear material and other radioactive substances and associated facilities; it involves nuclear safety issues and physical protection form an important part of it.

There are a number of publications defining and dealing with nuclear security, all of them are consistent with the Convention of Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM), the ‘Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources’, its supplementary Guidance, UN Security Council resolutions 1373 and 1540 (UNSC, 2001), and the ‘International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism’ (UN, 2005).

In respect of nuclear security the IAEA’s main document is the ‘Nuclear Security Plan for 2010-2013’ (IAEA, 2009/2), which contributes to the efforts to achieve worldwide, effective security where nuclear or other radioactive material is in use, storage or transport, and of associated facilities, by supporting states to establish and maintain nuclear security through capacity building, guidance, human resource development, sustainability and risk reduction. The objective is to support initiatives to enable the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear energy and radioactive substances. The plan has four main elements: (i) needs assessment, information collation and analysis; (ii) the enhancement of a global security framework; (iii) nuclear security services; and (iv) risk reduction and security improvement. Key priorities are the provision of advice concerning the implementation of binding and non-binding international instruments; the development of guidance and documents; the review and assessment of needs; the provision of support to states for the implementation of nuclear security recommendations; and to outreach and exchange information through databases, conferences, workshops and fellowships. A number of activities, which were originally conceived for safeguards, and nuclear and radiation safety, but which also support nuclear security objectives, are also covered in the plan.

A number of guidance documents exist, covering security fundamentals, recommending best practices, implementation guides, and technical reference documents (applying detailed measures in specific areas, training and service guides, the latter providing information on the conduct and scope of relevant advisory missions). There are guides on, inter alia, the security culture, basic design threats, nuclear forensics and on illicit trafficking in radioactive material (for a complete list see references below, IAEA 2011/5).

Development process for the standards

Safety standards committees exist for the preparation and review of the IAEA safety standards; they cover nuclear safety, radiation safety, radioactive waste safety and the safe transport of radioactive material (IAEA, 2011b). A Commission on Safety Standards (CSS) oversees the entire safety standards programme. All IAEA member states may nominate experts for the safety standards committees and may provide comments on draft standards. The membership of the CSS is appointed by the Director General of the IAEA and includes senior government officials having responsibility for establishing national standards.

Some standards are developed in cooperation with other bodies in the United Nations system or other specialized agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Labour Organization, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization. The safety standards are kept up to date: five years after publication they are reviewed to determine whether revision is necessary.

The IAEA Safety Standards Series has three categories:

1 Safety Fundamentals — These present the objectives, concepts and principles of protection and safety and provide the basis for the safety requirements.

2 Safety Requirements — These establish the requirements that must be met to ensure the protection of people and the environment, both now and in the future. The requirements, which are expressed as ‘shall’ statements, are governed by the objectives, concepts and principles of the Safety Fundamentals. If they are not met, measures must be taken to reach or restore the required level of safety. The Safety Requirements use regulatory language to enable them to be incorporated into national laws and regulations.

3 Safety Guides — These provide recommendations and guidance on how to comply with the Safety Requirements. Recommendations in the Safety Guides are expressed as ‘should’ statements. The Safety Guides present international good practices. Each Safety Requirements publication is supplemented by a number of Safety Guides, which can be used in developing national regulatory guides.

For Safety Fundamentals and Safety Requirements, the drafts endorsed by the CSS are submitted to the IAEA Board of Governors for approval for publication. The membership of the IAEA Board of Governors is drawn from the governments of IAEA member states. Through this process it is intended that the standards achieve a global consensus.

The Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (Vienna Convention), IAEA, Vienna, originated in 1963, entered into force in November 1977 (IAEA, 1977/2), INFCIRC/500, dated March 1996, including the Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes to the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage, IAEA, Vienna, October 1999 (IAEA, 1999/2), INFCIRC/500/Add.3 and Add.5 from November 2002 showing the newest status and the Protocol to Amend the 1963 Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage, with Annex, Vienna, July 1998 (IAEA, 1998/1), INFCIRC/566.

Additional information sources Nuclear safeguards

IAEA Safeguards Glossary, 2001 edn, International Nuclear Verification Series No. 3

Safeguards Techniques and Equipment, 2003 Edition, International Nuclear Verification, Series No. 1 (Revised)

Agreement between the Republic of Argentina, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) and the IAEA for the Application of Safeguards (Reproduced in INFCIRC/435)

Verification Agreement between the IAEA and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) (Reproduced in INFCIRC/193)

Guidelines for Nuclear Transfers, 1993 Revision of NSG London Guidelines (Also see Nuclear Suppliers Group web pages)

Status of Safeguards Agreements & Additional Protocols, from the IAEA website

The Chernobyl disaster struck in the early hours of 26 April 1986. It was, and still is, the most severe accident resulting from the deployment of civil nuclear power. It was caused by combination of poor design, inadequate regulation and operator error.17 Its health impact could have been greatly mitigated if (as at Fukushima) the local inhabitants had been immediately evacuated. As it was, a 36 hour delay and a lack of iodine tablets worsened the health effects that continue, along with the financial burden, to this day. The accident left an indelible impression and is a byword for the potential for disaster that accompanies nuclear power. Thirty-one people died as an immediate result of the radiation and the World Health Organisation estimates that some 4000 excess deaths could result from the fallout and a similar number might be expected from the evacuation of 340 000 people.18 Nevertheless, as with TMI, the accident did have some useful outcomes, among them the establishment of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), which exists to share experience and best practice. The IAEA OSART system (Operational Safety Review Team), which had been started in 1982 with the idea of spreading best practice, was soon being requested to perform many more missions, often in countries where nuclear power had been established for years. According to a review of OSART activities to 2005, the most visited country was France. 1 9 One of the disturbing aspects of the Chernobyl disaster was the fact that first news of it came not from the Soviet authorities but from fallout detected in Sweden. As a remedy the IAEA Convention on Early Notification in the Event of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency came into force in October 1986. This was followed up by the IAEA Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency in February 1987 and the Convention on Nuclear Safety in 1994.

The focus during the development of radiation protection philosophy has naturally been on ensuring the protection of humans from the hazards of ionizing radiation. It was assumed that this would also ensure that other species were protected. However, the assumption was never rigorously tested. The assumption has been addressed by national and international groups over the last ten years and methodologies have been developed for assessing the radiation doses to various species of plants and animals (Howard et al., 2010; IAEA, 2011d; ICRP, 2008).

In the most recent International Basic Safety Standards on Radiation Protection (BSS) (IAEA, 2012a) the topic of environmental protection is explicitly addressed for the first time. In previous versions of the BSS it was assumed that by providing protection to humans from the hazards of ionizing radiation the environment would also be protected. The new BSS reiterates the belief that, in general, such protection will be provided but identifies the protection of the environment as an issue necessitating assessment to ensure the sustainability, now and in the future, of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism, and of the use of natural resources.

Although the need to consider protection of the environment explicitly is now formally identified, the available evidence is that, in situations of normal operation of the nuclear fuel cycle, there will be no adverse effects on the environment. Radiation doses to humans living in the vicinity of nuclear facilities are almost invariably low (UNSCEAR, 2010) and this also applies to plants and animals living in the same environment. It has been recognised, however, that in environments where humans are not present, for example, in the vicinity of some uranium mining and milling enterprises in remote territories, that the main environmental concern is the protection of natural ecosystems (IAEA, 2005b).