In most countries, the nuclear emergency plans are governed by specific regulations that establish the national regimen of civil protection and radia­tion safety. These regulations allocate responsibilities to different actors taking part in the emergency management, set up requirements for emer­gency preparedness and response, and establish criteria for intervention in case of emergency.

The national civil protection legislation, which is mainly addressed to the off-site emergency plans, usually establishes the basis for planning, empha­sizing the right of citizens to their own protection and their obligations in the event of emergency, as well as allocating the responsibilities of all organizations participating in the preparedness and response to nuclear emergencies. Civil protection legislation is strongly conditioned by national political and administrative structures since it sets up rights and obligations for citizens and public and private organizations, as well as the basic respon­sibilities and procedures to take decisions.

The national regulations on radiation safety are usually based on the standards and recommendations issued at international level for the safe and secure use of nuclear energy and its applications. Emergency prepared­ness and response have been taken into consideration by international standards and recommendations on radiation safety and nuclear liability, since the very beginning of the use of nuclear power for peaceful purposes. But it was in the late 1980s, as a result of the lessons learned from the Chernobyl accident, when this subject was treated by the international com­munity as a common concern at the highest level of internationally legally binding instruments. It is too early to conclude lessons learnt from the Fukushima event, but there is no doubt that this accident will be the starting point to review some safety criteria related to facility siting and to recon­sider some hypotheses usually accepted for on-site emergency plans. It is also probable that off-site emergency plans are revised to take into account the special difficulties that are expected to implement countermeasures when a big nuclear accident occurs simultaneously with a natural or anthro­pogenic disaster.

396 Infrastructure and methodologies for justification of NPPs