To ensure acceptable transport safety within their own borders, countries adopt lawfully mandated minimum transport safety regulations. Based on experience in the 1940s, it was concluded that if the various countries’ regulations are not based on a consistent approach, a confusing and difficult to apply set of varying requirements can result. Most countries in the world therefore have come to rely on the United Nations’ organizations, working with them in developing a suitable set of safety requirements that can be applied by all countries to all modes of transport and for all classes of dangerous goods. The national regulations can either use these requirements directly (through verbatim incorporation or incorporation by reference) or indirectly (e. g. by rewriting them to fit into the structure of their national regulations).

The UN Committee of Experts, the UN Model Regulations and the IAEA

A committee of experts was appointed by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1953 to develop a universal system of recommendations for the transport of dangerous goods. These recommendations were focused on reducing risks and costs in the expanding international trade in dangerous goods, with the intent that they could also be adopted for domestic purposes. ECOSOC appointed the Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (CETDG) to develop the basic approach that would be applied to the packaging and transport of all dangerous goods. CETDG’s report was to take the form of recommendations, and it would be up to the national and international bodies responsible for regulating the carriage of dangerous goods to decide the extent to which these United Nations recommendations should be given the force of law.

In December 1994 the CETDG decided that its recommendations were now sufficiently complete to be recast as Model Regulations that were addressed to all governments and international organizations concerned with the development of national and international regulations for the transport of dangerous goods. This resulted in restructuring the recommendations so that they could be used directly. In July 1995, in Resolution 1995/5, ECOSOC agreed with this approach and invited all interested parties ‘when developing or updating appropriate codes and regulations, to take full account of the recommendations, including the structure and format of such codes and regulations’ (IAEA, 1998). The UN Model

Regulations, which have been periodically updated, provide a complete set of requirements for the transport of all dangerous goods. While they do not have the force of law, they are widely used as the basis for national and international regulations.

For Class 7 (radioactive material) dangerous goods, the UN Model Regulations, issued by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), are derived from the IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material as discussed further in Section 19.2.3. The content, format and structure of the UN Model Regulations have been closely coordinated with the IAEA, ICAO, IMO and the regional land-transport modal authorities (for rail, road and inland waterway transport) to facilitate easy integration into the binding regulations of all of these bodies.