National and international laws are based on the willingness of countries to commit themselves to a course of action. National laws typically require the passage of legislation or decrees and frequently require more detailed regulations to implement the very detailed requirements necessary in highly technical areas such as dangerous goods transport safety. International laws establish legal rights and obligations for the states that consent to be bound by them, and they may also require detailed implementation requirements. Both of these types of laws and their supporting regulations, standards and guidance are necessary to ensure a comprehensive system of transport safety for all dangerous goods, including for radioactive materials.

In 1998 the IAEA Secretariat prepared a report (IAEA, 1998), which provides additional detail about the international agreements in this area. It illustrates that, although both the IAEA Transport Regulations and the UN Model Regulations are viewed as recommendations, their provisions become binding through various international instruments. Through this process, a sound international transport safety regulatory regime has been established.

The attachment to GOV/1998/17 (IAEA, 1998), combined with updated information through the year 2003, identified a significant number of such binding international instruments and agreements that directly or indirectly apply to the safe transport of radioactive materials:

• 21 worldwide instruments in force

• five worldwide instruments that have been prepared but were, at that time, not yet in force

• 22 regional instruments in force

While the number of binding instruments is large, there are two worldwide modal conventions and several major regional conventions that provide the most comprehensive coverage of dangerous goods transport safety. The two worldwide conventions are:

1 For maritime transport of dangerous goods — The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea and three protocols (London, 1974) and other actions taken by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) required that state parties make the IMO International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code mandatory by 1 January 2004 (IMO, 2010).

2 For air transport of dangerous goods — The Convention on International Civil Aviation — Annex 18, the Chicago Convention (the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air (Chicago, 1945)), requires state parties to make the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) Technical Instructions for the Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air mandatory (ICAO, 2010).

As international land transport (i. e. transport by rail, road and/or inland waterways) is de facto limited to continental traffic, there is no global convention governing the carriage of dangerous goods by these modes. However, regional agreements exist, including:

• the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Inland Waterways (ADN), for which the UN/ECE serves as secretariat

• the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR) ECE/TRANS/175, for which the UN/ECE serves as secretariat

• Regulations concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID), for which the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) serves as secretariat

Figure 19.2 shows how the IAEA Transport Regulations and UN Model Regulations are implemented into these binding instruments.