IAEA Opens School for Radioactive Waste Regulation

As the use of nuclear technology increases around the world, the need for strong regulatory controls governing their use and application has grown as well. As part of its mandate, the IAEA develops safety standards that provide a global reference for the effective protection of professionals, the public and the environment from hazards associated with ionizing radiation.

These standards include provisions and guidance related to the effective pre-disposal and disposal of radioactive waste, as well as the decommissioning of facilities. Member States apply these standards at their own discretion, but their effectiveness relies on the adoption of complementary national laws for radiation safety.

The School of Drafting Regulations for safety originally began in 2010 as a workshop implemented through a regional IAEA technical cooperation (TC) project[1]. It was conceived to help Member States ensure alignment between their national nuclear laws, their proposed safety regulations and the relevant international standards.

Responding to countries' interest in receiving assistance to draft regulations in all safety areas, the IAEA has designed a new, one-year curriculum with five differentiated programmes to help countries identify gaps, draft or revise their national legislation for nuclear, radiation, transport and waste safety and for emergency preparedness and response. The School also has a programme for drafting combined regulations on radiation safety and security of radioactive material. New combined safety-security programmes will be developed in the future.

The curriculum of the new School consists of an intensive process of training, technical consultations and drafting, and concludes with the finalization of workable regulations for subsequent review and approval by national decision-making bodies.

"For Portugal, our participation in such events is vital," said Margarida Malta, a Division Head at the Portuguese Environment Agency. "The School helped us to better understand the IAEA's Safety Standards for radioactive waste and to determine how they should be reflected in our regulations and legislation."

Each of the participating Member States-Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Türkiye and Uzbekistan-nominated candidates, who were subsequently accepted by the IAEA on the basis of their legal or technical competencies.

Divided into country teams comprising one legal adviser and at least one technical specialist in either radioactive waste management or facility decommissioning, the selected participants were asked to complete several advance steps before enrolling in the School. These included taking an online training module, submitting a national presentation, preparing draft regulations and responding to an IAEA questionnaire to establish the current state of their regulatory framework.

These prerequisites not only ensure that School attendees arrive with strong draft regulations, but that they possess the necessary expertise to contribute substantively to the evolving draft. The online training module, for example, demonstrated how regulations may be brought into alignment with national legislation, indicating how to identify gaps or asymmetry between safety regulations and laws using common examples.

"This was the first event organized around this unique subject which I've attended, and its effectiveness cannot be overstated," said Koray Türkan, an Assistant Nuclear Regulatory Expert at the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of Türkiye. "The e-learning course helped us to focus on the most important aspects of our national laws and regulations, aspects which we were able to deeply discuss together with the IAEA instructors."

With the prerequisites complete, 27 participants joined IAEA and international experts at the Agency's Vienna headquarters to attend the two-week School. Beginning with a lecture that focussed on the specific safety requirements for waste management and decommissioning, the attendees proceeded to review the relevant IAEA safety standards, to study best practices in the development of regulations, and to refine their drafts through an iterative review process with experts and peers in the region.

The new School curriculum complements the IAEA's existing suite of specialist schools and training courses, designed to support countries as they manage nuclear knowledge, build capacities in radiological emergency preparedness and response, or train a cadre of professionals to maintain existing, or establish new, nuclear power infrastructure.

12 IAEA Member States were represented among the School's participants, namely Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, North Macedonia, Romania, Türkiye and Uzbekistan.

To ensure sustainability, the final segment of the School focuses on the establishment of a community of users that will support the ongoing exchange of knowledge and best practices. At the core of this community is an online platform-managed by the IAEA-designed to facilitate collective work, the peer review of draft regulations and the exchange of experience by both legal and technical specialists.

The community of users includes a follow-up tool that allows IAEA experts to monitor the progress achieved by country teams and, where necessary, provide further assistance and technical to support the expedient approval and adoption of the proposed regulations.

[1] RER9158, 'Strengthening the Regulatory Infrastructure for Radiation Safety'