Joint Convention NewsNo. 1, April 2004

CONTENTS1. PRESIDENT'S NOTE 2. ACTIONS

FOLLOWING THEFIRST REVIEWMEETING

3. FORTHCOMINGMILESTONES

4. CONTRIBUTEDARTICLES BYDELEGATES TO THEFIRST REVIEWMEETING

5. RELATEDINTERNATIONALEVENTS

6. CURRENT STATUSOF CONTRACTINGPARTIES ANDSIGNATORIES

7. USEFUL WEBSITES

JOINT CONVENTION ON THE SAFETY OF SPENT FUELMANAGEMENT AND ON THE SAFETY OF RADIOACTIVEWASTE MANAGEMENT

Contact: Waste Safety Section, Division of Radiation, Transport and Waste SafetyInternational Atomic Energy Agency

Wagramerstrasse 5, P.O.Box 100, A-1400 Vienna, Austria Tel: 0043-1-2600 22553; fax: 0043-1-26007

JConvColor.qxd 2004-04-20 11:49 Page 1

President’s Note

Joint Convention News No. 1 Page 1

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this new Joint Convention venture - a regular newsletter to keep you informed of developments in-between the meetings of Contracting Parties. I think it is important for the Convention to be a “living organism” and for there to be work and discussions going on between meetings. The Convention must not be allowed to become inactive, only coming alive once every three years. If we are to reach and achieve the objectives of the Convention there must be activity and thinking going on continuously. This newsletter is one means of helping to achieve this and another is the General Committee, which will, I hope, meet periodically between meetings of Contracting Parties. The Committee is a means of maintaining continuity in the Joint Convention process and through it, on your behalf, we will propose and discuss initiatives before bringing them to meetings of the Contracting Parties for formal discussion and approval. I expect to report on the progress of the meetings of the General Committee through this newsletter.

I would like to encourage you to contribute to the newsletter - with items related to events in your country related to the Convention and with ideas and suggestions for consideration at meetings of Contracting Parties.

In this first edition, there are notes on progress towards implementing some of the actions agreed upon at the Review Meeting in November 2003, some dates for your calendar and some contrib-uted articles by delegates to the First Review Meeting.

Laurence Williams President of the First Review Meeting

2. Actions Following the First Review Meeting

Joint Convention News No. 1 Page 2

The Contracting Parties at the First Review Meeting requested the IAEA Secretariat to do what it could to encourage more States to ratify the Joint Convention. Specifically, it was suggested that meetings of a lim-ited nature could be organised in regions of the world in which there are countries potentially interested in becoming Contracting Parties. A number of meetings of this type have been planned for 2004, usually in cooperation with the IAEA Tech-nical Cooperation Department. Also the opportunity is being taken to make presentations at relevant interna-tional conferences. The assistance of delegates to the First Review Meeting will be sought at some of the planned meetings to explain the Joint Convention re-view process and its potential benefit. A preliminary

list of meetings at which presentations on the Joint Con-vention will be made is as follows:

lated into all IAEA official languages and can be ob-tained from the IAEA Contact Point (see page 9).

The Joint Convention promotional materials produced by the Secretariat in 2003, namely the flyer, the bro-chure and the power point presentation have been trans-

Plenary session of the First Review Meeting

Promotional Activities

Location Title of Event

26-28 April , Berlin, Germany International Conference on Radioactive Waste Disposal (DISTEC)

26-30 April, Dakara, Senegal Co-ordination Meeting to coincide with the 15th TWGM (to be attended by DDG-TC and AFRA coordinators)

17-21 May, Vienna, Austria Technical Cooperation (TC) Meeting on Regional Projects in Europe

27 June – 2 July, Obninsk, Russian Federation

International Conference on Fifty Years of Nuclear Power – The Next Fifty Years

19-23 July, Beijing, China TC Project Meeting on Safety Criteria and Guidelines for Radioactive Waste Management

2-6 August, Vienna, Austria TC Workshop for Decision Makers in Latin America - Safety of Radioactive Waste Management and the Joint Convention

September, Sofia, Bulgaria TC Workshop on Safety Assessment in the Licensing of Near Surface Disposal Facilities

7-10 September, Saclay, France International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge Management: Strategies

17 September, Vienna, Austria Research Cooperative Agreement (RCA) meeting – East Asia

20-24 September, Vienna, Austria

48th IAEA General Conference – TC Meetings of all Regions

18 - 22 October, Beijing, China International Conference on Topical Issues in Nuclear Installation Safety: Continuous Improvement of Nuclear Safety in a Changing World

November/December, Vienna, Austria

Seminar on Nuclear Science and Technology for Diplomats

4-8 December, Sanaa, Yemen Arab Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy

13-17 December, Cordoba, Spain

International Symposium on the Disposal of Low Activity Radioactive Waste

Translation of Promotional Materials

The lessons learned from the experience of the Conven-tion on Nuclear Safety with electronic reporting will be drawn upon in order to establish arrangements for the next Review Meeting of the Joint Convention. A report on progress will be given in a future edition of this newsletter.

Electronic Reporting

Joint Convention News No. 1 Page 3

Caption describing picture or graphic.

The first meeting of the General Committee is sched-uled to be held from 9 to 11 June 2004 in Vienna. The membership of the General Committee consists of the

3. Forthcoming Milestones

Improvements in the Review Process Mechanism

It was agreed at the First Review Meeting that the General Committee could function during the period between the First Review Meeting and the Organizational Meeting for the second Review Meeting. The General Committee would review draft documents, prepared by the Secre-tariat, “to clarify the guide-lines to better reflect the duties of officers, prior to and during a Review Meet-ing and their necessary qualifications.” Documents have been prepared which take account of the views of several of the Officers of the Review Meeting and of involved IAEA staff, all of

whom provided written comments. The documents in-clude a reconsideration of the roles of Country Group Chairs, Vice-Chairs, Rapporteurs and Coordinators as well as the procedures for conducting Country Group sessions. The General Committee will also examine

possible changes to the “Guidelines Regarding the Review Process” in order to attempt to promote transpar-ency of the Convention and its proc-ess. These documents will be reviewed by a meeting of the General Committee to be held in June 2004.

Thirty three National reports of the Contracting Parties were reviewed at the First Review Meeting

The President (L. Williams), one Vice President (D. Clein) and helpers (G. Jack and G. Linsley)

General Committee Meeting

Organizational Meeting and Second Review Meeting

Contracting Parties at the First Review Meeting agreed that the Second Review Meeting would be held from 15 to 26 May 2006 in Vienna.

Deadline for Submission of

National Reports

Organizational Meeting

Deadline for Submission of Questions and

Comments

Deadline for Submission of

Answers

Second Review Meeting

- 7 months - 6.5 months - 3 months - 1 month 0 day

15 October 2005 7 – 9 November 2005 15 February 2006 15 April 2006 15 to 26 May 2006

Following this decision the deadlines for the associated preparatory activities can be summarised as follows:

President and Vice President of the First Review Meet-ing and the Chairs of the Country Groups.

Observations from Experience as a Country Group Session Co-ordinator J. Greeves, United States of America

Joint Convention News No. 1 Page 4

the Secretariat. The staff in the IAEA held follow-up meetings aimed at gathering as much information and as many ideas as possible while the issues were still rela-tively fresh in their minds.

While many delegates who attended the First Review Meeting of the Joint Convention no doubt hurried back to their offices to attend to other business, and probably rapidly put out of mind the country group sessions and the discussions in plenary, this was certainly not true of

Improvement of Proceedings of Future Review Meetings G. Jack, Canada

4. Contributed Articles by Delegates to the First Review Meeting

I served as the Country Group (CG) Co-ordinator for CG Session 1. It was a learning experience in working with colleagues from around the world, who did not al-ways share the same perspective, although our funda-mental goal was the same – to improve the condition of global safety in the area of radioactive waste manage-ment, including the disposition and storage of spent fuel. Not withstanding the benefit from having served in this role, I believe that there are some aspects of the role of the co-ordinator that could be improved. Also, there are still some goals that fell short with regard to the activi-ties entailed by the Joint Convention process. The most significant is the ratification situation. Despite the best intentions and efforts expended to gain a global level of participation in the process, it still remains primarily European. Of all the African Member States, only one – Morocco – ratified in time to be a Contracting Party. All of South and Central America produced only Ar-gentina, and Asia had only Japan and the Republic of Korea as participants. This is not to criticise the Mem-ber States that were not able to ratify in time for the re-view meeting; rather it is an acknowledgement of the difficulty in obtaining the timely political approval and marshalling the sufficient resources to comply with the provisions of the Convention. There are things that we, as the ratifying states and the Secretariat, can do to en-courage a better showing at the next meeting. For ex-ample, the current Contracting Parties (CPs) can be-friend other signatories to help navigate process; the United States managed to obtain the approval very late in the process, despite every attempt to ratify well be-fore the deadline. The Secretariat can mobilise its De-partment of Technical Co-operation to provide financial and expert assistance in obtaining approval and in pre-paring a national report. This is especially challenging in the second cycle, because of the consensus from the First Review Meeting that the national reports need to focus more on implementation of safety principles rather than just addressing the current regulatory infra-structure within individual Member States. As far as improving the role of the co-ordinator, I found the process very time consuming, both in terms of pre-

paring for the meeting, as well as during the meeting it-self. Furthermore, the co-ordinator, as well as the other session officers, were a captive audience limited to that CG session. The demands on the group officers precludes the opportunity to engage in sidebar discussions, as well as sitting in and participating in the question and answer periods of other group sessions. We think that the head of delegation needs to have more flexibility to pursue one-on-one encounters, and should not also be a CG session officer. Another innovation, which received strong sup-port during the last plenary session of the Review Meet-ing, was the reliance on the IAEA’s electronic submittal system, which had been developed for the Convention on Nuclear Safety. This system, if implemented in time, can serve to greatly reduce the preparatory workload for both the session co-ordinator and other officers, but also for each Contracting Party’s point of contact (POC). Most of the communication and document submittal (including questions, comments and answers) can be handled elec-tronically. This web platform can also serve to provide access to the many references cited in the national re-ports, which might be difficult to obtain directly from the individual POCs. I hope that these few comments are useful for potential new Contracting Parties and I would welcome inquiries regarding the U.S. experience by Member State who are considering ratification of the Convention.

Session of Country Group 1

Joint Convention News No. 1 Page 5

This resulted in my being invited to go to Vienna for a week in early February to capture the ideas and to help the Agency in some of the actions put on it by the Re-view Meeting. Anyone who knows what Ottawa is usu-ally like in early February will not be surprised to learn that I quickly accepted! The week turned out to be very busy. As often happens, the more one does, the more one realizes how much re-mains to be done. I sincerely hope that the week will prove to have been productive, from the point of view of advancing the effectiveness of the Joint Convention – but much more work is waiting to be done. Some brief notes on the week’s activities follow. The Secretariat asked me first to draft some suggested duties and qualifications of officers for the Joint Conven-tion, as requested by the First Review Meeting. I did that and circulated it to the staff of the Waste Safety Section for comment by the next day – and was very pleasantly surprised at the number and quality of responses. So I amended my original draft to make it a composite of what had seemed the best ideas. The Review Meeting had also asked the Secretariat to draft advice to officers on how to carry out their responsibili-ties, so that was the next document that was prepared. It seemed to me that the document had to be either brief or ex-tremely long, like a textbook on how to write reports, chair meetings, etc. I had neither the competence nor the time to attempt that, and so the draft is fairly brief. The next task that awaited me was to attempt to finalize the guidance docu-ment on Topic Sessions. Those who attended the Organizational and Re-

view Meetings will remember that the Organizational Meeting requested the Secretariat to draft such a docu-ment. The Review Meeting accepted the draft, with two specific changes. But nobody noticed at that moment that the Review Meeting, about thirty minutes earlier, had adopted a change to the Rules. So now the Secre-tariat had a document that it was expected to finalize, so that it would be in effect for the next Organizational Meeting – but which contained text based on a rule that the Contracting Parties had just declared obsolete! That led to a review of what mechanisms exist for approving and amending documents, the results of which are being forwarded to the General Committee for consideration. In the course of this, and also based on earlier experi-ence, I came to the conclusion that INFCIRC 603 Rev-1 (as adopted at the First Review Meeting) was signifi-cantly out of date. So the next draft attempted was a preliminary version of what might become Rev-2. If by now you have the impression that one thing leads to an-other when one goes to work for the Secretariat for a week, you are absolutely correct! There were a few other items that I tried to help on, and

then it was suggested that an account of the week might perhaps be worthy of a note to this Newsletter – and hence this. I hope that it will help keep you in touch with developments under the Joint Convention, and also help remind par-ticipants of how diligent a Secretariat the Convention has in Vienna.

Plenary session of the Review Meeting

At the first Review Meeting of the Joint Convention, the United Kingdom suggested Contracting Party reports could use requirements from IAEA standards to inform their content and coverage. Since that time, as part of the Waste Safety Action Plan, the IAEA, with the help of consultants, has converted key safety standards into questionnaires. I was one of the consultants and believe that some of the information in the questionnaires could be used to help the preparation and review of national reports for the next Joint Convention Review Meeting. During the consultancy I prepared a questionnaire that I believe is relevant to the Joint Convention. This was done by converting “shall” statements in relevant requirement level standards into questions and relating the subject of the standards to relevant Joint Convention articles. This process produced a large number of questions. However, I concluded that many of the

Use of IAEA Safety Standards in Preparing National Reports P. Dickenson, United Kingdom

questions produced in this way seemed to be too detailed for the Joint Convention reporting purposes, hence the questions were refined to a more manageable number. It also appeared that there might be inadequate coverage in the current requirements standards for some topics addressed by the Convention. Through this article I hope to encourage discussion be-tween Contracting Parties on this questionnaire with a view to developing a model that Contracting Parties may wish to use in reporting and review of the national reports for the Joint Convention second review cycle. Copies of the draft questionnaire for consideration by Contracting Parties can be obtained from the IAEA Contact Point. Using the questionnaire also has the aim of encouraging the application of the waste safety standards in the

the next months each participant would investigate the interest and support for such a project in his own coun-try. The next step would be the creation of the small working group that would than pave the road towards possible future multilateral agreements enabling practi-cal work in looking for the site and technical solutions. We were glad to have at the meeting also the represen-tative from the company Decom, which is heavily in-volved in the SAPIERR project funded by EU. It was agreed that the group would meet in February at the oc-

casion of the meet-ing of that project and again in May at the occasion of the conference of the Croatian Nuclear Society.

At the first Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties in November 2004 I explained my country’s interest in a regional solution to radioactive waste disposal. Slovenia as the smallest country with an operating nuclear power plant is faced with the same problems as other countries using that source of energy. One of them is also the search for the final solution for spent fuel disposal. As it would be very costly to construct a high level waste re-pository for only one reactor unit and because other countries of central Europe are faced with similar prob-lems, the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration has started an initiative for a regional waste repository. The kick-off meeting was held in Ljubljana on 2nd December 2003. There were heads of radioactive waste manage-ment agencies present from the Czech Republic, Hun-gary, Croatia, Slovenia, representative from NPP Kozloduy in Bulgaria, representatives of the regulatory bodies of Austria and Slovakia and of the company De-com from Slovakia. Before the meeting the Romanian regulatory body also expressed its interest, but unfortu-nately they were not able to send anybody to attend. As it was the first brainstorming meeting, the views of the participants were freely exchanged and the situation in each country was presented. It was agreed that the idea a regional repository is a reasonable one and worth further development. However, everybody was aware of many difficulties and that it would be a very long way before coming to such a solution. It was agreed that in

Regional Solutions for High-level Radioactive Waste Disposal Discussed, Part 1 A. Stritar, Slovenia

Joint Convention News No. 1 Page 6

Member States. In turn, use of the IAEA standards in this way will help to indicate where further improvements in the standards may be desirable. As noted above some gaps in the requirements standards might have been found already. The questions in the questionnaire were formulated in a way intended to provide a clear relationship between the articles of the Joint Convention and the IAEA safety re-quirements. The questions in most instances also have been developed in a way that discourages answers of “yes” or “no”, but rather seek explanations. Some of the questions should be relatively easy to answer and some will need more detailed explanation. Taking this into ac-count, judgement will be needed on the amount of detail necessary to respond to a particular requirement question from a standard. Naturally, if a particular question does not address the situation in a Contracting Party, it should be ignored or a similar, alternative, more appropriate question could be formulated by the Contracting Party and addressed. Issues addressed by such questions would also provide information of value when considering up-dating the requirements standards. Note that if a clear linkage is justified between the arti-cles of the Convention and the corresponding safety stan-

dards (Safety Requirements), the standards question-naire can then be used: • as a template Member States may choose for their

consideration while they develop their national re-ports

• as a tool for the review of the completeness of na-tional reports of other countries.

With the help and input of as many Contracting Parties as possible, these purposes could be achieved in time for the preparation of the second round of national re-ports for the Review Meeting of the Joint Convention in 2006. Also, Contracting Parties that use the question-naire will be able to compare and contrast their ap-proach to a particular aspect covered by the Joint Con-vention and hence gain more from the review process. Similarly, it is hoped that over time it will become ap-parent where key strengths and weaknesses lie in cur-rent nuclear safety practices. Finally, the thoughts relayed in this article are mine and may not reflect the UK Government’s position.

The proceedings of the December 2002

Conference were published at the

beginning of the year

Part 2 V. Stefula, Slovak Republic

Joint Convention News No. 1 Page 7

A few months after its start, a 6th Framework Programme project called SAPIERR seems to have attracted substan-tial attention from countries in Europe and beyond. SAPI-ERR stands for Support Action: Pilot Initiative on Euro-pean Regional Repository and it is carried out by consor-tium of DECOM Slovakia and the Association for Re-gional and International Underground Storage (ARIUS). This project aims to bring together countries with an in-terest in investigating the possibilities for shared reposito-ries for spent nuclear fuel/high-level radioactive waste, and in particular those countries with small nuclear power programmes that do not have the resources or the full range of expertise to build their own repositories. This project had been prepared independently from the Ljubljana initiative discussed above although the time frame and objectives of SAPIERR match the initial steps presented during the meeting in Ljubljana. SAPIERR had been approved and formally launched just one day before the Ljubljana meeting and this coincidence enabled the project working group to be attended by new members recruited in Ljubljana. Representatives of 21 organisations from 14 countries have agreed to take part in the SAPIERR working group. This working group is an essential tool of the whole pro-ject. Its participants came together at a kick-off meeting in Piestany, Slovakia on 19th – 20th February 2004. The consortium explained the project objectives and estab-lished communication channels between the working

group participants. The group members are at the mo-ment gathering national information on their potential waste inventories for a potential shared repository as well as on their national legislative background. These inputs should help DECOM Slovakia and ARIUS to produce analytical studies on the waste inventories and legal aspects for a possible European Regional Reposi-tory. Later, the consortium will elaborate a technical report on possible scenarios and concepts for European regional disposal and will formulate proposals for areas of trans-national research and development to be carried out in future. A high profile will be given to the so-called “co-operative scenario” which is most appropriate for the European context. The identification of the potential host country was deliberately excluded from the scope of SAPIERR project in this first phase. The working group participants will correspond throughout the two-year duration of the study and will meet again towards the end of the project at an interna-tional seminar in Brussels in October 2005. The objec-tive of the seminar will be to review and disseminate results of the project to a wide audience and to agree on subsequent steps on the way towards the European Re-gional Repository. More details on the SAPIERR project and the Piestany meeting can be found at a dedicated web site: www.sapierr.net.

The IAEA in co-operation with ENRESA and CSN (Spain), ANDRA (France), and the NEA (OECD) is organizing an International Symposium on the Dis-posal of Low Activity Radioactive Waste. The objec-tive of the Symposium is to foster information ex-change on current issues in the area of the manage-ment of low activity radioactive waste and to promote international coherence on strategies, approaches and criteria for their resolution. A sequence of topical ses-sions will examine the relevant issues, including prin-ciples and programmes for low activity radioactive waste disposal, and challenging issues in the manage-ment and disposal of low activity waste. The intended audience for the Symposium is expected to include government officials, senior policy makers, persons from regulatory bodies including associated external technical experts and persons responsible for imple-menting radioactive waste management and disposal facilities.

5. Relevant International Events International Symposium on Disposal of Low Activity Radioactive Waste, 13-17 December 2004, Cordoba, Spain

Contact persons are: John Rowat

IAEA Waste Safety Section (E-mail: j.rowat@iaea.org) and

Ramesh Dayal IAEA Waste Technology Section

(E-mail: r.dayal@iaea.org)

Further information concerning this symposium will be posted on the IAEA website

at www.iaea.org, under "IAEA Meetings".

Lithuania has become a Contracting Party to the Joint Convention by ratifying the Convention on 16 March 2004. With the new member, the number of Contracting Parties and Signatories is the following:

6. Current Status of Contracting Parties and Signatories

Joint Convention News No. 1 Page 8

International Conference on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Disposal, 3-7 October 2005, Tokyo, Japan

A major international conference entitled “The Safety of Radioactive Waste Disposal” is being organised by the Agency. The conference is planned to be held in 2005 in Japan. The conference will address i) interna-tional and national obligations on safety; ii) interna-tional safety standards; iii) structure, content and use of safety cases; iv) safety assessment methodologies and

their application to near surface facilities, intermediate depth and geological facilities; v) uncertainty in safety as-sessment; and vi) limits, controls and conditions for site selection, facility design, operation, closure and post clo-sure. Contact point: T.Ichimura (e-mail: T.Ichimura@iaea.org) and P. Metcalf (P.Metcalf@iaea.org).

Last change of status: March 2004 Parties: 34 Signatories: 42

Country/Organization Signature Instrument Date of deposit Declaration etc./Withdrawal

Entry into force

1Argentina 19 Dec 1997 ratification 14 Nov 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001

Australia 13 Nov 1998 ratification 05 Aug 2003 -/- 03 Nov. 2003 Austria 17 Sep 1998 ratification 13 Jun 2001 -/- 11 Sep 2001 Belarus 13 Oct 1999 ratification 26 Nov 2002 -/- 24 Feb 2003 1Belgium 08 Dec 1997 ratification 05 Sep 2002 -/- 04 Dec 2002 1Bulgaria 22 Sep 1998 ratification 21 Jun 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Canada 07 May 1998 ratification 07 May 1998 -/- 18 Jun 2001 Croatia 09 Apr 1998 ratification 10 May 1999 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Czech Republic 30 Sep 1997 approval 25 Mar 1999 -/- 18 Jun 2001

Denmark 09 Feb 1998 acceptance 03 Sep 1999 Yes/- 18 Jun 2001 1Finland 02 Oct 1997 acceptance 10 Feb 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1France 29 Sep 1997 approval 27 Apr 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Germany 01 Oct 1997 ratification 13 Oct 1998 -/- 18 Jun 2001

Greece 09 Feb 1998 ratification 18 Jul 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Hungary 29 Sep 1997 ratification 02 Jun 1998 -/- 18 Jun 2001

Ireland 01 Oct 1997 ratification 20 Mar 2001 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Japan accession 26 Aug 2003 Yes/- 24 Nov 2003 1Korea, Republic of 29 Sep 1997 ratification 16 Sep 2002 -/- 15 Dec 2002

Latvia 27 Mar 2000 acceptance 27 Mar 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Lithuania 30 Sep 1997 ratification 16 Mar 2004 -/- 14 Jun 2004

Luxembourg 01 Oct 1997 ratification 21 Aug 2001 -/- 19 Nov 2001

Morocco 29 Sep 1997 ratification 23 Jul 1999 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1, 2 Netherlands 10 Mar 1999 acceptance 26 Apr 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001

Norway 29 Sep 1997 ratification 12 Jan 1998 -/- 18 Jun 2001

Poland 03 Oct 1997 ratification 05 May 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Romania 30 Sep 1997 ratification 06 Sep 1999 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Slovakia 30 Sep 1997 ratification 06 Oct 1998 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Slovenia 29 Sep1997 ratification 25 Feb 1999 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Spain 30 Jun 1998 ratification 11 May 1999 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Sweden 29 Sep 1997 ratification 29 Jul 1999 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Switzerland 29 Sep 1997 ratification 05 Apr 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1Ukraine 29 Sep 1997 ratification 24 Jul 2000 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1United Kingdom 29 Sep 1997 ratification 12 Mar 2001 -/- 18 Jun 2001 1United States 29 Sep 1997 ratification 15 Apr 2003 -/- 14 Jul 2003

Contracting Parties

7. Useful Web Sites

A Joint Convention web site has been established and it was extensively used in the preparation of the First Review Meeting of the Joint Convention. It has been created with a view to facilitating the exchange of in-formation related to new signatories and ratifiers, the Organizational and Review meetings, and the dissemi-nation of country reports. More specifically the web site provides information on: • Latest Status of Signature and Ratification • Full Text of the Joint Convention (INFCIRC/546) • Rules of Procedure and Financial Rules

(INFCIRC/602) • Guidelines Regarding the Review Process

(INFCIRC/603) • Guidelines Regarding the Form and Structure of

National Reports (INFCIRC/604)

1) Indicates that the state has at least one operational nuclear power plant. 2) For the Kingdom in Europe.

Signatories

Country/Organization Signature Instrument Date of deposit Declaration etc./Withdrawal

Entry into force

1Brazil 31 Oct 1997 -/- Estonia 05 Jan 2001 -/- Italy 26 Jan 1998 -/- 1Kazakhstan 29 Sep 1997 -/- Lebanon 30 Sep 1997 -/- Indonesia 06 Oct 1997 -/- Peru 04 Jan 1998 -/- Philippines 10 Mar 1998 -/- 1Russian Federation 27 Jan 1999 -/-

Page 9

http://www-rasanet.iaea.org/conventions/waste-jointconvention.htm

The contact point at the IAEA Secretariat to the Joint Convention is Kazumasa Hioki, Waste Safety Section, Division of Radiation, Transport and Waste Safety, IAEA, Wagramerstrasse 5, P.O.Box 100, A-1400

Waste Safety Standards Committee (WASSC)

http://www-rasanet.iaea.org/committees/wassc.asp

Convention on Nuclear Safety

http://www-ns.iaea.org/nusafe/s_conv/s_conv.htm

Other Web Sites

Joint Convention News No. 1

• Summary Report of the First Review Meeting - No-vember, 2003

• National Reports submitted to the First Review Meeting.

The website address is:

Vienna, Austria, Tel: (+43 1) 2600-22711, Fax: (+43 1) 26007-22711, E-mail: K.Hioki@iaea.org. Suggestions for items and articles to be included in the Newsletter should be sent to him.

IAEA Contact Point