Handbook on Nuclear Law Carlton Stoiber Alec Baer Norbert Pelzer Wolfram Tonhauser IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency HANDBOOK ON NUCLEAR LAW The following States are Members of the International Atomic Energy Agency: AFGHANISTAN GHANA PANAMA ALBANIA GREECE PARAGUAY ALGERIA GUATEMALA PERU ANGOLA HAITI PHILIPPINES ARGENTINA HOLY SEE POLAND ARMENIA HONDURAS PORTUGAL AUSTRALIA HUNGARY QATAR AUSTRIA ICELAND REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA AZERBAIJAN INDIA ROMANIA BANGLADESH INDONESIA RUSSIAN FEDERATION BELARUS IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF SAUDI ARABIA BELGIUM IRAQ SENEGAL BENIN IRELAND SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO BOLIVIA ISRAEL SEYCHELLES BOSNIA AND ITALY SIERRA LEONE HERZEGOVINA JAMAICA SINGAPORE BOTSWANA JAPAN SLOVAKIA BRAZIL JORDAN SLOVENIA BULGARIA KAZAKHSTAN SOUTH AFRICA BURKINA FASO KENYA SPAIN CAMEROON KOREA, REPUBLIC OF SRI LANKA CANADA KUWAIT SUDAN CENTRAL AFRICAN LATVIA SWEDEN REPUBLIC LEBANON SWITZERLAND CHILE LIBERIA CHINA LIBYAN ARAB JAMAHIRIYA SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC COLOMBIA LIECHTENSTEIN TAJIKISTAN COSTA RICA LITHUANIA THAILAND CÔTE D’IVOIRE LUXEMBOURG THE FORMER YUGOSLAV CROATIA MADAGASCAR REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA CUBA MALAYSIA TUNISIA CYPRUS MALI TURKEY CZECH REPUBLIC MALTA UGANDA DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC MARSHALL ISLANDS UKRAINE OF THE CONGO MAURITIUS UNITED ARAB EMIRATES DENMARK MEXICO UNITED KINGDOM OF DOMINICAN REPUBLIC MONACO GREAT BRITAIN AND ECUADOR MONGOLIA NORTHERN IRELAND EGYPT MOROCCO UNITED REPUBLIC EL SALVADOR MYANMAR OF TANZANIA ERITREA NAMIBIA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ESTONIA NETHERLANDS URUGUAY ETHIOPIA NEW ZEALAND UZBEKISTAN FINLAND NICARAGUA VENEZUELA FRANCE NIGER VIETNAM GABON NIGERIA YEMEN GEORGIA NORWAY ZAMBIA GERMANY PAKISTAN ZIMBABWE The Agency’s Statute was approved on 23 October 1956 by the Conference on the Statute of the IAEA held at United Nations Headquarters, New York; it entered into force on 29 July 1957. The Headquarters of the Agency are situated in Vienna. Its principal objective is “to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world’’. © IAEA, 2003 Permission to reproduce or translate the information contained in this publication may be obtained by writing to the International Atomic Energy Agency,Wagramer Strasse 5, P.O. Box 100, A-1400 Vienna, Austria. Printed by the IAEA in Austria July 2003 STI/PUB/1160 HANDBOOK ON NUCLEAR LAW INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY VIENNA, 2003 IAEA Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Handbook on nuclear law / C. Stoiber … [et al.]. — Vienna : International Atomic Energy Agency, 2003. p. ; 24 cm. STI/PUB/1160 ISBN 92–0–105703–2 Includes bibliographical references. 1. Nuclear energy — Law and legislation — Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Radiation — Safety measures — Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Nuclear reactors — Safety measures — Handbooks, manuals, etc. 4. Liability for nuclear damages — Handbooks, manuals, etc. 5. Nuclear nonprolifera- tion — Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Stoiber, C. II. International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEAL 03–00321 FOREWORD by Mohamed ElBaradei Director General The Statute of the IAEA authorizes the IAEA to promote the safe and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.The safe and peaceful use of nuclear energy in any given State can only be assured with the promulgation and implementation of an effective national nuclear legal infrastructure. Over the past three decades the IAEA’s Office of Legal Affairs has provided assistance to Member States in the development of their individual national nuclear legal infrastructures. The demand for legislative assistance has increased dramatically over the past 17 years, both in the area of nuclear safety — due to the adoption of six international legal instruments negotiated, under the auspices of the IAEA, in the wake of the Chernobyl accident — and in the area of non-proliferation — in response to the efforts to strengthen IAEA safeguards through the adoption of the Model Protocol Additional to Safeguards Agreements. The IAEA, its Member States and the public at large share a common interest in encouraging adherence to these instruments and to the establishment of the necessary implementation legislation. Thus far the IAEA’s assistance has taken the form of drafting new nuclear laws and reviewing existing laws and regulations, hosting fellowship trainees, providing advice on institutional frameworks and conducting training courses on specific legal issues. To be truly effective, however, this assistance must be complemented by self-assessments on the part of the States themselves, so that they may ensure that, in drafting new laws covering nuclear activities or in revising or consolidating existing legislation, their national nuclear legal infrastructures are in line with the relevant international undertakings and best practices in the field of nuclear law. This handbook has been developed to facilitate such a self-assessment. It is targeted not only at legislators, government officials, technical experts, lawyers, diplomats and users of nuclear technology,but also at the media and the general public, to assist them in understanding the basic requirements for an adequate nuclear legal infrastructure. The handbook is an important step forward towards strengthening, in a consistent and coherent manner, the international legal framework governing the safe and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. I thank the authors of the handbook for their efforts in this regard and all those who have assisted in making this publication possible. I hope that the handbook will once again demonstrate the importance of continuing and enhancing the successful implementation of the IAEA’s Nuclear Legislative Assistance Programme. EDITORIAL NOTE The use of particular designations of countries or territories does not imply any judgement by the publisher, the IAEA, as to the legal status of such countries or territories, of their authorities and institutions or of the delimitation of their boundaries. PREFACE Why a handbook on nuclear law? For many years the IAEA assisted Member States, at their request, in developing their domestic legal arrangements for regulating the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and ionizing radiation, as mandated by the IAEA’s Statute. With the expansion of the uses of nuclear techniques in a variety of fields, more States have come to realize that a well structured legal framework is necessary for meeting the technical and management requirements designed to protect public health, safety and the environment. As a result, the IAEA has received an increasing number of requests from Member States for assistance in drafting or reviewing their nuclear laws. For this reason, it was felt that a handbook on nuclear law could be useful in helping legislators, government officials, technical experts, lawyers, diplomats, users of nuclear technology, the media and the public of Member States to understand these requirements. The primary audience for this handbook is expected to be persons in States with a less developed nuclear legislative framework who may be involved or interested in the development of a new law covering nuclear activities. A secondary audience would be persons in States interested in revising or consolidating existing laws so as to make them more consistent and efficient, or persons wishing to add legislation in a technical area (or technical areas) in which recent activity has revealed a deficiency in legal arrangements. Also, this handbook may be of interest to governments that wish to conform their national legislation to international instruments in the nuclear field. Even States with well developed legal structures may find some benefit in using this handbook as a means of confirming that all necessary legal issues in the nuclear area have been covered, or at least considered, in the framing of their legislation. In addition, it is expected that this handbook will be useful for teaching nuclear law, at academic institutions and in technical assistance programmes of the IAEA and of other relevant bodies, both international and national. Why was the handbook written as it was? Since the primary audience for this handbook is expected to be legislators or other persons in States that are only beginning to develop their national legal frameworks for nuclear regulation, it was judged important to make it a reasonably concise, practical guide, rather than an exhaustive, theoretical text. Thus the handbook does not attempt to cover the enormous range of technical requirements and rules that are necessary for regulating the many facets of nuclear energy. Neither does this handbook offer model or illustrative texts of nuclear laws. One of the major points made in this handbook is that each State must develop its own legislative framework based on its own situation, including its constitutional and legal framework, cultural traditions, scientific, technical and industrial capacities, and financial and human resources. Legal texts developed by other States can provide useful guides for understanding how some States have resolved issues of legislative drafting. However, such laws must be assessed in light of the drafting State’s national conditions and experience, and adjusted accordingly. The IAEA, as part of its Nuclear Legislative Assistance Programme, is prepared to make available samples of national nuclear laws, at the request of Member States. This handbook endeavours to explain the overall character of nuclear law and the process by which it is developed and applied. This is the subject of Part I (Chapters 1–3), which also contains material