CHAPTER- 4
INTERNATIONAL TRANSBOUNDARY
MOVEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE: A
CODE OF PRACTICE
Nuclear waste disposal has been widely recognized as the prime waste
Achilles' heel of the commercial nuclear power industry. As industrialized
nations attempt to cope with this problem, repository siting conflicts have
become frequent.
Most of the communities are adamantly opposed to
the location of nuclear waste sites in their own backyards, because of the
unique long term legacy of the radiation hazards while the geological
behavior of the site is uncertain, a sub-surface nuclear waste repository
presents the risks of ground water contamination and there is risk of
accidents in shipping the waste canisters from the power plant sites.
Growing public awareness about the dangers of radioactivity is putting
increasing restraints on governments seeking ways of getting rid of their
growing stocks of nuclear wastes. There is resistance to the opening of
new sites from the local government, popular protest movements and
trade unions.
International
regulations
materials is becoming strict.
on
the
dumping
of nuclear
For instance, the London Convention on
Dumping which came into effect in 1975, asked in 1983 for a 2 year
suspension of all Ocean Dumping of Nuclear Wastes.
Since 1967,
several European states have been dumping their low level nuclear
wastes in the Atlantic under Nuclear Energy Agency and OECD
auspices.
The
London
Convention which
arose
out of an
intergovernmental Conference on the dumping of wastes at Sean 1972,
prohibits the dumping of high level wastes and requires the IAEA to set
limits on the dumping of low level wastes according to the international
Safety Standards.
According to the IAEA, no more than 1,00,000 tons
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of wastes are to be dumped at any one site and that activity levels (in
curies per tonne) for different types of radiation are to be reviewed every
2 years.
There are growing stockpiles of spent fuel in Japan also.
Due to the unability to find a suitable repository site on its mainland, it
wants to dump its waste in the Pacific Oceans some 600 miles north of
Guam.
The people of the Pacific Islands believe that they have been
treated as the West's nuclear rubbish tip for long enough.
Due to
nuclear weapons setting by the. US, Britain and France, many Pacific
Islands became heavily contaminated with radioactivity and as a result
are now viewed as possible repositories for civilian nuclear waste.
However, the Islanders are resisting these moves and have now
considerable international support in this.
Major waste dumping
proposals for the Pacific are:
BIKINI ATOLL:
Nuclear Waste Storage proposal.
RUNIT ISLANDS:
Unfit for human rehabilitation forces & &
ENEWETAK
due to waste storage from bomb Tests.
MAR CANAS
Japanese waste dumping proposed
north of islands
MIDWAY, WAKE, PALMYSA
Discussed as nuclear waste dumps.
Between S.KOREA & JAPAN
Reported Nuclear Waste Dumps off.
S. Korea
TAIWAN
Off SAN FRANCISCO
On Orchid Island
US dumping.
(Source: The NUCLEAR FIX, WISE , 1982).
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Other Third World Countries, especially those with deserts,
have also been approached by the west to consider producing nuclear
waste dumps.
Discussions were held with Iran in the mid 1970's,
notably by Austria, which along with France had also approached Egypt
with similar proposals, West Germany came to an agreement with Brazil
or waste dumping, and in February 1984, there West German companies
signed an agreement with China on waste disposal.
The companies
agreed to act as agents for the disposal of 4, 000 tonnes of European
nuclear waste in the Gobi Desert over the next 15 years.
There have
also been attempts to dump nuclear waste illegally in UAE.
Nuclear
waste disposal is clearly an area of potential cooperation between the
Third World developing countries and nuclear supplier developed world
which will receive increasing attention in the future.
In recent years, the industrialized countries have been
trying hard to export their toxic waste to developing countries.
South and
Central America have received toxic waste in the past, and now African
countries have been offered foreign cash to accept nuclear waste.
Shipments of waste have been sent out to be deposited in developing
countries in the past.
The extent of the problem is more massive than
previously believed. A study by Greenpeace Environmental Organisation
have taken note of the shipments that have been sent to South American
and African countries.
According to Greenpeace sources the Soviet Union
dumped "several tons" of radioactive waste in Benin, West Africa,
between 1984 and 1986.
A report in the "Africa Newsfile", July 1988, a
London based fortnightly bulletin, implies that Benin President Mathieu
Kerekou was aware of the secretive dumping.
Former head of Benin's
Airforce was reportedly dismissed after he attempted to stop the Soviets
from depositing the waste under the tarmac of the military airfield they
were constructing at Canna, 15 Km South of Abomey.
11'>
More Soviet
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radioactive waste was also discarded in a disused stone quarry at Dan,
25 Km. north of Abomey.
The area has since been marked a "military
zone" and restricted. "A recent shipment of nuclear waste from a western
country transported by the "Ganvie" (Benin's only merchant marine
vessel) from Le Harve in the north of France, is reportedly
buried in
Saklo also in the Abomey region" the bulletin reveals.
4.2 CAUSES OF SUCH DUMPING :
The dumping of such huge amounts of hazardous waste
matter in the developing countries stemmed from restrictive disposal
regulations in the industrialized countries due to health and environmental
reasons.
In recent years, the toxic waste regulations have become more
and more stringent in the West.
And in some countries, due to scarcity
of land and geological restraints it is difficult to locate a repository within
its boundaries.
As in Netherlands, one cannot virtually put anything
anywhere because it is hard to dispose of it, without bring it in contact
with the water table.
France, United Kingdom and Germany have
stringent regulations, and Denmark and Sweden require very detailed
technology.
Reluctant to comply with the vigorous and expensive rules
on radioactive waste disposal, the easy way out was chosen by Western
countries to dump the wastes in poor countries with large areas of land.
These developing countries have hardly any regulations restricting
radioactive waste disposal.
The dumping of wastes is often the result of legal contracts by
companies or governments of developing countries to accept waste from
industrialized countries in exchange for hard cash.
Western companies
found it much cheaper to export nuclear wastes to the developing
countries than to dispose of the wastes in their own countries.
cases, however the waste is dumped illegally .
In other
The lure of money may
be too attractive for many Third World officials to resist, these resulting in
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bribery being used by unscrupulous parties to solicit for illegal dumping.
Further, regulatory and administrative responsibilities in most developing
countries are badly defined and no clear-line of authority is present(Third
World Network 1989).
4 .3 EFFECTS OF ILLEGAL DISPOSAL
These nuclear wastes are the world's most unwanted products,
it is quite impossible to treat them to make them safe; for millions and
even billions of years, some of these wastes will remain radioactive, and
thus dangerous.
Containers made to contain these wastes, however
solid and strong, and dumpsites built to take in such containers, however
concrete, will not last long enough.
The radioactive wastes will usually
have a longer life-span than their containers and dumpsites, and may
then seep through the rusted or broken containers and dumps, into the air
or through the soil and into the water system.
The waste materials could
then emerge through the food chain: from the soil to plants and vegetation
taken in by human beings or by animals (which is then supply meat or
milk to human beings): from the water system to reservoirs and household
water or the radioactive materials could be transported by air and
threaten human health as they enter the body and bloodstream through
breathing.
Because of the awareness of the above mentioned
problems, the industrialized countries have recently introduced tighter
laws forcing the nuclear facilities to find permanent solutions to their everincreasing piles of wastes.
In the companies are new trying to export
their untreated wastes to the Third World.
The Third World is even more ill-equipped than the
industrialized
countries
in
dealing
with
radioactive
wastes.
Environmental awareness is still lacking among most of the Third World
policy makers; there are hardly any laws regulating waste disposal; and
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very little action is taken by the governments to monitor the storage and
disposal of nuclear wastes let alone to act against it.
(Public concern in
recent years has frequently acted as initiator of national, governmental
and international decision making.)
After the illegal dumping of nuclear
waste came to notice in African countries, there have been a number of
moves in the Third World to prevent or reduce the wastes from entering.
At the regional level, the most important of these moves was a resolution
passed by the organization of African Unity (a major official grouping of
African countries) at the end of May 1988, condemning the use of African
territory as a dumping ground for waste, It called this practice "A crime
against Africa and the African People"
The resolution called for a ban
on all hazardous wastes and to cancel all the agreements earlier
concluded.
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) drew up an
African Convention of the Ban on Imports of All forms of Hazardous
Wastes Into Africa and the control of Transboundary Movements of such
wastes generated in Africa (The Bamako Convention), which was adopted
in January 1991
(Unlike the Basel Convention this also covers
Radioactive Waste).
The publicity on waste export to Africa also spurred officials
in some Asian countries to act on their own waste imports.
An the same
time in Europe, a number of moves have been taken to discourage the
export of nuclear waste to poor countries.
In 1986, the European
Economic Community sent a directive stipulating that developing
countries must give their "prior informed consent" before exports can go
ahead, and that the importing countries must be capable of treating the
wastes to render them harmless. However, only Belgium and Denmark
had complied with the laws deriving that time.
Even if the laws were to
be enacted, it may be impossible to implement satisfactorily.
In May
1988, the European Parliament passed a resolution to ban all exports of
European wastes to the Third-world.
11/."
The resolution was not agreed
117
upon by the environment ministers of the EEC countries. They, however,
admitted that waste exports had increased rather than decreased since
1986, EEC directive against dumping.
At the International level, some moves are also being made to
counter the radioactive waste trade, as early as 1982, United Nations
Environment
Programmes
(UNEP)
Governing
Council
recognized
hazardous wastes as one of the major areas where global legal
instruments had to be developed.
The guidelines were formed to
outline certain principles guiding the environmentally sound management
of the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes.
This passed the
way for the drafting and adoption of the Basel Connection on the control
of transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and their disposal in
March 1989. ( Totba, Mostafa K. and Orama A EI-Knely, 1993)
4.4 TRANSBOUNDARY MOVEMENT OF WASTE:
Following concerns that toxic wastes has been dumped in
developing countries, a resolution to develop a code of practice for
international transactions involving radioactive wastes was adopted by
the IAEA's 32nd regular session of the General Conference in September
1988.
The code of practice is meant to guide governments in the
prevention of illicit transactions and dumping of radioactive wastes.
The first meeting of an expert group was convened at the
IAEA in Vienna in May 1989 in response to this resolution.
The experts
represented 20 member states and three international organizations.
Some of the basic principles under discussion were aimed at ·ensuring
that all International radioactive was transactions should take place with
the express consent of the countries concerned in accordance with their
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laws and regulations and in conformity with internationally accepted
Safety Standards:
- No radioactive wastes should be exported to any country that lacks the
technical and/or administrative capacity to safety manage and dispose of
such wastes; and
- Wastes that are to be the subject of a transboundary movement should
be transported in conformity with generally accepted International Rules
and Standards
(IAEA Bulletin, 4/1989 )
In June 1988, the Secretary General of the Organisation of
African Unity (OAU) wrote to IAEA Director about the grave nature of the
trade. The matter addressed was the practice to disposal of nuclear and
industrial wastes in African countries. Therefore, in September 1988, the
IAEA General Conference as its 32nd Regular Session adopted by
consensus a resolution initiated by the African Group entitled "Dumping of
Nuclear Waste".
The resolution requested the IAEA "to establish a
representative technical working group of Experts with the objective of
elaborating an internationally agreed code of practice for international
transactions involving nuclear wastes based on, interalia, a review of
current national and international laws and regulations on waste
disposal".
It also requested "each Member State to take necessary
measures to ensure that its International nuclear waste transactions take
place in accordance with appropriate requirements of the exporting,
importing, and transit states".
In course of the general debate on the resolution, Member
States from all regions shared the concern expressed by the
African
countries and their call for a code of conduct, an international agreement,
or some form of internationally accepted guidelines.
And it was clear
from the origin of the resolution that the Member States felt it necessary
to formulate an instrument to guide states in their international
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119
transactions of radioactive wastes and in the
development of their
national laws and regulations.
An International group of experts was set up from 20 Member
States, nominated by their Governments.
They were entrusted with
elaborating a code of practice, that would achieve the objective set by the
General Conference.
In the setting up of the group, it was made sure
that these experts are familiar with not only the technical subject of
radioactive waste management but also with the regulatory structures and
legal regimes in force, and also with the possible international legal and
political implications of a code that would serve as the basic guidelines to
the International Community in this field.
The expert group was composed of some 20 legal experts,
heads and representatives of national office's for radiation protection and
radioactive waste management, nuclear regulatory authorities and
advisers to diplomatic missions on nuclear matters.
Twenty countries
with different nuclear programs and different legal systems, as well as the
commission of the European Communities (CEC)\, the Nuclear Energy
Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(NEA-OECD), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and
the International Maritime Organization (IMO) were represented .
•
4.5 CURRENT NATIONAL LAWS ON RADIOACTIVE WASTE:
According to IAEA the elaboration of a Code of Practice was to
be based on a review of current national and international laws and
regulations on waste disposal.
A review of the material showed that
radioactive waste legislation, where it existed, was of recent origin and
frequently amended with the progress in technology and increased
environmental concerns.
Some countries had not enacted any laws on
waste management because there was no radioactive waste generated by
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nuclear power Installations, low level radioactive waste from hospitals and
research institutions was either shipped to another country on the basis of
bilateral agreements, or stored in an appropriate location in accordance
with safety rules established by the institutions concerned.
Some
countries had established national guidelines on radioactive waste
management and control.
The main general principles found in reviewed legislation is
that of protection of man and the environment that is the safety of all
operations concerning radioactive wastes.
In several countries, there
were provisions regarding the disposal at sea and on land. .
Only very
few instances were found of specific provisions that relate directly to the
transboundary transfer of radioactive waste.
However, regardless of
whether specific norms on transboundary movements of radioactive waste
exist, a member of countries prohibit the import of such wastes from
abroad and their storage or disposal on their national territories. But this
kind of prohibition is not mentioned directly but in an indirect manner such
as the right to dispose of or store only wastes that generate in the
country.
At the International Level, it was found that no code guide
or convention on international transboundary movement of radioactive
waste existed.
But for sometime now, considerable international effort
had been underway to establish norms and procedures for the
international movement of chemical, industrial and other hazardous
wastes.
In 1988, the Commission of the European Communities,
began preparatory work for a separate Directive on the transport activities
related to radioactive wastes within the Community (Council Directive
84/631/EEC of December 6, 1984).
After this council directive, the
European Parliament also took an initiative after reports of alleged illicit
movements of radioactive wastes.
Another Convention took place
121
between the European Economic Community (EEC) and 68 African,
Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries
December 15, 1989 and provides:
This was signed at Lome' on
"The Community shall prohibit all
direct or indirect export of such (radioactive) waste to the ACP
States........
without prejudice to specific international undertakings to
which the contracting parties have subscribed, or may subscribe in the
future .... within the competent international fora".
AST 39, para. 1&3.
Joint Declaration (Annx.lll) on " movements of hazardous waste or
radioactive waste" Lome Convention 1989.
The members of the
Convention agreed that they will low the definition of radioactive waste as
laid down in the framework of the IAEA.
4.6
MAIN
PROVISIONS
OF
THE
INTERNATIONAL
CODE
PRACTICE:
The Code of Practice on the International Transboundary
Movement of Radioactive Waste was adopted in September 1990 by the
IAEA
General
Conference
XXXIV)RES/530)
at
its
39th
Regular
session
(GC/
This document is very concise and is just limited to the
basic principles and applies to the international movement of radioactive
waste.
Such Waste is defined as "any material that contains or is
contaminated with radionuclides at concentrations or radioactivity levels
greater than the "exempt quantities" established by the competent
authorities and for which no use is foreseen."
The Code being advisory in nature aims "to serve as
guidelines to state for among others, the development and harmonization
of policies and laws on the international transboundary movement of
radioactive waste".
The code is in compliance with the relevant
principles and norms of International law and is based on existing
international standards for the safe transport of the nuclear material and
the standards for basic nuclear safety and radiation protection and
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radioactive waste management. In short, it is based on the existing rules,
safety standards and norms, most of which have been elaborated by the
Agency and adopted by consensus, and are followed by the Member
States.
The main provisions of the code are:
1. SAFETY FIRST: The first principle is that every state should ensure
that radioactive waste is safely managed and disposed of within its
territory to ensure the protection of human health and environment.
Every State should ensure that the international transboundary movement
is undertaken in a manner consistent with international safety standards.
In short, radioactive waste should only be transported from one system of
controls to another.
The code provides that if a transfer cannot be
completed in conformity with the code, and no alternative safe
arrangements can be made, then the radioactive waste should be
returned to its origin.
Primary responsibility remains with the sending
State.
2. CONSENT:
The code recalls the principles that it is the sovereign
right of every state to prohibit the movement of radioactive waste into,
from, or through its territory.
The code establishes that the international
transboundary movement of radioactive waste should only take place with
the prior notification and consent of the sending receiving, and transit
states.
3. REGULATORY STRUCTURE:
requires strict controls.
Movement of radioactive waste
Every state involved in the transboundary
movement of radioactive waste, whether sending, receiving, or providing
transit should have a regulatory authority and develop procedures, laws
and regulations required to exert control over such movement.
States
should also introduce into their laws provision for liability and
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compensation for damage that could arise from the international
movement of waste.
4. TECHNICAL CAPACITY: Proper administrative and technical capacity
and regulatory structure is the precondition for any receipt of radioactive
waste. The Code addresses this principle both to the receiving and to the
sending state for any agreed movement of radioactive waste.
5 INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION:
States should cooperate at the
bilateral, regional and international levels in preventing any international
transboundary movement of radioactive waste that is not in conformity
with the code.
It becomes necessary for IAEA to continue to provide
advice and assistance on all aspects of radioactive waste management
and disposal, with particular regard to the needs of developing countries.
With this code the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) was able to provide a satisfactory solution to the grave
public
concern regarding the movement of radioactive material in such a short
span of time.
It was more of a preventive measure.
The code provides
states which do not have the technical capacity to safely manage and
dispose of radioactive waste, e.g.: from medical uses, with the flexibility to
export such waste to countries that have the required capacity.
Many countries did
radioactive waste movement.
not have any specific legislation on
Since IAEA is an established International
Organization which had from time to time set standards and regulations
and which had also be adhered to by the International Community, the
adoption of the Code was possible.
And also because the Member
States had political will to cooperate to curb illicit traffic.
The Code of practice voluntarily adhered to by the Member
States of the Agency new constitutes a further element of the
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"International Nuclear Energy Order'' which contains both legally binding
and non-binding principles and norms (Hans Blix, 1989)
The Code of Practice on the International Transboundary
Movement of Radioactive Waste is widely accepted and is a valid
instrument and on effective mechanism for use in state practices.
The
real value of the Code will be know with time and by adherence to it by
states.
,,.
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REFERENCES:
Totba,Mostafa K. and Orama A.EI-Knely, "TheWorld Environment 19721992 Two Decades of Challenge's
UNEP, Chapman &Hall, London,
pp272-273.
J. L.Zhu &C.Y. Chan, "Radioactive Waste Management" World Overview IAEA Bulletin, 4/1989. P13.
Pol De ,Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Management , IAEA
Bulletin , 4/1989,p15.
Council Directive 84/631/EEC of December 6, 1984 on the Supervision
and Control within the European Community Transfrontier Shipment of
Ha~ardous
Waste, as amended 1986. O.J.L 326 of 13/12/86 and O.J. L
181 of 04/07/86
Third World Network, "Dumping of Hazardous Waste in the Third World".
Nairobi, 1989. - pp. 7-10.