On 29 September 1997 the Join Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management was open for signature at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Brazil signed the Convention on October 11th, 1997 and ratified it by the Legislative Decree n. 1.019 of November 14th, 2005. Brazil deposited the instrument of ratification with the Depositary on 17 February 2006. The Convention objectives are to achieve and maintain a high level of nuclear safety worldwide in spent fuel and radioactive waste management.

Iceland deposited an instrument of accession to the Joint Convention on 27 January 2006. There were no declarations or reservations attached to the instrument of accession. The Convention entered into force for Iceland on 27 April 2006. Iceland is a country that has no nuclear industry, no research reactor or other facility generating radioactive substances. Therefore many of the requirements of the Joint Convention do not apply to Iceland. There is no nuclear fuel or high level waste on Icelandic territory.

Over the past forty years, the development of the technology needed to isolate radioactive waste in underground rock systems has been found to be a formidable problem. This is especially the case in connection with high-level waste (HLW) after its removal from operations in nuclear power plants. There is also the additional problem of isolating low- and intermediate-level waste (LILW).

Response to Questions Posted To Canada in 2006

Answers to questions raised by other contracting parties under the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management were prepared by the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration, the Kr_ko NPP, the Agency for Radwaste Management and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Spatial Planning.

Press Release - DOE Seeks Public-Private Sector Expressions of Interest for Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Initiative

The European Atomic Energy Community (“Euratom”) is a regional organisation, as referred to in Article 39(4) of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. It became a party to the Convention on 2 January 2006. This report is submitted in compliance with Articles 30 and 32 of the Convention for the Second Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties, to be held in Vienna from 15 to 26 May 2006.

Our basic position is that the outcomes of policy-making in radioactive waste management (RWM) should be driven by the will of the people through democratic processes. Achieving this inclusiveness requires good practices to increase local influence on what is essentially a national policy process. However inclusiveness poses significant practical problems; can society afford lengthy and costly consultation processes, often perceived as inefficient and ineffective?

Questions and Answers to the National Report of the Czech Republic