The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management

The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management was adopted in 1997.

Its objective is to establish and maintain a high level of safety worldwide in facilities for spent fuel and radioactive waste management as well as effective measures against potential radiological dangers from these facilities. Its scope includes spent fuel elements, radioactive waste and disused sealed sources, transboundary movement of these materials and discharges from nuclear facilities.

The parties to the convention, including Germany, have committed to the following measures:

• transposing internationally recognised technical rules and regulations (Articles 4 to 28) into national law and reporting on the transposition (Articles 29 to 37),
• upgrading facilities that do not fulfil the requirements of the Joint Convention (Articles 5 and 12).

Every three years, the Meeting of the Parties to the Convention reviews the extent to which the objectives of the convention have been implemented. For these meetings, the parties submit a report describing the national measures taken. All parties may direct written questions to other parties based on the reports. Germany has made use of the option in the past and has also received inquiries from other parties regarding the German reports, to which it replied in writing.

These review meetings take place in Vienna, where the Secretariat of the Joint Convention, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has its headquarters. Review meetings were held in 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2022.