The Early Notification Convention 1986

In one line

Seventeen articles, written in five months, requiring a State to tell its neighbours at once when something has gone wrong at a nuclear facility.

In exam wording: the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident was adopted at Vienna on 26 September 1986 and entered into force on 27 October 1986; article 1 defines its scope by reference to any accident involving specified facilities or activities from which a release of radioactive material occurs or is likely to occur and which has resulted or may result in an international transboundary release that could be of radiological safety significance for another State; article 2 requires the State Party to notify forthwith those States which are or may be physically affected and the International Atomic Energy Agency; and article 5 specifies the information to be provided.

Article 1: scope

Paragraph 1. The Convention shall apply in the event of any accident involving facilities or activities of a State Party or of persons or legal entities under its jurisdiction or control, referred to in paragraph 2, from which a release of radioactive material occurs or is likely to occur and which has resulted or may result in an international transboundary release that could be of radiological safety significance for another State.

Paragraph 2 lists the facilities and activities: any nuclear reactor wherever located; any nuclear fuel cycle facility; any radioactive waste management facility; the transport and storage of nuclear fuels or radioactive wastes; the manufacture, use, storage, disposal and transport of radioisotopes for agricultural, industrial, medical and related scientific and research purposes; and the use of radioisotopes for power generation in space objects.

Read the trigger carefully. Four elements, and each widens the obligation.

1. An accident at a listed facility or activity.
2. A release which occurs or is likely to occur. Likelihood suffices; the State need not wait for the release.
3. Which has resulted or may result in a transboundary release. Again, may.
4. That could be of radiological safety significance for another State. Could, not will.

Four conditional words in one sentence, and they were put there deliberately after Chernobyl. The obligation bites on possibility, not on certainty.

Article 2: notification and information

In the event of an accident specified in article 1, the State Party referred to in that article shall:

• (a) forthwith notify, directly or through the International Atomic Energy Agency, those States which are or may be physically affected as specified in article 1 and the Agency, of the nuclear accident, its nature, the time of its occurrence and its exact location where appropriate; and
• (b) promptly provide the States referred to in sub-paragraph (a), directly or through the Agency, and the Agency, with such available information relevant to minimising the radiological consequences in those States, as specified in article 5.