Convention on Nuclear Safety: lessons learned after the third round of review meetings

Abstract

As the Convention on Nuclear Safety was adopted in mid-1994 and came into existence in late 1996, and because the third review meeting has recently been organised, an attempt to draw some conclusions is justifiable. The Convention is an instrument of incentive character, and Slovenia understands the interface between the review process and national reports as a lesson learned and a self-assessment exercise rather than purely reporting obligations towards other Contracting Parties. Fifty-five parties to the Convention can prove the presumption of its universality. The focus of this paper is mostly on a demonstration of possible progress achieved. The phenomenon of 'high level of safety' will be discussed in such a way to compare some statistical facts and to emphasise some substantial issues on the international as well as on national level. This paper presents a comparison among all three review meetings with respect to the number and structure of questions to different articles of the Convention and main observations on factors of special interest, as reproduced in Summary Reports after each review meeting. This paper also covers the experience gained by Slovenia throughout this period.