Thirty years of international nuclear standards in ISO and IEC

Abstract

Of over 4700 nuclear and radiation protection standards, laws, regulations, recommendations, etc., which have been issued by 52 countries and several governmental international organizations such as IAEA, or non-governmental organizations such as ICRP, ICRU, ISO and IEC, more than 90% are national, and more than half of those of a non-regulatory nature. Both number and importance of international standards are, however, increasing. The two most important non-governmental international standards organizations are the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which founded a Technical Committee (TC) 85 “Nuclear Energy” with several Sub-Committees in 1957, and the closely associated International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) with its TC 45 “Nuclear Instrumentation” formed in 1960. There are over 20 member countries actively participating in the work in each of them, with additional observer countries and liaison to the relevant other international organizations. A brief review is given on some of the experience which has been gained by ISO/TC 85 and IEC/TC 45, and its work program and accomplishments, considering in particular recent developments. It covers nuclear safety and instrumentation, radiation protection, and the nuclear fuel cycle, as well as interface issues including definitions and terminology, interaction of the activities with the work of other national and international bodies, etc. Some problem areas are also briefly discussed.