DEVELOPING REGULATIONS FOR THE SECURITY OF RADIOACTIVE SOURCES: EXPERIENCE FROM THE SOUTHEAST ASIA REGIONAL RADIOLOGICAL SECURITY PARTNERSHIP

As of September 2007, 90 countries had written letters to the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) making a political commitment to “achieve and maintain a high level of safety and security of radioactive sources” by implementing the Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources. To meet this commitment, these nations need to establish or strengthen their regulations for radioactive source security. This paper provides suggestions for countries working to meet this commitment based on the experience of the Southeast Asia Radiological Security Partnership (RRSP) established by the IAEA, the U.S. Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), and Australia’s Regional Security of Radioactive Sources (RSRS) project. These suggestions pertain to four areas. First, a State’s regulatory agency needs to establish the necessary foundation by creating security awareness, defining the threat, reviewing legislative authority, coordinating with other agencies, and building regulatory capacity. Second, the agency needs to develop a regulatory approach, which may be prescriptive, performance-based, or a combination. Third, the agency must develop the regulations, addressing such issues as format, organization, and related matters as well the actual drafting and review. Fourth, the agency must implement the regulations, which should address such practical considerations as feasibility in implementation. Regulatory cooperation with Southeast Asian countries through the RRSP demonstrates that regulatory programs best succeed when all of these areas are addressed in a logical, structured, step-by-step fashion.