Title: Multinational repositories: ethical, legal and political/public aspects

Authors: Christina Boutellier, Charles McCombie, Irena Mele

Addresses: ARiUS – Association for Regional and International Underground Storage, Tafernstrasse 11, CH-5405 Baden, Dattwil, Switzerland. ' ARiUS – Association for Regional and International Underground Storage, Tafernstrasse 11, CH-5405 Baden, Dattwil, Switzerland. ' ARAO – Agency for Radwaste Management, Parmova 53, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract: Concepts for shared multinational repositories face a great challenge in achieving acceptance, despite the fact that they promise advantages in safety, security, environmental protection and costs. When considering advantages of shared multinational repositories, it is instructive to examine which are the ethical, legal and political issues that mostly affect the feasibility of implementing such facilities. This paper addresses the key questions from two opposite sides. The early part takes a |top-down| view, looking at the international debate on ethical issues, summarising a wide range of national political attitudes and identifying relevant international legislation and treaties. The latter looks |bottom-up| at the problem, by discussing the situation of a small country, Slovenia. Slovenia has limited financial resources for implementing disposal – but it has a firm commitment to fulfilling its responsibilities for safely managing all Radioactive Wastes (RAW) arising in the country. Strategies considered to do so are laid out in this paper.

Keywords: ethical issues; multinational agreements; political issues; radioactive waste; RAW; repositories; Slovenia; nuclear safety; nuclear law; security; environmental protection; nuclear energy; nuclear power; ethics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNUCL.2006.009710

International Journal of Nuclear Law, 2006 Vol.1 No.1, pp.36 - 48

Published online: 06 May 2006 *

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