Towards greater harmonization of the system of radiological protection: views from the global nuclear industry

The international system of radiological protection is currently under revision. At the governmental level, this is formally achieved through the revision of the IAEA Radiation Safety Standards. This process accounts for scientific developments on health risks from exposure to ionizing radiation as reported by UNSCEAR and by ICRP. In view of achieving a greater harmonization of the IAEA Global Safety Regime by integrating all safety fields, the novelty is that the revision needs to be driven in a top-down manner from the IAEA Safety Fundamentals (SF-1). This paper shows that IAEA BSS draft 1.0 was revised mainly using a bottom-up approach, from the new 2007 ICRP recommendations and upward. As this approach overwhelmed the benefits that come from the agreed top-down approach, BSS draft 1.0 contains many inconsistencies which do not lead to greater harmonization. This starts from the new ICRP approach on exposure situations, which cannot be common to all safety fields. Next, the new text on the Principles of Optimization and of Limitations is not fully consistent with SF-1. For planned exposure, dose constraint (DC) remains the No.1 issue as it cannot be clearly differentiated from limit or sub-limit. We see a continuously constructive role for DC only as a flexible tool that is part of Optimization. We noted that most of ICRP's guidance on emergency and existing exposure has not been integrated in BSS draft 1.0. The same applies to ICRP's guidance on non-human species. Behind this side step, there are considerable new and rather idealistic ICRP's concepts under development that pose issues. We advise caution before considering taking on board any of this new ICRP guidance. On the concepts of exclusion, exemption and clearance, we noted that BSS draft 1.0 departs from the current international consensus that led to IAEA Safety Standards (RS-G-1.7), thus requiring re-alignment. (author)