Criminal offences considered in the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material

The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material was signed in Vienna, on April 3, 1980, approved by Law 23.620 on September 28, 1998, and published in the Official Bulletin of the Argentine Republic on November 2, 1988. This Convention considers some aspects of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedural Law and integrates the normative hierarchical structure of the article 31 of the National Constitution. The adequacy of this Convention to the Argentine law is considered through two aspects: The first one examines figures existing in the Argentine Legislation about larceny and robbery of nuclear materials, misappropriation of nuclear materials, obtainment and fraud of nuclear materials, exaction through threat or intimidation, etc., which are considered in different articles of the Argentine Criminal Law. The second one analyses behaviours not foreseen in the Criminal Law and which are not qualified by the current Argentina's Criminal Code, such as exaction of nuclear material through the use of violence, the international perpetration of an act consisting to receive, possess, use, vacate, scatter nuclear material without legal authorization, or in the case that the act causes death, serious injuries to persons and others. The purpose of the future enactment of a new Nuclear Law is to put in order and fill-in gaps referred to different aspects such as civil liability in nuclear damages, characteristics of the nuclear damages, etc