Early Notification Convention

The Early Notification Convention requires signatories to provide immediate information to the IAEA following a civil nuclear incident and voluntarily directly to potentially affected outside states. It specifies the type of information required and further requires signatories to agree to requests for additional information from affected states. The IAEA will also provide monitoring assistance to non-nuclear member states bordering on non-member states with a nuclear power programme. 

However, questions must still remain over the effectiveness of the Conventions and these can only really be answered by the occurrence of an event which triggers their application. The provision of emergency assistance to the Soviet Union, once details of the Chernobyl accident had become established, proceeded fairly smoothly in the absence of any mutual assistance convention—the IAEA agreement will simply codify and marginally extend what has been tested and shown capable already. The effectiveness of the early notification convention is a far more significant consideration, given the experience in the earliest days after the Chernobyl accident. 

The Convention of Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency deal with aspects of emergency response and preparedness. Both of these Conventions—briefly referred to as the Notification Convention and the Assistance Convention —were adopted within a very short time span of only five months after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. 

Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident 27 Oct. 1986 In 1997, four States (Lebanon, Philippines, Myanmar, and Singapore) agreed to be bound by the Convention. As of May 1998, the Convention had 80 Parties. 

Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (Notification Convention)... 

The Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident entered into force in September 1986 (IAEA, 1987) following the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident. This Convention establishes a notification system for nuclear accidents, which have the potential for transboundary release that could be of radiological safety significance for another state. It requires states to report the accident s time, location, radiation releases, and other data essential for assessing the situation. 

The preamble of the Notification Convention mentions that the states parties to the Convention are convinced of the need for States to provide relevant information about nuclear accidents as early as possible in order that transboundary radiological consequences can be minimized. Furthermore, the Notification Convention applies in the event of any accident involving facilities or activities of a state party from which a release of radioactive material occurs or is likely to occur and which has resulted or may result in an international transboundary release that could be of radiological safety significance for another state. The facilities and activities referred to are the following ... 

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