Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

26 Chapter 2
(McDougal and Burke 1985, pp. 864–868). Although states pledged to
cooperate and take relevant “measures,” neither the precise nature of these
measures nor any minimum standards were specified (Schenker 1973, p.
37). “In essence,” writes Frye (1962, p. 29), “the conference produced no
community policy at all on the matter.” 16
The conference resolution, which did not have the force of a treaty, further
recommended that the International Atomic Energy Agency, an agency
of the United Nations that promotes the peaceful use of nuclear power,
undertake studies of the technical and scientific problems connected with
sea disposal of radioactive waste. An IAEA panel established for this purpose
concluded in 1961 that, although there was no general hazard at that
time associated with ocean dumping of radioactive waste, such hazards
could become significant in the future. 17 Further, the panel concluded that
ocean disposal of high-level waste could not be recommended and that lowlevel
waste should be dumped only under controlled conditions. The panel
proposed an international accord to keep radioactive hazards from accumulating
to unacceptable levels. However, this proposal was never embodied
in an international convention. 18
Starting in 1967, a voluntary mechanism set up by the Nuclear Energy
Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
provided guidelines and undertook supervisory responsibility for disposal
of low-level waste from NEA member countries (Holcomb 1982, p. 184).
That same year, the first NEA-supervised international nuclear waste dumping
operation was carried out, at a depth of 5000 meters in the eastern
Atlantic. The primary objectives of the NEA were “to develop, at the international
level, a safe and economic method for ocean disposal and to
demonstrate this by a joint experimental disposal operation involving several
member countries.” 19 Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of
Germany, the Netherlands, and Britain supplied some 35,000 containers
of waste weighing nearly 11,000 tons and containing approximately 8000
Ci of radioactivity. The primary dumpers—Belgium, the Netherlands,
Switzerland, and Britain—participated in a series of coordinated dumping
operations that took place in 1967, in 1969, and in each year from 1971 to
1982. France, Italy, Sweden, and the Federal Republic of Germany participated
in only the first two dumping operations. The regionally coordinated
dumping called for agreement on dump-site selection, package design for
the waste material, facilities available on the dumping vessel, and duties of