THIRTY YEARS OF INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR STANDARDIZATION—FROM THE WORK OF ISO/TC 85 AND IEC/TC 45

About 30 years ago, both the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and its sister organization, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) established Technical Committees dealing with matters related to nuclear energy, namely ISO/TC 85 (radiation protection, nuclear fuel cycle, etc.), and lECfTC 45 (reactor and radiation protection instrumentation). In each of them, experts from about twenty actively participating countries, as well as from numerous observer countries and liaisons with other international organizations such as IAEA, are involved in a large number of specialized working groups. So far, about 150 standards have been developed, covering a wide spectrum from terms and definitions to nuclear waste problems. Approximately 150 additional documents are in various stages of development. In this paper, a brief review will be given on the history, current work program, accomplishments, and limitations of these efforts, and its relation to national standards programs. Some trends will also be indicated. For example, there has been some shift in emphasis recently among the larger western countries away from design and construction of NPP and towards radiation protection and the fuel cycle. Obviously, with the increasing number of standards, work on \"maintenance\" of existing documents demands more attention. In general, internationally harmonized standards appear to gain importance in comparison with national ones.