TRANSPARENCY OF OPERATIONS – WORKING WITH THE STAKEHOLDER GROUPS - Presentation

Transport is very much in the public domain and there are frequent calls for transparency. Indeed some countries laws put requirements on operators to provide information. Created by the French Law on Nuclear Safety & Transparency in June 2006, the High Committee for Transparency & Information on Nuclear Safety (HCTISN) has provided the public with an organisation in charge of guaranteeing openness on the part of the nuclear industry operators in relation to their operations. It has equally provided operators with an additional vehicle for communication with the public and with a forum in which essential issues in terms of communication can be addressed and debated. In June 2008 the HCTISN examined a transport of plutonium oxide between Sellafield and La Hague, performed earlier that year by International Nuclear Services and TN International. The High Committee was concerned with ensuring information relating to the safety of the shipment, particularly to the safety of the ships used, could be made available to the public. Whilst much information is already made available by operators in documentation and on web sites in their drive to be as open as possible, some data such as that relating to assessment of ship safety may be held by the national authorities of the flag state in charge of those assessments and is not systematically communicated to every nation in which a vessel may call. Because of the very nature of maritime transport, international agreements provide for mutual recognition of ship certifications between flag states and for Port State Inspections by the authorities of a port in which a vessel makes call. Further constraints arise from the need to protect certain information, the release of which may be considered detrimental to the security of the shipment. This paper describes how International Nuclear Services and TN International worked with the HCTISN to ensure information could be made available to provide adequate public reassurance on the safety of shipments, without undermining existing international maritime conventions or indeed security.