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Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government 
Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, 
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate:

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO:

April 2010:

Nuclear Safety:

Convention on Nuclear Safety Is Viewed by Most Member Countries as 
Strengthening Safety Worldwide:

GAO-10-489: 

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-10-489, a report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on 
Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the 
District of Columbia, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs, U.S. Senate. 

Why GAO Did This Study:

Currently, 437 civilian nuclear power reactors are operating in 29 
countries, and 56 more are under construction. After the Chernobyl 
accident, representatives of over 50 nations, including the United 
States, participated in the development of the Convention on Nuclear 
Safety, a treaty that seeks to promote the safety of civilian nuclear 
power reactors. The Convention has been in force since 1996. GAO was 
asked to assess (1) parties’ views on the benefits and limitations of 
the Convention, (2) efforts to improve implementation of the 
Convention, and (3) how International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 
programs complement the Convention’s safety goals. GAO surveyed the 64 
parties to the Convention for which it was in force at the time of 
GAO’s review and analyzed the responses of the 32 that completed it, 
analyzed relevant documents, and interviewed U.S. and foreign 
officials. 

What GAO Found:

The Convention on Nuclear Safety plays a useful role in strengthening 
the safety of civilian nuclear power reactors worldwide, according to 
most parties to the Convention that responded to GAO’s survey and 
representatives of parties GAO interviewed. In particular, parties 
indicated that the Convention’s obligations to (1) establish effective 
legislative and regulatory frameworks and strong, independent nuclear 
regulatory bodies and (2) prepare a national report every 3 years that 
describes the measures the country has taken to achieve the 
Convention’s nuclear safety goals, are among its most useful 
contributions. The countries present their national reports at review 
meetings, address questions that may arise about the reports, and 
assess and ask questions about the reports of other parties. This is 
known as the peer review process. Some concerns were raised about 
limited public access to Convention proceedings, some countries’ lack 
of resources to fully participate in the review meetings, and the 
absence of performance metrics in the national reports to gauge 
progress toward meeting safety goals and objectives. Half of the 
parties responding to GAO’s survey stated that the lack of performance 
metrics limited the usefulness of the Convention. Neither the 
Department of State nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has 
formally proposed the adoption of performance metrics. However, NRC 
officials told GAO that performance metrics could be useful. In 
addition, the number of parties posting their national reports to 
IAEA’s public Web site has declined since 2005. NRC and Department of 
State officials told GAO that the United States has always made its 
national report available on the Internet. However, the U.S. approach 
has been to lead by example rather than taking an active role in 
encouraging other parties to post their reports. Further, universal 
participation would advance achievement of the Convention’s goals. 
Several representatives from countries who are parties to the 
Convention told GAO that Iran should ratify the Convention. In their 
view, without Iran’s participation, the international community has 
limited or no insight on, or access to, Iran’s civilian nuclear power 
program. Russia, which is helping Iran build the nuclear reactor at 
Bushehr, may condition continued assistance on Iran becoming a party 
to the Convention, according to Russian officials. 

The parties have taken some actions to improve the Convention’s 
implementation, and more proposals are being considered. Steps have 
been taken to make the process for asking questions during peer review 
meetings more open and to increase the amount of time available for 
preparing for the review meetings. 

IAEA nuclear safety programs, which predate the Convention, complement 
the Convention’s safety goals through the Technical Cooperation 
program, safety standards, and peer review missions. The Technical 
Cooperation program supports, among other things, the development of 
nuclear power. IAEA has established nuclear safety standards and also 
promotes nuclear safety through peer review missions that evaluate the 
operations of a member state’s nuclear regulatory system and nuclear 
power plant operational safety. 

What GAO Recommends:

GAO recommends, among other things, that the Department of State, in 
coordination with NRC, work with other parties to the Convention to 
encourage the use of performance metrics in national reports to track 
progress toward improving safety of civilian nuclear power plants and 
expand efforts to increase the number of reports posted to IAEA’s 
public Web site. The Department of State generally agreed with these 
recommendations. NRC generally agreed with GAO’s report but did not 
specifically agree or disagree with these recommendations. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-489] or key 
components. To view the survey results online, click on [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-550SP]. For more information, 
contact Gene Aloise at (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents:

Letter:

Background:

The Majority of Parties We Surveyed and Interviewed Reported That the 
Convention Has Strengthened Nuclear Safety Worldwide:

Steps Have Been Taken to Improve the Convention's Peer Review Process, 
and Additional Proposals Are Being Considered:

IAEA's Assistance Programs to Member States Complement the 
Convention's Safety Goals and Objectives:

Conclusions:

Recommendations for Executive Action:

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

Appendix I: Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety:

Appendix II: Information on U.S. and European Union Funding to Promote 
International Nuclear Safety:

Appendix III: Scope and Methodology:

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of State:

Appendix V: Comments from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:

Tables:

Table 1: Number of IRRS Missions by Country, 1992 through 2009:

Table 2: Number of OSART Missions by Country, 1983 through 2009:

Table 3: Obligations and Expenditures for DOE's Safety Assistance 
Programs as of September 30, 2009:

Table 4: Obligations and Expenditures for NRC's Reactor Safety 
Assistance Programs as of September 30, 2009:

Table 5: Total Nuclear Safety Budget for the Technical Assistance to 
the Commonwealth of Independent States Program:

Figures:

Figure 1: Number of Countries Posting National Reports on IAEA's 
Public Web Site, 1999-2008:

Figure 2: Number of Countries Posting Responses to Questions Received 
on Their National Reports on IAEA's Public Web Site, 1999-2008:

Abbreviations:

DOE: Department of Energy:

ENSREG: European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group:

EU: European Union:

IAEA: International Atomic Energy Agency:

INPO: Institute of Nuclear Power Operations:

IRRS: Integrated Regulatory Review Service:

FSA: Freedom Support Act:

NEA: Nuclear Energy Agency:

NRC: Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

NSCI: Nuclear Safety Cooperation Instrument:

OSART: Operational Safety Review Team:

SEED: Support for Eastern European Democracies:

TACIS: Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States:

TC: Technical Cooperation:

WANO: World Association of Nuclear Operators:

WENRA: Western European Nuclear Regulators' Association:

[End of section]

United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:

April 29, 2010:

The Honorable Daniel K. Akaka: 
Chairman: 
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal 
Workforce, and the District of Columbia: 
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: 
United States Senate: 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

There are currently 437 civilian nuclear power reactors operating in 
29 countries, generating about 14 percent of the world's electricity, 
and 56 more nuclear power reactors are currently under construction. 
The safe operation of nuclear power reactors worldwide has been a long-
standing concern of the international community. In the aftermath of 
the Chernobyl accident, representatives of over 50 nations, including 
the United States, participated in the development of the Convention 
on Nuclear Safety (the Convention), a multilateral treaty that seeks 
to strengthen the safety of civilian nuclear power reactors.[Footnote 
1] Established in the mid-1990s, the Convention seeks to achieve its 
safety objectives through countries' adherence to general safety 
principles rather than through technical standards. Officials describe 
the Convention as incentive-oriented, designed to maximize the number 
of countries that will support and sign it, with the goal of making it 
acceptable and useful to countries with potentially unsafe power 
reactors in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet 
Union. According to U.S. officials, the main purpose of the Convention 
is to get these countries, as well as developing nations, to make 
commitments to improve their reactors and develop a safety 
culture.[Footnote 2]

Currently, 65 countries and 1 international organization are parties 
to the Convention, including all countries that currently operate 
civilian nuclear power reactors.[Footnote 3] For the purpose of this 
report, we refer to countries that have ratified, accepted, or 
approved the Convention as parties. The United States ratified the 
Convention in 1999.

The Convention calls on parties to, among other things, (1) establish 
and maintain a legislative framework and an independent regulatory 
body to govern the safety of nuclear installations; (2) establish 
procedures to ensure that technical aspects of safety, such as the 
siting, design, construction, and operation of nuclear power reactors, 
are adequately considered; (3) maintain an acceptable level of safety 
throughout the life of the installations by, for example, considering 
safety to be a priority and establishing a quality assurance program; 
and (4) prepare and routinely test emergency plans. The Convention 
does not impose sanctions when countries do not follow these safety 
principles.

Under the terms of the Convention, each country--regardless of whether 
it operates nuclear power plants or not--is required to submit a 
national report that identifies the measures taken to implement each 
of the nuclear safety obligations contained in the Convention. 
Obligations cover such points as siting, design, construction, and 
operation of civilian nuclear power installations. The parties to the 
Convention have also established detailed guidance to help parties 
prepare their national reports. The purpose of the guidance is to 
encourage parties to describe the steps they are taking to meet the 
Convention's obligations and to facilitate other parties' review of 
the national reports of other countries. The countries meet every 3 
years in Vienna, Austria, to present their national report, address 
questions that may arise about the report, and assess and ask 
questions about the reports of other parties.[Footnote 4] This is 
known as the peer review process, and it is considered central to the 
Convention's success because it is the means by which the parties 
assess the steps being taken to meet safety obligations. As part of 
this peer review process, countries meet in six groups composed 
primarily on the basis of the number of reactors that each country 
operates. This process ensures that the six countries with the most 
reactors--the United States, France, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and 
the United Kingdom--are never in the same group. Within this 
confidential group setting, all member countries have the opportunity 
to examine and review what each country reports it is doing to meet 
its nuclear safety obligations. These meetings are hosted by the 
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which serves as the 
Convention's secretariat and provides administrative support.[Footnote 
5] To date, four review meetings have taken place, and the fifth is 
scheduled for April 2011.

The Convention has taken on increased significance in recent years as 
countries are either expanding their existing nuclear power capacity 
or planning to establish new programs. In 2009, IAEA estimated that by 
2030 the world's capacity for nuclear electricity production will 
significantly increase. Most of this increase in capacity is expected 
to occur in countries that have established civilian nuclear power 
programs, such as China, Japan, and South Korea. China, for example, 
has announced its intention to spend $50 billion to build 32 new 
nuclear plants by 2020 and currently has 21 plants under construction. 
Both India and Pakistan are also moving forward with plans to 
significantly increase their production of nuclear power, building 
plants that will more than double their production of nuclear energy 
in the next decade.

In addition, countries such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, 
which do not yet have civilian nuclear power programs, are actively 
moving to build the necessary regulatory infrastructure for such 
programs as they explore agreements with the world's leading nuclear 
reactor vendors. The United Arab Emirates, for example, recently 
signed a $20 billion agreement with a consortium of South Korean 
vendors to begin construction of four 1,400-megawatt nuclear power 
reactors in 2012. Other countries, such as Indonesia, Libya, Thailand, 
and Vietnam, have expressed their intent to build civilian nuclear 
power plants. Still others, such as Algeria, Belarus, Egypt, Nigeria, 
and Yemen, are considering moving forward with civilian nuclear power 
programs.

To assist Congress in its deliberations in the past, we identified 
some limitations of the Convention.[Footnote 6] Specifically, we noted 
that (1) public access to the peer review process was unclear and (2) 
the effectiveness of the peer review process was uncertain because of 
concerns about how well the country groups formed for peer review 
meetings would function. We also pointed out that the Convention 
lacked an enforcement mechanism.

Now that the Convention has been in force for more than a decade, you 
asked us to evaluate the extent to which it is achieving its primary 
goal: promoting the safe operation of civilian nuclear power reactors 
worldwide. Accordingly, we assessed (1) parties' views on the 
perceived benefits and limitations of the Convention, (2) efforts to 
improve the implementation of the Convention, and (3) how IAEA 
programs complement the Convention's safety goals and objectives.

To assess parties' views on the perceived benefits and limitations of 
the Convention for improving the safety of civilian nuclear power 
reactors worldwide, we administered a Web-based survey--which can be 
viewed at GAO-10-550SP--to 64 parties to the Convention and analyzed 
the responses of the 32 that completed it.[Footnote 7] This report 
does not contain all the results from the survey. To assess the 
potential for nonresponse bias in our survey results, we compared 
selected characteristics of nonresponding countries, such as (1) 
length of time as a party to the Convention, (2) nuclear power status 
and number of nuclear power plants, (3) region, (4) countries that 
operate Soviet-designed reactors, and (5) European Union (EU) 
membership, to those of the responding parties. The distribution of 
these characteristics among responding and nonresponding parties was 
well-balanced. To encourage respondents to complete the survey, we 
sent an e-mail reminder to each nonrespondent about 2 weeks after our 
initial e-mail message and followed up with additional e-mails and 
telephone calls. Additionally, to encourage honest and open responses, 
in the introduction to the survey, we pledged that we would report 
information in the aggregate and not report data that could identify a 
particular respondent. We also interviewed representatives of 17 
nuclear and nonnuclear parties to the Convention, including officials 
from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of 
State (State) who represent the United States at the Convention. Of 
the 17 we interviewed, 9 completed the survey, and 8 did not. In 
total, we obtained the views of 40 parties to the Convention. We also 
analyzed various Convention-related documents from NRC and State as 
well as from IAEA and the EU. To assess efforts to improve the 
implementation of the Convention, we reviewed Convention documents and 
interviewed NRC and State officials who have attended Convention 
organizational, working group, and review meetings where such efforts 
have been discussed. To assess the extent to which IAEA programs 
complement the Convention's safety goals and objectives, we analyzed, 
among other things, Convention minutes of meetings and rules of 
procedure. We also interviewed IAEA officials, U.S. officials at the 
U.S. Missions in Vienna and Brussels, and the representatives of 17 
parties to the Convention. To determine the cost to the United States 
to participate in the Convention and IAEA's costs to support the 
Convention for one 3-year cycle, we analyzed budget information from 
NRC, State, and IAEA. We also assessed the reliability of the data we 
obtained and interviewed knowledgeable NRC, Department of Energy 
(DOE), State, EU, and IAEA officials on the reliability of the data. 
We determined that these data were sufficiently reliable for the 
purposes of this report. Appendix III explains our methodology in 
greater detail.

We conducted this performance audit from February 2009 to April 2010, 
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Background:

The Convention is one of a number of cooperative efforts by the 
international community to improve nuclear safety worldwide and is 
meant to complement these other efforts. For example, as we previously 
reported, the United States and 20 other countries and international 
organizations contributed $1.9 billion to improve nuclear safety in 
countries operating Soviet-designed nuclear reactors.[Footnote 8] The 
United States alone has spent over $770 million since the Chernobyl 
accident on nuclear safety assistance to Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, 
Armenia, and several other countries through DOE and NRC programs. 
According to an agency official, DOE's nuclear safety assistance 
programs have focused on physical safety enhancements to Soviet- 
designed reactors, while NRC has worked to increase the capacity and 
stature of recipient countries' regulatory bodies to ensure the 
continuing operational safety of such reactors. In addition, a 
separate fund was established to help stabilize the damaged reactor at 
Chernobyl by constructing a new containment structure. As we reported, 
the estimated cost of this effort was $1.2 billion as of 2007, of 
which the United States pledged $203 million.[Footnote 9] Since 1991 
the EU has spent over $1.9 billion on international nuclear safety 
assistance. See appendix II for more information about U.S. and EU 
expenditures to promote international nuclear safety. These 
expenditures are not used to support the implementation of the 
Convention. Matters pertaining to U.S. financial support to the 
Convention are contained on page 28 of this report.

In addition to the Convention, other multilateral organizations--the 
Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA),[Footnote 10] the Western European Nuclear 
Regulators' Association (WENRA),[Footnote 11] the European Nuclear 
Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG),[Footnote 12] and the EU--are making 
efforts to advance the safety of civilian nuclear power. All member or 
observer countries of the NEA, WENRA, ENSREG, and the EU are also 
parties to the Convention. The NEA, for example, has created several 
specialized committees to facilitate exchanges of technical 
information and to organize joint research projects to improve 
national safety practices. WENRA works to develop common approaches to 
nuclear safety among the chief nuclear regulators in Europe. ENSREG, 
among other things, aims to maintain and continuously improve the 
safety of nuclear installations in the EU. In June 2009, the EU 
adopted a directive creating a framework for (1) maintaining and 
promoting the continuous improvement of nuclear safety and its 
regulation and (2) ensuring that EU member states provide a high level 
of nuclear safety to protect workers and the public against radiation 
from nuclear installations. This framework is based in part on IAEA 
safety documents and the obligations of the Convention. EU members are 
required to incorporate the directive into their national legislation 
by June 2011.

Other conventions have been established to advance international 
nuclear safety and are administered by IAEA's Department of Safety and 
Security. Two "emergency conventions" obligate parties to provide 
early notification of a nuclear accident and to render assistance in 
the event of such an accident or a radiological emergency, and two 
other conventions obligate parties to safely manage spent fuel and 
radioactive waste and to take effective action to physically protect 
nuclear material.

The Majority of Parties We Surveyed and Interviewed Reported That the 
Convention Has Strengthened Nuclear Safety Worldwide:

The Convention on Nuclear Safety has played a useful role in 
strengthening the safety of civilian nuclear power reactors worldwide, 
according to most survey respondents and representatives of parties to 
the Convention we interviewed. In their view, efforts to improve 
parties' nuclear regulatory capabilities and the obligation to prepare 
a national report every 3 years are among the most useful 
contributions the Convention has made to increased nuclear safety. In 
addition, parties responded that the Convention has promoted 
opportunities for communication and promoted sharing of useful 
technical information about nuclear safety. According to most parties 
we surveyed and interviewed, maintaining confidentiality about the 
safety issues discussed was key to the success of the peer review 
process. Despite the Convention's positive impacts on nuclear safety, 
some parties have concerns about limited public access to the 
Convention's proceedings, some parties' limited resources to fully 
participate in Convention activities, and the absence of metrics to 
assess progress toward meeting safety goals.

The Convention Has Strengthened Nuclear Safety by Promoting Improved 
Regulatory Capabilities and Requiring National Reports:

Nearly all parties responding to our survey reported that the 
Convention has been very useful or somewhat useful in helping to 
strengthen nuclear safety both in their country and worldwide. In all, 
these parties operate 404--or more than 92 percent--of the world's 437 
operating civilian nuclear power reactors. In addition, we also 
interviewed representatives from IAEA member states, nuclear 
regulatory organizations, and the EU (17 in all) who expressed similar 
views about the Convention. Survey respondents and parties we 
interviewed identified several Convention obligations as having helped 
strengthen the safety of civilian nuclear power programs. The 
obligations cited most frequently were (1) establishing an effective 
legislative and regulatory framework (laws and regulations) and a 
strong, effective, and independent nuclear regulatory body[Footnote 
13] and (2) preparing a national report every 3 years that describes 
the measures the country has taken to achieve the Convention's safety 
goals.

In addition, some of the 17 parties we interviewed stated that the 
Convention has contributed to and promoted the independence and 
effectiveness of their country's nuclear regulatory bodies. For 
example, an Austrian nuclear regulator told us he thought that this 
promotion of effective regulatory capacity is one of the Convention's 
greatest contributions to international nuclear safety. Moreover, 
representatives of China and Pakistan told us that the Convention was 
influential in leading their countries to increase the independence 
and effectiveness of their nuclear regulators. NRC officials expressed 
a similar view, noting that parties to the Convention have taken many 
steps to develop more effective laws and regulations and increase the 
capacities and independence of their nuclear regulators.

The requirement to prepare a national report describing the steps 
parties have taken to meet the Convention's nuclear safety obligations 
also plays a large role in strengthening the safety of civilian 
nuclear power programs, according to survey respondents. Almost all 
survey respondents indicated that the presentation of national reports 
in country groups was a very or somewhat effective way for sharing 
best safety practices. Most survey respondents reported that preparing 
the national report has either greatly or somewhat improved 
opportunities to examine their country's civilian nuclear power 
program. A number of parties we interviewed also said that this 
national report has been helpful in strengthening nuclear safety 
worldwide. NRC officials told us one effect of a national report is 
that nuclear regulators and plant operators are forced to think about 
even routine safety procedures and policies because the reports will 
be scrutinized by their peers. For example, as a result of questions 
raised by other parties on the national report prepared for the 2008 
review meeting, the United States agreed to discuss with state 
governments and NRC licensees the benefits and costs of adopting 
stricter standards for protecting nuclear power plant workers and the 
public from exposure to radiation.

In our survey, we also asked some additional questions about parties' 
perceptions about how the peer review process affected the preparation 
of the 2008 reports. Specifically, among other things, we asked how 
likely parties thought reports were to include (1) comprehensive, 
detailed descriptions of measures taken to strengthen safety; (2) 
evidence that safety issues discussed in one review meeting were 
revisited in the next meeting and that the actions taken to address 
the issues were discussed in sufficient detail for parties to evaluate 
whether the safety concerns had been adequately addressed; and (3) 
sufficient technical detail to understand specific safety concerns. In 
each case, most survey respondents indicated that they thought reports 
were very or somewhat likely to include such information. We also 
asked how effectively the peer review process encouraged parties to 
provide detailed information in their 2008 national reports. Overall, 
most survey respondents indicated that the peer review process was 
very or somewhat likely to encourage parties to include detailed, 
comprehensive, and accurate information in their national reports.

According to Parties We Surveyed and Interviewed, the Convention Has 
Also Improved Communication and Promoted Sharing of Technical 
Information about Nuclear Safety Issues:

According to both survey respondents and parties we interviewed, the 
Convention has increased communication and encouraged the sharing of 
technical information to improve nuclear safety worldwide. There was 
wide agreement among the survey respondents that the Convention has 
improved communication among nuclear regulators; nuclear power plant 
operators; and other national organizations involved in the civilian 
nuclear power industry, such as, in the case of the United States, the 
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO).[Footnote 14] More than 
half of the respondents to our survey indicated the Convention had 
"greatly" improved communication about safety issues affecting 
civilian nuclear power reactors. Most respondents to our survey agreed 
that the Convention had improved opportunities for sharing technical 
solutions to improve safety, such as reactor design improvements or 
fire safety enhancements. Russian and Ukrainian officials we spoke to 
provided examples of how the Convention has led to the sharing of 
nuclear safety information. Following are some examples:

* Russian nuclear regulatory officials told us that the Convention has 
played a useful role in promoting technical solutions to problems 
shared by countries operating similar types of reactors. Specifically, 
Russia and Finland have been developing a system to improve 
communication between their plant operators based on discussions that 
began with contacts made at Convention review meetings.

* A Ukrainian official told us his country's participation in the 
Convention has increased other countries' awareness of the safety 
problems confronting Ukraine's aging Soviet-designed nuclear reactors. 
He further noted that the Convention is one of many forums that 
Ukraine participates in that supports the strengthening of nuclear 
safety.

Confidentiality among the Parties to the Convention Has Been Key to 
the Success of the Peer Review Process:

According to most parties we surveyed and interviewed, maintaining the 
confidentiality of information obtained during the Convention's 
meetings is critical to the peer review process. Most party 
representatives we spoke with agree that confidentiality should be 
preserved. For example, when asked if the public should be allowed to 
directly observe review meetings--and thereby gain direct access to a 
party's national report and any concerns or questions raised about it 
by other parties--approximately two-thirds of survey respondents said 
the public probably or definitely should not be given such access. 
Some parties we interviewed told us that, as a result of the 
confidentiality of the peer review process, their country's national 
reports have become more comprehensive. Three-quarters of survey 
respondents indicated that the quality of national reports prepared 
for review meetings had improved in the past 10 years.

Concerns Exist about Some Aspects of the Convention's Implementation:

While the parties' perceptions of the value of the Convention are 
generally very positive, some concerns were raised about the lack of 
information provided to the general public about the Convention's 
proceedings, some countries' lack of resources to fully participate in 
the review meetings, and the absence of performance metrics. In 
addition, parties emphasize that without the participation of all 
countries with nuclear power programs in the Convention, the 
international community will have limited access and insight into 
countries'--such as Iran--civilian nuclear power programs.

Limited Public Access to the Convention's Proceedings:

Notwithstanding the general agreement that preserving the 
confidentiality of the peer review process is important, most parties 
responding to our survey would like to see more public access to the 
results of review meetings. We have testified that, according to some 
experts familiar with international agreements that rely primarily on 
peer review, the public dissemination of information about parties' 
progress in meeting the terms of the Convention can play a key role in 
influencing compliance with the Convention's nuclear safety 
obligations.[Footnote 15] Currently, only summary information of the 
peer review meeting is released to the public. This summary provides a 
brief introduction containing background on the Convention, an 
overview of the review process, and a synopsis of what the parties 
agree were the most important points discussed at the meeting. For 
example, the public report on the fourth review meeting, which took 
place in 2008, briefly summarizes the discussions of the parties on 
many topics discussed at the meeting, including parties' efforts to 
meet the challenges of maintaining adequate staffing and competence 
levels and ongoing concerns about the degree of independence of some 
parties' regulatory bodies. Any further details about any party's 
national report or questions and answers on the report remain 
confidential unless the party voluntarily releases it.

French officials in particular have expressed an especially strong 
view regarding public access to information about the Convention's 
proceedings. In July 2009, in written responses to our questions, 
French officials stated that parties to the Convention should consider 
making the opening and closing sessions of review meetings open to the 
media. Further, a Norwegian official we spoke with suggested that some 
nongovernmental organizations should be allowed to attend review 
meetings as observers.

One way that some parties have attempted to increase public access to 
the Convention's proceedings is by posting their national reports and 
answers to written questions received on their national reports to 
IAEA's public Web site. While the number of parties to the Convention 
making their national reports available in this way has increased 
since the first review meeting was held in 1999, it has not increased 
significantly in several years and actually declined between the third 
review meeting in 2005 and the fourth review meeting in 2008. 
Specifically, 26 parties--about 43 percent of the 60 parties for whom 
the Convention had come into force by the due date for submitting the 
national report--posted their national report prepared for the 2008 
review meeting. This was down from the 30 parties--or about 55 percent 
of parties to the Convention--posting reports prepared for the 2005 
review meeting. In fact, eight countries that posted their national 
reports prepared for the 2005 review meeting--Argentina, Belgium, 
Bulgaria, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, the Slovak Republic, and South Korea-
-did not do so for the report prepared for the 2008 review meeting. 
However, three parties posted their national reports for the first 
time in 2008--Estonia and India, which had recently become parties to 
the Convention, and Pakistan, which became a party in the 1990s. 
Figure 1 shows the number of countries that posted their national 
reports to the IAEA public Web site for the four review meetings held 
thus far.

Figure 1: Number of Countries Posting National Reports on IAEA's 
Public Web Site, 1999-2008:

[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph] 

Review meeting: First: 1999; n=46; 
Number of countries: 23. 

Review meeting: Second: 2002; n=53; 
Number of countries: 28. 

Review meeting: Third: 2005; n=55; 
Number of countries: 30. 

Review meeting: Fourth; 2008; n=60; 
Number of countries: 28. 

Source: GAO analysis based on IAEA data. 

Note: This figure, with n = the number of parties that were obligated 
to submit a national report for that review meeting, includes national 
reports from all parties to the Convention that submitted them, 
regardless of their nuclear power status. All parties to the 
Convention are required to submit a national report for peer review. 
Parties that do not operate nuclear power plants, such as Austria, 
submit reports focusing, among other things, on the steps they have 
taken to prepare and test emergency plans to deal with an accident in 
a neighboring country that operate a nuclear power plant. Other 
nonnuclear countries may be considering establishing nuclear power 
programs and it is important for them to provide information in their 
national reports about the steps they are taking to meet the 
Convention's obligations including, for example, reactor design and 
siting requirements. 

[End of figure] 

Officials from NRC and State told us that the United States has always 
made its national report available on the Internet. However, the U.S. 
approach has been to lead by example rather than taking an active role 
in encouraging other parties to the Convention to post their national 
reports to the Internet. IAEA officials told us it was important for 
parties to make as much information about their civilian nuclear power 
programs accessible as possible, but that it was for each party to 
determine how much information should be made public and how much 
should remain confidential. In addition to its public Web site, IAEA 
also maintains a secure, members-only Web site where parties are 
encouraged to post their national reports. According to NRC officials, 
parties have improved their participation in posting their reports to 
this Web site. Parties posted 17, 22, 57, and 61 national reports in 
1999, 2002, 2005, and 2008, respectively.

The overwhelming majority of parties have never posted their answers 
to written questions about their nuclear power programs to the IAEA 
public Web site. The written questions and answers provide a great 
deal of information about each country's nuclear power program. 
According to an IAEA official, over 4,000 questions were prepared for 
the 2008 review meeting, and almost all were answered. As figure 2 
shows, 3 countries posted these questions and answers to the IAEA 
public Web site for the first review meeting in 1999. While 11 
countries posted questions and their answers to the IAEA's public Web 
site for the second review meeting, including the United States, 6 did 
so for the third review meeting, and 5 did so for the 2008 meeting. 
Only Slovenia and Switzerland--both nuclear power countries--have 
posted these questions and answers for all four meetings; the United 
Kingdom and Canada--the sixth and eighth largest nuclear power 
countries as measured by the number of operating reactors, 
respectively--have done so since 2002. The United States had not 
posted its answers to written questions received on its national 
report to IAEA's public Web site since 2002, although NRC officials 
stated that they have always posted them to the NRC Web site. We also 
found that other nuclear power countries such as Finland, Germany, 
Japan, and Spain have not posted their answers to written questions to 
the IAEA's public Web site since 2002, either. In 2008, Luxembourg 
became the first, and thus far only, nonnuclear party to post the 
answers to questions it received on its national report. Luxembourg's 
responses focused primarily on how it would respond to a nuclear 
accident in a neighboring country.

We met with NRC officials on March 15, 2010, to discuss an early draft 
of this report. At that time, we informed them that their answers to 
written questions on U.S. national reports were not available on 
IAEA's public Web site. NRC officials acknowledged that these 
responses were not readily accessible and said they would take steps 
to post them. On March 17, 2010, NRC informed us of the availability 
of their responses, and we verified that they were now on IAEA's 
public Web site.

Figure 2: Number of Countries Posting Responses to Questions Received 
on Their National Reports on IAEA's Public Web Site, 1999-2008:

[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph] 

Review meeting: First: 1999; 
Number of countries: 3. 

Review meeting: Second: 2002; 
Number of countries: 11. 

Review meeting: Third: 2005; 
Number of countries: 6. 

Review meeting: Fourth; 2008; 
Number of countries: 5. 

Source: GAO analysis based on IAEA data. 

[End of figure]

Lack of Resources to Fully Participate in the Convention's Review 
Meetings:

Some respondents to our survey reported the lack of resources to fully 
participate in the review meetings. Specifically, almost half of the 
survey respondents--ranging from parties with well-established 
civilian nuclear power programs to those with no nuclear power 
programs--report that a lack of resources has limited their country's 
ability to develop their national report. As we noted in our March 
1999 testimony,[Footnote 16] NRC officials anticipated this lack of 
staff resources and/or travel money could be a problem. We reported 
that NRC officials told us that, because of differences in parties' 
nuclear safety programs and available resources, they anticipated 
unevenness in the quality and detail of some national reports. In 
addition, half of the parties responding to our survey reported that a 
lack of resources has limited their ability to attend review meetings, 
and more than three-quarters indicated that a lack of resources has 
inhibited their ability to send representatives to all of the country 
group meetings. According to NRC officials, this is important because 
the country groups meet simultaneously, and it is in these meetings 
where the national reports are presented and questions about them are 
addressed. Not being able to attend country group meetings reduces 
opportunities to learn from other parties' nuclear safety experiences. 
In addition, NRC officials recently told us that since much of the 
peer review of national reports can occur in the 7 months before the 
review meeting, limited resources may reduce the ability of some 
parties to take full advantage of this opportunity. That is, according 
to NRC officials, some countries do not have the staff resources to 
devote to preparing for review meetings by reading national reports, 
formulating and submitting written questions, and reviewing the 
parties' written responses to the written questions.

Lack of Performance Metrics to Gauge Progress in Strengthening Safety:

The Convention does not include performance metrics to gauge its 
impact on improving safety. As a result, it provides no systematic way 
to measure where and how progress in improving safety in each country 
has been made. During the course of this review, we asked parties if 
the lack of performance metrics limited the usefulness of the 
Convention. Half the parties responding to our survey indicated that 
it did. Performance indicators and benchmarks are currently being used 
to track safety in civilian nuclear power plants that could be adapted 
to help countries enhance safety. For example, the World Association 
of Nuclear Operators (WANO)[Footnote 17] publishes quantitative 
indicators of nuclear plant performance for 11 key areas, including 
industrial safety accidents and unplanned automatic shutdowns of 
nuclear power plants. Although the Convention itself lacks performance 
metrics, one-quarter of parties responding to our survey reported that 
they themselves measure progress toward Convention goals using 
performance metrics--specifically, in some cases, by comparing their 
activities with the results of IAEA safety review missions to 
countries that request them and actions taken in response to questions 
and comments from other parties at Convention review meetings.

Neither State nor NRC has formally proposed the adoption of 
performance metrics. However, NRC officials told us that performance 
metrics could play a useful role in helping parties measure their 
progress toward meeting safety obligations and that they could be 
introduced through a modification to the rules and procedures 
governing the Convention. Specifically, Article 22 of the Convention 
provides for the preparation of guidelines by the parties regarding 
the form and structure of their national reports. The guidelines can 
be revised by consensus at review meetings. The guidelines provide 
only suggestions for drafting the reports; parties remain free to 
structure their reports as they see fit. However, the suggestions 
provided are very detailed and touch upon more than just form and 
structure. For example, the guidelines provide detailed suggestions on 
the content of the national reports. They also contain an appendix 
detailing voluntary practices that parties are encouraged to engage in 
regarding the public availability of their national reports.

Universal Participation Would Advance Achievement of the Convention's 
Goals:

The Convention is designed to maximize the number of countries that 
will participate in order to achieve its goal of promoting the safe 
operation of civilian nuclear power reactors worldwide; however, it is 
voluntary in nature. By and large, this approach has worked. Since 
2009, three countries that are considering developing civilian nuclear 
power programs--Libya, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates--have 
become parties to the Convention. Two others--Kazakhstan and Saudi 
Arabia--approved the Convention in 2010 and are expected to become 
parties to it later this year. An overwhelming majority of the parties 
we surveyed and interviewed said that all countries should be 
encouraged to join as soon as possible after making the decision to 
consider developing a nuclear power program. At present, all countries 
with such programs--except Iran--are parties to the Convention. 
Several parties we interviewed told us that Iran, which is on the 
verge of commissioning civilian nuclear power reactors, should ratify 
the Convention in order to benefit from the safety expertise that 
participation provides. In their view, without Iran's participation in 
the Convention, the international community has limited or no insight 
on, or access to, how Iran is developing, operating, and maintaining 
its burgeoning civilian nuclear power program. Russian officials with 
whom we spoke agreed that greater international access to Iran's 
civilian nuclear power program is needed and that the Convention could 
play a role in providing that access. Russia is helping Iran build the 
civilian nuclear power reactor at Bushehr, which is expected to be 
commissioned in the near future. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
officials told us that Russia's continued assistance to Iran's 
civilian nuclear program may be conditioned on Iran's becoming a party 
to the Convention.

The Convention Is Not a Mechanism for Shutting Down Unsafe Reactors:

The Convention does not require that unsafe reactors be closed down. 
As noted in our 1999 testimony,[Footnote 18] the Convention neither 
provides sanctions for noncompliance with any of its safety 
obligations nor does it require the closing of any unsafe nuclear 
reactors. However, more than 13 years after the Convention came into 
force, Russia continues to operate 11 Chernobyl-style RBMK reactors. 
[Footnote 19] These reactors pose the highest risk, according to 
Western safety experts, because of their inherent design deficiencies, 
including their lack of a containment structure. The containment 
structure, generally a steel-lined concrete dome, serves as the 
ultimate barrier to the release of radioactive material in the event 
of a severe accident. Russian nuclear regulators told us that adequate 
safety upgrades have been made to all 11 RBMK reactors and that they 
will continue to operate for the foreseeable future. We also discussed 
the matter of shutdown of Soviet-designed reactors with EU officials, 
who told us that the Convention was never intended to be a mechanism 
for closing unsafe Soviet-designed reactors. The European Union has 
used a different strategy to accomplish shutdown of the unsafe nuclear 
reactors in its member countries: making EU membership contingent upon 
the closure of these reactors. As a result, all eight RBMK and first- 
generation VVER 440 Model 230 reactors in Bulgaria, Lithuania, and 
Slovakia have been permanently shut down in order for these countries 
to obtain EU membership.[Footnote 20]

According to NRC officials, as is the case in other international law 
on reactor safety, under the Convention each country is responsible 
for regulating the safety of its own reactors. In addition, NRC noted 
that the Convention relies on the peer review process, that it cannot 
obligate countries to comply with safety standards, and that it does 
not provide for sanctions such as the closing of any unsafe nuclear 
power plants. State expressed a similar view. State pointed out that 
the Convention was never meant to have the authority to require that 
unsafe reactors be shut down. According to State, it is the position 
of IAEA and its member states that each country operating nuclear 
power plants should have its own nuclear regulatory agency that would 
have the authority to shut down plants.

Steps Have Been Taken to Improve the Convention's Peer Review Process, 
and Additional Proposals Are Being Considered:

The parties to the Convention generally agree that it would be 
difficult to amend the Convention. Consequently, several parties have 
taken the lead in making changes to the Convention's rules and 
procedures. To date, some steps have been taken to improve the 
Convention's peer review process, and parties are considering several 
additional proposals.

Changes Have Been Adopted to Improve the Peer Review Process:

Several parties have focused on improving the workings of the 
Convention's peer review process. The most significant change they 
have made, in our view, is to allow the parties to more freely ask 
questions about each others' national reports. NRC expressed concern 
in our January 1997 report about the rules governing how parties' 
country group assignments affect the parties' ability to discuss and 
seek clarification about other parties' national reports at review 
meetings.[Footnote 21] According to NRC officials, in the past, 
parties assigned to a particular country group could ask questions 
about other parties' nuclear programs that were assigned to that group 
during the question-and-answer session following the presentation of a 
national report. However, parties that were not assigned to that 
country group could not ask questions unless they submitted a written 
question several months in advance of the review meeting. This 
restrictive practice began to change during the 2005 review meeting, 
when at least one country group allowed parties that were not assigned 
to it to ask questions. At the next review meeting in 2008, according 
to NRC officials who attended both meetings, no restrictions were 
placed on any parties' ability to ask questions about the national 
reports of any other parties. An NRC official told us that this change 
has made the process more open and accessible to all of the parties.

Another notable change to the rules and procedures of the peer review 
process is the recent decision to move up the date for the 
organizational meeting and the selection of officers for the upcoming 
review meeting by almost a year and to advance by a few weeks the 
deadlines for submitting national reports and written questions for 
the peer review process. The purposes of the organizational meeting, 
among other things, are to elect the officers for the upcoming review 
meeting,[Footnote 22] adopt a provisional agenda for the meeting, 
assign parties to particular country groups, and identify which 
proposals for enhancing the peer review process should be considered 
at the upcoming meeting. Previously, organizational meetings were held 
about 7 months before the upcoming review meeting. However, the 
parties at the 2008 review meeting agreed to hold the organizational 
meeting for the 2011 review meeting in September 2009--19 months in 
advance. According to NRC officials, the purpose of the scheduling 
change was to put officers in place earlier to give them more time to 
plan for the next meeting and to promote greater continuity from one 
meeting to the next. Moving up the deadlines for submitting national 
reports and written questions for peer review is intended to give 
countries more time to both review the national reports of other 
parties and answer any written questions submitted.

Parties Are Considering Additional Proposals to Improve the 
Implementation of the Convention:

Additional proposals to improve the implementation of the Convention 
are currently under consideration by the parties. Specifically, these 
proposals include (1) allocating more country group meeting time to 
discuss, among other things, the national reports of countries with 
emerging nuclear programs; (2) expediting the process for calling a 
special meeting between review meetings to discuss urgent safety 
issues; and (3) changing the process for assigning parties to country 
groups.

Allocating More Time to Countries with Emerging Nuclear Programs:

Some parties have suggested the peer review process might be more 
effective if more review meeting time were allocated to discussing the 
national reports of countries with emerging nuclear power programs or 
topics of general concern and less time presenting and discussing the 
national reports of parties with well-established nuclear programs. 
For example, according to NRC officials, the United Arab Emirates, 
which has only recently become a party to the Convention, is rapidly 
moving to establish its nuclear regulatory infrastructure and is soon 
to begin construction of several nuclear power reactors. Because its 
civilian nuclear power program is so new, the United Arab Emirates 
could benefit from more time to present its national report during the 
peer review process. NRC officials told us that the United States, in 
contrast, does not need as much time as it is allocated to present its 
national report. Similarly, according to a senior NRC official, the 
United States has proposed that more time at review meetings might 
also be allocated to discuss topics of general concern--such as the 
safety challenges of dealing with aging reactors or the challenges 
parties face in maintaining adequate staffing and competence levels in 
both the regulatory bodies and at nuclear power plants.

Expediting the Process for Calling Special Meetings:

Another proposal to be considered would create a more efficient 
process for calling a meeting to discuss topical or urgent nuclear 
safety issues that parties feel cannot wait until the next review 
meeting. Currently, in order to have such a meeting, a majority of 
parties are required to support the call for a meeting. One way of 
streamlining this process, according to an NRC official, would be to 
empower the officers elected for the most recent or upcoming review 
meeting to call a special meeting. An urgent issue might be, for 
example, a nuclear power plant accident. If such an accident occurred, 
parties might wish to convene a special meeting to discuss the causes 
of the accident and what might be done to avoid a similar accident.

Changing the Process for Assigning Parties to Country Groups:

Finally, to promote greater variation in the composition of country 
groups from meeting to meeting, amending the method for assigning 
countries to the six country groups is being considered.[Footnote 23] 
Specifically, the experience of the first four review meetings has 
been that the country groups have remained relatively static--that is, 
there has been little variation in the membership of each group among 
the nuclear power countries. According to NRC officials, it would be 
useful if the composition of the groups were more varied from meeting 
to meeting. While each group would still be anchored by a country with 
a large number of operating civilian nuclear power reactors, the 
remainder of the group would consist of a more varied mix of 
countries. This type of mix would provide greater opportunities for 
more information sharing among a more diverse group of countries. An 
NRC official told us that many parties are generally in favor of some 
adjustment to the existing process but that there is not yet 
sufficient agreement on how to accomplish this change.

IAEA's Assistance Programs to Member States Complement the 
Convention's Safety Goals and Objectives:

IAEA has a long history of serving as a technical advisor to member 
states to promote the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Although 
this role predates the establishment of the Convention, and regulating 
nuclear safety is a national responsibility, the Convention 
complements the role the agency plays in these matters. IAEA promotes 
the Convention's nuclear safety goals and objectives largely through 
its Technical Cooperation (TC) Program, safety standards, and peer 
review missions, which together help countries improve their nuclear 
regulatory bodies and the safety performance of their civilian nuclear 
power plants. Most survey respondents reported that they found IAEA 
effective in serving as a technical advisor. In addition, almost all 
parties responding to our survey consider IAEA to be effective in its 
role as secretariat to the Convention.

IAEA's Technical Cooperation Program, Safety Standards, and Peer 
Review Missions Play an Important and Growing Role in Promoting 
Nuclear Safety Worldwide:

IAEA provides assistance to its member states to promote peaceful uses 
of nuclear energy in several ways, including providing technical 
cooperation, establishing safety standards, and conducting advisory 
and peer review missions. The importance of its role in providing this 
type of assistance was corroborated by our survey results. A majority 
of survey respondents reported that IAEA was either very effective or 
somewhat effective in serving as a technical advisor to countries 
requesting assistance to improve civilian nuclear power safety. IAEA's 
TC program supports, among other things, nuclear safety and the 
development of nuclear power.[Footnote 24] For the 2009-2011 
activities under the TC program, nuclear safety remains one of the top 
three priorities for IAEA member states. IAEA currently conducts 551 
TC projects in 115 countries and territories, and program activities 
are tailored to the needs of each region. Specific TC projects have 
included activities to extend the operating life of nuclear power 
plants and establishing safety culture in nuclear facilities. TC 
projects that support member states considering or developing nuclear 
power also include strengthening nuclear regulatory authorities and 
preparing an emergency plan for a nuclear power plant. In 2007, IAEA 
disbursed approximately $5.6 million to support the safety of civilian 
nuclear installations worldwide through the TC program. In addition to 
its TC program budget, IAEA plans to spend approximately $15.1 million 
in 2010 on other efforts to promote nuclear safety, such as 
strengthening countries' abilities to respond to nuclear incidents and 
emergencies and to assess the safety of the siting and design of 
nuclear installations. The role and importance of IAEA in promoting 
nuclear safety will likely grow if the cost of fossil fuels and the 
threat of climate change spur a nuclear renaissance, as an independent 
commission assessing the role of IAEA to 2020 and beyond reported 
recently.[Footnote 25] According to this independent commission, this 
growing role may involve (1) leading an international effort to 
establish a global nuclear safety network, (2) helping countries with 
emerging nuclear power programs put in place the infrastructure needed 
to develop nuclear energy safely, and (3) ensuring that critical 
safety knowledge is widely shared among IAEA member states.

In addition, IAEA has established safety standards that provide a 
framework for fundamental safety principles, requirements, and 
guidance for member states. The standards, which reflect international 
consensus, cover a wide range of topics, including nuclear power plant 
design and operation, site evaluation, and emergency preparedness and 
response. Committees of senior experts from IAEA member states use an 
open and transparent process to develop the standards and any 
subsequent revisions. The guidelines governing the drafting of 
national reports state that IAEA safety standards can give valuable 
guidance on how to meet the Convention's safety obligations.

IAEA also promotes nuclear safety through advisory and voluntary peer 
review missions--the most prominent are Integrated Regulatory Review 
Service (IRRS) missions and Operational Safety Review Team (OSART) 
missions. These missions evaluate the operations of a member state's 
nuclear regulatory system and civilian nuclear power plant operational 
safety, respectively. IRRS missions assess the safety practices of the 
requesting country through an examination of its regulatory framework 
and organization and compare the country's practices with IAEA safety 
standards. Since 1992, IAEA has conducted 44 IRRS missions in 26 
countries, with 15 of these missions taking place in countries that 
have operated--and in some cases continue to operate--Soviet-designed 
reactors. Table 1 shows the number of IRRS missions that member 
countries had hosted through 2009. The United States has sent 
approximately 20 experts on IRRS missions and has agreed to host an 
IRRS mission in October 2010.

Table 1: Number of IRRS Missions by Country, 1992 through 2009:

Country: Armenia; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Australia; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Bulgaria; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Canada; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: China; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Czech Republic; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Finland; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: France; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Germany; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Hungary; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Indonesia; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Japan; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Lithuania; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Malaysia; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Mexico; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Pakistan; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Peru; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Romania; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 4.

Country: Russia; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Slovakia; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Slovenia; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Spain; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Switzerland; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Ukraine; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 3.

Country: United Kingdom; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 2.

Country: Vietnam; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 1.

Country: Total; 
Number of IRRS missions[A]: 44.

Source: GAO analysis of IAEA data.

[A] IRRS missions were preceded by a similar program from 1992-2004 
called International Regulatory Review Team missions. This table 
combines numbers for both types of missions. 

[End of table] 

Some parties that responded to our survey reported that they found 
IRRS and OSART missions effective at improving civilian nuclear power 
safety. In addition, according to the summary report of the 
Convention's fourth meeting in 2008, many parties reported that they 
had positive experiences with IRRS and OSART missions, and parties who 
had not already hosted one of these missions were encouraged to do so. 
In February and March 2010, IAEA conducted an IRRS mission to Iran, 
which included a site visit to the nearly completed Bushehr nuclear 
power plant. IAEA recommended, among other things, that Iran join the 
Convention.

According to a senior Swedish official who was involved in drafting 
the Convention, these missions are increasingly being used to measure 
the safety standards of parties to the Convention. Parties face peer 
pressure to submit to these voluntary missions, as they provide a way 
for a country to show its commitment to enhancing safety. For example, 
ENSREG has promoted the use of IRRS missions by EU countries. 
Describing the missions as "well established and well respected," 
ENSREG has encouraged all EU member states to participate in one to 
obtain advice on improvements and to learn from the best practices of 
others.

IAEA also manages the OSART missions through which teams of experts 
drawn from IAEA member countries--including the United States, which 
has sent over 100 experts on missions--review operational safety at 
specific nuclear power plants. IAEA has conducted over 150 OSART 
missions in 32 countries since 1983, and has 9 more scheduled through 
the end of 2011. Table 2 shows the number of OSART missions that 
member countries had hosted through 2009.

Table 2: Number of OSART Missions by Country, 1983 through 2009:

Country: Argentina; 
Number of OSART missions: 1.

Country: Belgium; 
Number of OSART missions: 1.

Country: Brazil; 
Number of OSART missions: 5.

Country: Bulgaria; 
Number of OSART missions: 6.

Country: Canada; 
Number of OSART missions: 3.

Country: China; 
Number of OSART missions: 10.

Country: Czech Republic; 
Number of OSART missions: 8.

Country: Finland; 
Number of OSART missions: 3.

Country: France; 
Number of OSART missions: 21.

Country: Germany; 
Number of OSART missions: 6.

Country: Hungary; 
Number of OSART missions: 2.

Country: Italy; 
Number of OSART missions: 2.

Country: Japan; 
Number of OSART missions: 5.

Country: Kazakhstan; 
Number of OSART missions: 1.

Country: Korea, Republic of; 
Number of OSART missions: 6.

Country: Lithuania; 
Number of OSART missions: 2.

Country: Mexico; 
Number of OSART missions: 4.

Country: Netherlands; 
Number of OSART missions: 3.

Country: Pakistan; 
Number of OSART missions: 5.

Country: Philippines; 
Number of OSART missions: 2.

Country: Poland; 
Number of OSART missions: 1.

Country: Romania; 
Number of OSART missions: 3.

Country: Russia; 
Number of OSART missions: 6.

Country: Slovakia; 
Number of OSART missions: 5.

Country: Slovenia; 
Number of OSART missions: 3.

Country: South Africa; 
Number of OSART missions: 3.

Country: Spain; 
Number of OSART missions: 5.

Country: Sweden; 
Number of OSART missions: 6.

Country: Switzerland; 
Number of OSART missions: 4.

Country: Ukraine; 
Number of OSART missions: 14.

Country: United Kingdom; 
Number of OSART missions: 3.

Country: United States; 
Number of OSART missions: 6.

Country: Total; 
Number of OSART missions: 155.

Source: GAO analysis of IAEA data. 

[End of table] 

As table 2 shows, the 2 countries that have hosted the most OSART 
missions are France and Ukraine, 21 and 14, respectively. Combined, 
those 2 countries have 73 reactors. China and the Czech Republic have 
hosted the second most missions, 10 and 8, respectively. These 
countries have a combined total of 17 operating reactors. Japan, which 
has 54 reactors, has hosted 5 OSART missions. Russia, which has 32 
operating reactors, has hosted 6, and the United States, which has 104 
operating reactors, has also hosted 6 missions. The only countries 
with operating civilian nuclear power programs that have not hosted 
OSART missions are Armenia and India, which operate 1 and 18 reactors, 
respectively.

While recommendations that result from safety review services such as 
IRRS and OSART missions are not mandates, IAEA officials told us that 
the agency nevertheless sees a high rate of implementation of those 
recommendations. IAEA also makes available on its public Web site a 
compilation of best practices learned from recent OSART missions, as 
well as the mission reports as authorized by the member states. This 
compilation serves to help member states improve the operational 
safety of their power plants and includes emergency plans and 
preparedness, training, and maintenance.

Finally, IAEA also promotes civilian nuclear safety through other 
means. For example, IAEA offers additional review services to member 
states by focusing on issues such as siting, seismic safety, research 
reactor safety, fuel cycle facilities' safety, power plant accident 
management, and safety culture assessments. IAEA also promotes 
education and training in nuclear safety through Web-based courses, 
electronic textbooks, and workshops. This training covers topics such 
as basic safety concepts, regulatory control of nuclear power plants, 
and instruction on IAEA safety standards. Much of this information is 
available to the public to download from IAEA's Web site. One survey 
respondent from Eastern Europe commented that the training courses and 
workshops had contributed significantly to the promotion of high 
safety standards and best practices. Moreover, IAEA regularly holds 
conferences and symposia on issues related to nuclear safety, with 
some event summaries available online. Recent topics have included 
promoting safety education and training for countries with new or 
expanding nuclear programs, ensuring safety for sustainable nuclear 
development, and managing nuclear power plant life.

IAEA Is Effective as the Convention's Secretariat, according to Almost 
All Survey Respondents and Parties We Interviewed:

Almost all parties responding to our survey and parties we interviewed 
reported that IAEA effectively carries out its role as secretariat as 
outlined in the Convention. In this capacity, IAEA hosts the review 
meetings in Vienna, Austria; prepares documents; and provides 
translation and interpretation services. There was widespread 
agreement among the respondents that the agency is effective in 
convening, preparing, and servicing the meetings and at transmitting 
information received or prepared in accordance with the provisions of 
the Convention.

Some survey respondents and parties we interviewed called for more 
IAEA support during the Convention's review meetings in such areas as 
more translation services for all country group sessions and more 
administrative assistance for parties to the Convention. The 
Convention permits IAEA to provide other services in support of the 
review meetings, if the parties reach consensus. Finally, some survey 
respondents reported that IAEA should play a more active role in the 
following areas:

* helping prepare national reports,

* providing other assistance to help prepare for the next review 
meeting,

* providing other technical support to improve safety, and:

* helping address concerns about a country's civilian nuclear power 
program.

IAEA estimates its costs to support the last review meeting in 2008 at 
nearly $118,000 and expects to spend approximately $130,000 for the 
fifth review meeting scheduled for April 2011. The costs associated 
with the review meetings are modest for the U.S. government as well. 
NRC and State spent approximately $725,000 preparing for and 
participating in the 2008 review meeting and estimate they will spend 
$825,000 for the next review meeting.

Conclusions:

The Convention plays an important role in strengthening nuclear safety 
and enjoys broad support among the parties we surveyed and 
interviewed. Support for the Convention continues to grow as evidenced 
by the increasing number of countries that have joined it, 
particularly those with emerging nuclear programs, such as the United 
Arab Emirates. Many parties to the Convention told us that all 
countries that are considering embarking on a nuclear power program--
or currently operating civilian nuclear power reactors--should be 
encouraged to join the Convention, including Iran.

We are encouraged that the parties have taken steps to improve the 
Convention's peer review process. However, the Convention does not 
require parties to include performance metrics in their national 
reports, which makes it difficult to gauge its impact on improving 
nuclear safety. Without such metrics there is no systematic way to 
measure where and how progress has been made in improving safety in 
each country that operates civilian nuclear power reactors. In 
addition, more than half of the survey respondents reported that the 
lack of metrics hampers the Convention's usefulness, and NRC has noted 
that it would be feasible to add performance metrics into the 
guidelines that implement that national report process called for by 
the Convention. There are already international organizations that use 
such indicators to track nuclear safety improvements and which could 
perhaps be incorporated into the guidelines as voluntary practices 
that parties are encouraged to implement. Further, public awareness 
about parties' progress toward meeting the terms of the Convention can 
play a key role in influencing compliance with the Convention's 
nuclear safety obligations. However, to date the public has had 
limited access to parties' national reports and written answers to 
questions about their nuclear power programs. More than half of the 
national reports prepared for the 2008 review meeting are not posted 
to IAEA's public Web site, and even fewer parties make their answers 
to written questions received on their national reports available on 
IAEA's public Web site. Putting this information on the Web site could 
increase public awareness of the nuclear safety issues facing 
countries and how they are addressing them.

Recommendations for Executive Action:

To further enhance the usefulness of the Convention in promoting the 
safety of civilian nuclear power programs worldwide, we recommend that 
the Secretary of State, in coordination with the Chairman of the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, work with other parties to the 
Convention to take the following three actions:

* Encourage parties to include performance metrics in national reports 
to better track safety in civilian nuclear power plants and help 
countries more systematically measure where and how they have made 
progress in improving safety.

* Expand efforts to increase the number of parties' national reports 
made available to the public by posting them to IAEA's public Web site.

* Promote greater public dissemination of parties' written answers to 
questions about their nuclear power programs by posting this 
information to IAEA's public Web site.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

We provided a draft of this report to NRC and State for comment. We 
also provided IAEA with a detailed summary of facts contained in the 
draft report. State and NRC provided written comments on the draft 
report, which are presented in appendixes IV and V, respectively. 
IAEA, State, and NRC also provided technical comments, which we 
incorporated as appropriate.

NRC generally agreed with our report but did not specifically agree or 
disagree with the report's recommendations, and State generally agreed 
with the recommendations to (1) encourage parties to the Convention to 
include performance metrics in their national reports to better track 
safety in civilian nuclear power plants, (2) increase the number of 
parties' national reports made available to the public by posting them 
to IAEA's public Web site, and (3) promote greater public 
dissemination of parties' written answers to questions about their 
nuclear power programs by posting this information to IAEA's public 
Web site. In its written comments, however, State provided some 
clarifications concerning the recommendations. First, State noted that 
it might be difficult to achieve metrics that would be meaningful 
across so many countries' nuclear power programs and to agree on the 
specific metrics to be used. Second, State noted that initiatives to 
increase public access to information would run counter to strong 
concerns regarding confidentiality of information on civilian nuclear 
power plants held by many parties. In addition, State asserted that 
the report somewhat mischaracterizes the Convention by noting that the 
Convention does not require that unsafe reactors be shut down. State 
noted that the Convention was never meant to have that authority, 
which would be contrary to IAEA practice and policy. It is the 
position of IAEA and member states that each country operating nuclear 
power plants should have its own national regulatory agency that would 
have the authority to shut down plants.

Regarding the first point, while it might be challenging to establish 
a common set of performance metrics, we believe there are already 
examples of standard metrics being used, such as those published by 
WANO. We believe that WANO's metrics, for instance, could be used as a 
benchmark for parties to follow in measuring safety progress when 
developing their national reports. With regard to encouraging public 
dissemination of information about the Convention, we agree that 
maintaining confidentiality of sensitive information about what is 
discussed among the parties during the peer review process should be 
maintained. However, we also believe that increasing public awareness 
of the Convention's proceedings--even on an incremental basis--through 
the posting of national reports to IAEA's public Web site is a 
worthwhile goal and should be encouraged to the extent practicable.

Finally, with respect to the issue of unsafe reactors, we have not 
mischaracterized the Convention. Rather, we pointed out in the report--
as we have previously reported--that the Convention does not require 
the closing of any unsafe nuclear reactors. We also noted in this 
report that nuclear safety is a national responsibility and have not 
suggested or implied that the Convention is flawed because it does not 
require unsafe reactors to be closed. The fact remains, however, that 
Russia, which has ratified the Convention, continues to operate 
numerous nuclear power plants that pose a safety risk according to 
Western safety experts. However, based on State's comments, we have 
clarified the text regarding this issue.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days 
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to the 
appropriate congressional committees, the Secretary of State, the 
Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other interested 
parties. The report also will be available at no charge on the GAO Web 
site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, 
please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov. Contact points 
for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be 
found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix VI.

Sincerely yours, 

Signed by: 

Gene Aloise: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:

[End of section]

Appendix I: Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety:

Country: Argentina[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 2; 
Entry into force: 16 July 1997.

Country: Armenia[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 1; 
Entry into force: 20 December 1998.

Country: Australia; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 March 1997.

Country: Austria; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 November 1997.

Country: Bangladesh; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Belarus; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 27 January 1999.

Country: Belgium[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 7; 
Entry into force: 13 April 1997.

Country: Brazil[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 2; 
Entry into force: 2 June 1997.

Country: Bulgaria[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 2; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Canada[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 18; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Chile; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 20 March 1997.

Country: China[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 11; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Croatia; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Cyprus; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 15 June 1999.

Country: Czech Republic[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 6; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Denmark; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 11 February 1999.

Country: Estonia; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 4 May 2006.

Country: Finland[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 4; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: France[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 58; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Germany[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 17; 
Entry into force: 20 April 1997.

Country: Greece; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 18 September 1997.

Country: Hungary[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 4; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Iceland; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 2 September 2008.

Country: India[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 18; 
Entry into force: 29 June 2005.

Country: Indonesia; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 11 July 2002.

Country: Ireland; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Italy; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 14 July 1998.

Country: Japan[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 54; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Jordan; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 10 September 2009.

Country: Korea, Republic of[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 20; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Kuwait; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 9 August 2006.

Country: Latvia; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 23 January 1997.

Country: Lebanon; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Libya; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 11 November 2009.

Country: Lithuania; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Luxembourg; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 6 July 1997.

Country: Mali; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Malta; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 13 February 2008.

Country: Mexico[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 2; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Netherlands[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 1; 
Entry into force: 13 January 1997.

Country: Nigeria; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 3 July 2007.

Country: Norway; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Pakistan[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 2; 
Entry into force: 29 December 1997.

Country: Peru; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 29 September 1997.

Country: Poland; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Portugal; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 18 August 1998.

Country: Republic of Moldova; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 5 August 1998.

Country: Romania[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 2; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Russian Federation[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 32; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Saudi Arabia; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 16 June 2010[B].

Country: Senegal; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 March 2009.

Country: Singapore; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 15 March 1998.

Country: Slovakia[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 4; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Slovenia[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 1; 
Entry into force: 18 February 1997.

Country: South Africa[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 2; 
Entry into force: 24 March 1997.

Country: Spain[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 8; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Sri Lanka; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 9 November 1999.

Country: Sweden[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 10; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Switzerland[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 5; 
Entry into force: 11 December 1996.

Country: The FYR of Macedonia; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 13 June 2006.

Country: Turkey; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: Ukraine[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 15; 
Entry into force: 7 July 1998.

Country: United Arab Emirates; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 29 October 2009.

Country: United Kingdom[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 19; 
Entry into force: 24 October 1996.

Country: United States[A]; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 104; 
Entry into force: 10 July 1999.

Country: Uruguay; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 2 December 2003.

Country: EURATOM; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 0; 
Entry into force: 30 April 2000.

Country: Total; 
Number of civilian nuclear reactors: 437. 

Source: IAEA.

Note: The total of 437 reactors represents the reactors in the list 
plus 6 reactors in Taiwan, which IAEA includes in the total number 
worldwide.

[A] Indicates that the state has at least one nuclear installation 
that has achieved criticality in a reactor core.

[B] Anticipated date of entry into force. Saudi Arabia deposited its 
instrument of accession to the Convention on March 18, 2010. By the 
terms of the Convention, it will enter into force for Saudi Arabia 90 
days after the date of deposit of the instrument of accession. 

[End of table] 

[End of section]

Appendix II: Information on U.S. and European Union Funding to Promote 
International Nuclear Safety:

United States:

Table 3 reflects the cumulative amount of nuclear reactor safety 
assistance funds provided by the Department of Energy (DOE) from the 
inception of these programs.

Table 3: Obligations and Expenditures for DOE's Safety Assistance 
Programs as of September 30, 2009 (Dollars in thousands): 

Recipient: Ukraine; 
Funds available: $369,223; 
Funds unobligated: $0; 
Funds obligated: $369,223; 
Funds obligated and spent: $360,918; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $8,305.

Recipient: Russia; 
Funds available: $179,917; 
Funds unobligated: $0; 
Funds obligated: $179,917; 
Funds obligated and spent: $179,917; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $0.

Recipient: Central and Eastern Europe; 
Funds available: $44,680; 
Funds unobligated: $0; 
Funds obligated: $44,680; 
Funds obligated and spent: $44,504; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $176.

Recipient: Armenia; 
Funds available: $50,813; 
Funds unobligated: $0; 
Funds obligated: $50,813; 
Funds obligated and spent: $47,734; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $3,079.

Recipient: Kazakhstan; 
Funds available: $7,732; 
Funds unobligated: $0; 
Funds obligated: v7,732; 
Funds obligated and spent: $7,317; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $415.

Recipient: Noncountry specific; 
Funds available: $73,269; 
Funds unobligated: $0; 
Funds obligated: $73,269; 
Funds obligated and spent: v73,269; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $0.

Recipient: DOE subtotal; 
Funds available: $725,634; 
Funds unobligated: $0; 
Funds obligated: $725,634; 
Funds obligated and spent: $713,659; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $11,975.

Source: DOE.

Notes:

Expenditures identified in this table are not linked to the Convention 
on Nuclear Safety. Rather, they refer only to DOE bilateral assistance 
programs to support nuclear safety efforts in various foreign countries.

According to DOE, funding appropriation end dates for the programs are 
as follows:

Ukraine: 2008; 
Russia: 2005; 
Central and Eastern Europe: 2006; 
Armenia: 2011 (estimated); 
Kazakhstan: 2007; 
Noncountry specific: 2004. 

According to DOE, all programs will expend funds through at least 
fiscal year 2010, with the exception of Russia, which ceased expending 
funds in fiscal year 2006. 

[End of table]

Table 4 reflects the cumulative amount of nuclear reactor safety 
assistance funds provided by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 
from the inception of these programs.

Table 4: Obligations and Expenditures for NRC's Reactor Safety 
Assistance Programs as of September 30, 2009 (Dollars in thousands): 

Recipient: Ukraine; 
Funds available: $22,083; 
Funds unobligated: $0; 
Funds obligated: $22,083; 
Funds obligated and spent: $21,482; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $601.

Recipient: Russia; 
Funds available: $17,794; 
Funds unobligated: 0; 
Funds obligated: $17,794; 
Funds obligated and spent: $17,493; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $301.

Recipient: Central and Eastern Europe; 
Funds available: $8,044; 
Funds unobligated: 0; 
Funds obligated: $8,044; 
Funds obligated and spent: $8,044; 
Funds obligated but not spent: 0.

Recipient: Armenia; 
Funds available: $7,715; 
Funds unobligated: 0; 
Funds obligated: $7,715; 
Funds obligated and spent: $6,899; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $816.

Recipient: Kazakhstan; 
Funds available: $6,920; 
Funds unobligated: 0; 
Funds obligated: $6,920; 
Funds obligated and spent: $6,920; 
Funds obligated but not spent: 0.

Recipient: Total; 
Funds available: $62,556; 
Funds unobligated: $0; 
Funds obligated: $62,556; 
Funds obligated and spent: $60,838; 
Funds obligated but not spent: $1,718.

Source: NRC.

Notes:

According to NRC, these funds are provided through the Support for 
Eastern European Democracies (SEED) Act, which funded Central and 
Eastern European countries, and through the Freedom Support Act (FSA), 
which funds Armenia, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. SEED Act figures 
are cumulative from fiscal year 1991, and FSA figures are cumulative 
from fiscal year 1992.

These expenditures identified in this table are not linked to the 
Convention on Nuclear Safety. Rather, they refer only to NRC bilateral 
assistance programs to support nuclear safety efforts in various 
foreign countries.

According to NRC, fiscal year 2008 was the last year for which NRC 
obligated FSA funds for Russia, shifting its focus with Russia to 
cooperation instead of assistance. NRC will expend all remaining FSA 
funds for assistance for Russia during fiscal year 2010. 

[End of table] 

European Union:

Table 5 reflects nuclear safety expenditures from the European Union's 
Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States program.

Table 6: Total Nuclear Safety Budget for the Technical Assistance to 
the Commonwealth of Independent States Program (Dollars in millions): 

Year: 1991; 
Amount: $97.8.

Year: 1992; 
Amount: $112.9.

Year: 1993; 
Amount: $145.8.

Year: 1994; 
Amount: $149.8.

Year: 1995; 
Amount: $169.8.

Year: 1996; 
Amount: $198.6.

Year: 1997; 
Amount: $100.9.

Year: 1998; 
Amount: $121.7.

Year: 1999; 
Amount: $86.8.

Year: 2000; 
Amount: $61.2.

Year: 2001; 
Amount: $100.2.

Year: 2002; 
Amount: $86.6.

Year: 2003; 
Amount: $136.5.

Year: 2004; 
Amount: $145.3.

Year: 2005; 
Amount: $96.3.

Year: 2006; 
Amount: $109.4.

Total: 
Amount: $1,919.5.

Source: "International Nuclear Safety Actions of the European 
Commission," EuropeAid Co-operation Office.

Notes:

Figures are in millions of 2010 dollars.

The expenditures identified in this table are estimates and are not 
linked to the Convention on Nuclear Safety.

The figures include funding for the Russian Federation, the Northern 
Dimension Fund to the 'Nuclear Window,' Ukraine, other countries, and 
the Chernobyl Shelter Fund.

The Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States 
(TACIS) program was replaced in 2007 by the Nuclear Safety Cooperation 
Instrument (NSCI), which finances measures to support nuclear safety, 
radiation protection, and safeguards of nuclear materials. The NSCI 
has a budget of roughly $730 million for 2007-2013. 

[End of table] 

[End of section]

Appendix III: Scope and Methodology:

The objectives of our review were to evaluate the extent to which the 
Convention on Nuclear Safety is achieving its primary goal: promoting 
the safe operation of civilian nuclear power reactors worldwide. 
Specifically, we assessed (1) parties' views on the perceived benefits 
and limitations of the Convention; (2) efforts to improve the 
implementation of the Convention; and (3) how International Atomic 
Energy Agency (IAEA) programs complement the Convention's safety goals 
and objectives. In addition, we are providing information in appendix 
II about funding provided by the United States and the EU to promote 
international nuclear safety since the early 1990s.

To assess parties' views of the perceived benefits and limitations of 
the Convention and efforts to improve implementation, we (1) 
interviewed representatives of 17 nuclear and nonnuclear parties to 
the Convention as well as officials from NRC and State responsible for 
representing the United States at the Convention; (2) analyzed various 
Convention-related documents from NRC, State, IAEA, and EU; and (3) 
conducted a Web-based survey of 64[Footnote 26] parties to the 
Convention. To encourage honest and open responses to our survey, we 
pledged member countries confidentiality[Footnote 27] in their 
responses and indicated that we would report only aggregate 
information or examples that would not identify a particular party. 
The survey included questions about the usefulness of the Convention, 
the effectiveness of Convention activities, and the role of IAEA in 
the Convention.

To develop the survey questions, we analyzed the text of the 
Convention itself, as well as related rules and procedures. We also 
interviewed parties to the Convention and other experts to identify 
issues related to the Convention. Finally, we reviewed previous GAO 
reports to identify past issues and concerns related to the Convention 
and developed survey questions to gauge whether these issues were 
still relevant. The survey was pretested to ensure that (1) the 
questions were clear and unambiguous, especially to nonnative English-
speaking respondents; (2) the terms we used were precise; (3) the 
survey did not place an undue burden on the officials completing it; 
and (4) the survey was independent and unbiased. In addition, the 
survey was reviewed by an independent, internal survey expert and by 
NRC.

The survey was conducted using self-administered electronic 
questionnaires posted on the World Wide Web. We sent e-mail 
notifications to 64 parties to the Convention to alert them that we 
were conducting the survey and would be sending them log-in 
information in a separate e-mail. We also e-mailed each potential 
respondent a unique password and username to ensure that only members 
of the target population could participate in the survey. To encourage 
respondents to complete the survey, we sent an e-mail reminder to each 
nonrespondent about 2 weeks after our initial e-mail message. We also 
sent an additional e-mail reminder that extended the deadline to 
complete the survey. In addition to these e-mails, we also conducted 
extensive telephone and personalized e-mail follow-up to encourage 
those parties who contacted us with questions about the survey and to 
encourage the nonrespondents from the 17 parties whose representatives 
we interviewed to complete the survey. The survey data were collected 
from October 2009 through December 2009. Half (32) of the 64 parties 
to the Convention responded to the survey. To assess the potential for 
nonresponse bias in our survey results, we compared selected 
characteristics of nonresponding countries, such as (1) length of time 
as a party to the Convention, (2) nuclear power status and number of 
nuclear power plants, (3) region, (4) former Soviet bloc alignment, 
and (5) EU membership, to those of the responding parties. The 
distribution of these characteristics among responding and 
nonresponding parties was well-balanced. For example, 3 of the 32 
respondents have been parties to the Convention for 2 years or less, 2 
respondents for 3 to 9 years, and 27 respondents for 10 or more years. 
In addition, we also received responses from 13 nonnuclear countries 
and 19 nuclear countries and 17 EU-member countries and 15 nonmember 
countries. To eliminate data- processing errors, we independently 
verified the computer program that generated the survey results. This 
report does not contain all the results from the survey; the survey 
and a more complete tabulation of the results are provided in an 
electronic supplement to this report (this supplement can be viewed 
online at GAO-10-550SP).

To assess how IAEA programs complement the Convention's safety goals 
and objectives, we analyzed budget and other relevant documents from 
the Convention, such as meeting minutes and rules of procedure. We 
also interviewed IAEA officials; U.S. officials at the U.S. Missions 
in Vienna and Brussels; and the representatives of 17 parties to the 
Convention in Vienna, Brussels, Moscow, and Washington, D.C. To 
determine the amount of money the United States has spent promoting 
nuclear safety from the early 1990s through September 30, 2009, we 
obtained expenditure information from DOE and NRC. To assess the 
reliability of the information provided, we interviewed knowledgeable 
officials from each agency to understand (1) how they had developed 
the estimates and (2) what supporting documentation had been used to 
develop them; we determined the information provided was sufficiently 
reliable for our purposes. To determine the amount of money the EU has 
spent promoting nuclear safety from 1991 through 2006, and the amount 
they have budgeted to spend from 2007 to 2013, we obtained budget 
information from EU officials. However, the reliability of these EU 
estimates is undetermined because we did not receive responses to our 
data reliability questions. Given these limitations, we characterize 
these costs as estimates, and we use them only as background. Because 
the EU budget information was provided in euros, we converted the 
original values to dollars. In all instances, when converting euros to 
dollars, we used nominal and purchasing power parity average annual 
exchange rates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
Development. When converting euro values for future projections into 
dollars, we used the latest available annual exchange rate. In 
addition, to determine the amount of money IAEA has budgeted for 
nuclear safety in 2010, we obtained information from the agency's 
Programme and Budget for 2010-11. These IAEA budget figures--which we 
converted to dollars from euros--are also of undetermined reliability 
because we were unable to obtain sufficient detail about how they 
developed the estimates or the data sources that supported them. To 
determine the cost to the United States to participate in the 
Convention, and IAEA's costs to support the Convention for one 3-year 
cycle, we obtained expenditure information from NRC, State, and IAEA. 
To assess the reliability of this information, we also interviewed 
knowledgeable officials from each agency to understand (1) how they 
had developed the estimates and (2) what supporting documentation had 
been used to develop them. We determined the information provided by 
NRC was sufficiently reliable for our purposes. However, the 
reliability of the State and IAEA information is undetermined. The 
reliability of State estimates are unknown because staff typically 
combined work and travel related to the Convention with other work 
duties, so it is not possible to accurately determine the amount of 
money spent exclusively on Convention participation. IAEA estimates--
which we converted to dollars from euros--are of undetermined 
reliability because they do not formally track costs to run the review 
meetings.

We conducted this performance audit from February 2009 to April 2010, 
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

[End of section]

Appendix IV: 

Comments from the Department of State:

United States Department of State: 
Cheif Financial Officer: 
Washington, DC 20320: 
April 19, 2010: 

Ms. Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers: 
Managing Director: 
International Affairs and Trade: 
Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20548-0001: 

Dear Ms Williams-Bridgers: 

We appreciate the opportunity to review your draft report, "NUCLEAR 
SAFETY: Convention on Nuclear Safety Is Viewed by Most Member 
Countries as Strengthening Safety Worldwide," GAO Job Code 361054.
The enclosed Department of State comments are provided for 
incorporation with this letter as an appendix to the final report.
If you have any questions concerning this response, please contact Jan 
Fladeboe, Foreign Affairs Officer, Bureau of International Security 
and Nonproliferation at (202) 647-6957. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

James L. Millette: 

cc: GAO — Glen Levis: 
ISN — Vann Van Diepen: 
State/OIG — Tracy Burnett: 

[End of letter] 

Department of State Comments on GAO Draft Report: 

Nuclear Safety: Convention on Nuclear Safety Is Viewed by Most Member 
Countries as Strengthening Safety Worldwide (GA0-10-489, GAO Code 
361054): 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on your draft report entitled 
"Nuclear Safety: Convention on Nuclear Safety Is Viewed by Most Member 
Countries as Strengthening Safety Worldwide." With the anticipated 
growth in the number of nations worldwide that operate nuclear power 
plants, the role of the Convention on Nuclear Safety will become more 
important in ensuring the safe operation of these plants. 

Promotion of the safe operation of nuclear reactors worldwide is one 
of the U.S. Government's top foreign policy and national security 
priorities. The Convention on Nuclear Safety plays a very important 
role in the realization of that. However, it must be understood that 
the Convention is an incentive instrument. It is not designed to 
ensure fulfillment of obligations by Parties through control and 
sanction but is based on their common interest to achieve higher 
levels of safety which will be developed and promoted through regular 
meetings of the Parties. The Convention obliges Parties to submit 
reports on the implementation of their obligations for "peer review" 
at meetings of the Parties to be held at the IAEA. The GAO report 
focuses on suggested changes to these reports and their promulgation 
to the public. 

The Department of State generally concurs with the recommendation to 
encourage Parties to include performance metrics in national reports 
to better track safety in civilian nuclear power plants and help 
countries more systematically measure where and how they have made 
progress in improving safety. However, it must be recognized that it 
will be difficult to achieve metrics that would be meaningful across 
so many countries' nuclear power programs. Further, due to the 
consensus nature of the Convention, it will also be difficult to agree 
on the specific metrics to be used. 

The Department of State generally concurs in efforts to increase the 
numbers of Parties' national reports made available to the public by 
posting them to the IAEA's public Web site. However, this initiative 
will run counter to strong concerns regarding confidentiality of 
information on civilian nuclear power plants held by many Parties. 

While the Department of State generally concurs in the promotion of 
greater public dissemination of Parties' written answers to questions 
about their nuclear power programs by posting this information to the 
IAEA's public Web site, again the concern of Parties over the 
confidentiality of information on their respective civilian nuclear 
power programs will make this problematical. 

All of the above suggestions are in conflict with the IAEA's precept 
that it is up to each Party to determine what information should be 
made public and what should remain confidential. This is an important 
aspect of the Convention and its implementation, and is one of the 
factors that have convinced countries to join the Convention. 

In addition, the GAO report somewhat mischaracterizes the Convention 
in its criticism that it "does not require that unsafe reactors should 
be shut down." The Convention was never meant to have that authority, 
which would be contrary to IAEA practice and policy. It is the 
position of the IAEA and Member States that each country operating 
nuclear power plants should have its own national regulatory agency 
that would have the authority to shut down plants. If the GAO report's 
position were taken, then the United States would be in a situation 
where an outside international body would have the authority to shut 
down a U.S. reactor, even over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 
authority. Further, the Convention does not require the imposition of 
sanctions when countries do not follow the safety principles the 
Parties are called upon to follow. 

[End of section]

Appendix V: Comments from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

United States: 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: 
Washington, D.C. 20555-0001: 

April 16, 2010: 

Mr. Gene Aloise, Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 
Government Accountability Office 441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Mr. Aloise: 

I would like to thank you for the opportunity to review and submit 
comments on the April 2010 draft of the U.S. Government Accountability 
Office (GAO) report "Convention on Nuclear Safety is Viewed by Most 
Member Countries as Strengthening Safety Worldwide." 

In general, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) agrees with 
the draft GAO report. However, I am providing certain technical 
comments concerning the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) in the 
attached enclosure. 

Should you have any questions about these comments, please contact Mr. 
Jesse Arildsen of my staff at (301) 415-1785 or at 
Jesse.Arildsen@nrc.gov. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

R. W. Borchardt: 
Executive Director for Operations: 

Enclosure: 
NRC Technical Comments Regarding GA Draft Report, GAO 10-489: 

cc: Chairman Jaczko: 
Commissioner Svinicki: 
Commissioner Apostolakis: 
Commissioner Magwood: 
Commissioner Ostendorff. 

[End of section] 

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:

GAO Contact:

Gene Aloise, (202) 512-3841, or aloisee@gao.gov:

Staff Acknowledgments:

In addition to the individual named above, Glen Levis, Assistant 
Director; Dr. Timothy Persons, Chief Scientist; Antoinette Capaccio; 
Frederick Childers; Nancy Crothers; Bridget Grimes; Kirsten Lauber; 
Rebecca Shea; and Kevin Tarmann made key contributions to this report.

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] On April 26, 1986, the worst accident in the history of civilian 
nuclear power occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 
Ukraine, where an explosion destroyed the core of a reactor containing 
approximately 200 tons of nuclear fuel. The explosion also destroyed 
much of the reactor building, severed the reactor's cooling pipes, and 
spewed hot fragments of reactor fuel from the core. The explosion and 
heat from the reactor core propelled radioactive material up to 6 
miles high, where it was then dispersed over 60,000 square miles of 
land primarily in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Smaller amounts of 
radioactive material spread over Eastern and Western Europe and 
Scandinavia and were even detected in the United States.

[2] Safety culture implies individual and organizational awareness of 
and commitment to the importance of safety. It also refers to the 
personal dedication and accountability of all individuals engaged in 
any activity that has a bearing on the safety of nuclear power plants.

[3] Appendix I contains a list of these countries.

[4] The Convention also requires that no more than 3 years pass 
between meetings held to review national reports.

[5] IAEA, an independent international organization based in Vienna, 
Austria, that is affiliated with the United Nations, has the dual 
mission of promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and verifying 
that nuclear technologies and materials intended for peaceful purposes 
are not diverted to weapons development efforts. IAEA had 151 member 
states as of March 2010.

[6] GAO, Nuclear Safety: Progress Toward International Agreement to 
Improve Reactor Safety, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/RCED-93-153] (Washington, D.C.: May 
14, 1993); GAO, Nuclear Safety: Uncertainties about the Implementation 
and Costs of the Nuclear Safety Convention, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/RCED-97-39] (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 2, 
1997); and GAO, Nuclear Safety: The Convention on Nuclear Safety, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/T-RCED-99-127] 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 17, 1999).

[7] At the time we disseminated our survey in October 2009, the 
Convention had not yet entered into force for two other countries, 
Libya and the United Arab Emirates, and we did not include them in our 
survey. 

[8] GAO, Nuclear Safety: Concerns with the Continuing Operation of 
Soviet-Designed Nuclear Power Reactors, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/RCED-00-97] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 
25, 2000). 

[9] GAO, Nuclear Safety: Construction of the Protective Shelter for 
the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor Faces Schedule Delays, Potential Cost 
Increases, and Technical Uncertainties, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-923] (Washington, D.C.: July 19, 
2007).

[10] The mission of the NEA is to assist its member countries in 
maintaining and further developing, through international cooperation, 
the scientific, technological and legal bases required for the safe 
and economical use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 

[11] WENRA is an organization composed of the chief nuclear regulators 
of EU countries with nuclear power plants and other interested 
European countries. WENRA's main objectives are to facilitate the 
exchange of nuclear safety information and experience among 
regulators, develop a common approach to nuclear safety, and provide 
an independent capability to examine nuclear safety in affiliated 
countries.

[12] ENSREG is an independent, authoritative expert body composed of 
senior officials from national regulatory or nuclear safety 
authorities from all 27 member states in the EU.

[13] According to NRC, a critical element of the U.S. international 
safety assistance administered by NRC since the early 1990s has been 
to promote the independence and effectiveness of countries' nuclear 
regulatory authorities.

[14] INPO is a private organization established by American nuclear 
power plant operators to promote the safe and reliable operation of 
nuclear power plants.

[15] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/T-RCED-99-127].

[16] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/T-RCED-99-127].

[17] WANO was established in 1989 to improve nuclear power plant 
safety worldwide. Every organization in the world that operates a 
nuclear electricity generating plant is a member of WANO. Members work 
together to improve nuclear safety through power plant assessments, 
benchmarks, mutual support, the sharing of information, and the 
promoting of best practices.

[18] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/T-RCED-99-127].

[19] The Soviet-designed RBMK (reactor bolshoy moshchnosty kanalny, or 
in English, high-power channel reactor) is a pressurized water reactor 
that uses ordinary water as its coolant and solid graphite (a form of 
carbon), a very pure form of the same graphite found in pencils, as 
its moderator. These reactors were favored by the former Soviet Union 
primarily because, in addition to producing both power (electricity 
and heat) and plutonium, they were able to be refueled while the 
reactor was still running. This ability was important to the Soviet 
Union's national security. 

[20] Bulgaria and Slovakia operated a different type of Soviet-
designed reactor: the VVER-440-230. The VVER-440-230 is also an 
inherently unsafe reactor design, according to nuclear safety experts.

[21] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/RCED-97-39].

[22] Officers--a president and two vice presidents (one each from a 
nuclear power country and a nonnuclear country)--are elected for the 
upcoming review meeting at the organizational meeting. In addition, 
four officers are elected for each of the six country groups: a 
chairperson, vice-chairperson, rapporteur, and coordinator.

[23] Presently, NRC officials told us that parties are assigned to one 
of six country groups according to their number of operating civilian 
nuclear power reactors. For example, as the party with the most 
reactors, the United States is assigned to group 1; France, with the 
second largest number of reactors, is assigned to group 2; and Japan, 
with the third largest number, is assigned to group 3. This process 
continues until all the countries with operating civilian nuclear 
power reactors are assigned to country groups. Nonnuclear countries 
are assigned to each of the six groups on a random basis.

[24] GAO, Nuclear Nonproliferation: Strengthened Oversight Needed to 
Address Proliferation and Management Challenges in IAEA's Technical 
Cooperation Program, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-275] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 5, 
2009). 

[25] "Reinforcing the Global Nuclear Order for Peace and Prosperity: 
The Role of the IAEA to 2020 and Beyond," prepared by an independent 
commission at the request of the Director General of the IAEA (May 
2008).

[26] As of the time we disseminated our survey, the Convention had not 
yet entered into force for two other countries, Libya and the United 
Arab Emirates, and we could not send our survey to a country for which 
it had not entered into force.

[27] We informed respondents that GAO is not authorized to withhold 
information from Congress, but that we received a written agreement 
from our congressional requester that he would not ask for 
individually identifiable survey information. 

[End of section] 

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