Experimental Procedure

4. THE NEXT TEN YEARS: ADDRESSING THE EVOLVING NEEDS OF

activities are supported by the development of reference and training material, notably the handbooks on nuclear law published in 2006 and 2010 [2, 3].

4.2.1. The Nuclear Law Institute (NLI)

The training objective of the NLI is to provide participants with a solid understanding of all aspects of nuclear law and with the skills needed to draft, amend or review national nuclear legislation.

In order to achieve this objective, the programme addresses all areas of nuclear law: nuclear safety, security, safeguards and non-proliferation and nuclear liability and insurance. Drawing on teaching methods based on interaction and practice, the NLI provides a combination of impulse lectures covering the fundamentals of nuclear law, facilitated small group sessions (or TOPs) focusing on the implementation of the information from the lectures and a number of legislative drafting exercises in the context of forum issue groups (or FIGs). In addition, special sessions allow participants to gain in-depth knowledge of topics of specific interest.

Since its inception, the NLI has trained more than 600 lawyers and other officials from Member States, many of which have played a leading role in the establishment or update of national nuclear legislation in their countries. An IAEA-managed LinkedIn page supports networking among NLI alumni.

4.2.2. National and regional training activities

Due the limitation in the number of participants that may be accepted each year to the NLI programme, normally not more than one participant per country, the NLI is not sufficient to address the training needs of Member States. National and regional activities play therefore and important role in meeting these training needs, reaching a wider audience at the national level and allowing focused attention on the regional or national circumstances.

Regional workshops with a training component on nuclear law are conducted every 3–4 years and have proved very useful to facilitate an exchange of experiences and lessons learned and to create networking opportunities on nuclear law at the regional level. National training courses and workshops are conducted at the country’s request and tailored to their specific needs. In many cases, there is an interest in providing through these training activities nuclear law training to officials from non-nuclear institutions, as a way to improve understanding of the specificities of the field and facilitating the interaction of the nuclear regulatory authorities within the overall national institutional framework.

Since 2011, more than 70 of these national and regional training courses and workshops have been conducted.

4.2.3. Fellowships and scientific visits

Fellows and scientific visitors may be hosted at the Office of Legal Affairs to support Member States in implementing a specific project or assessing priority topics on nuclear law representing a need that requires individual consultations or tailored training that cannot be addressed through general training programmes. Fellowships and scientific visits have been particularly relevant for projects linked to legislative proposals related to national legislation or treaty adherence or to the revision of the national legal framework.

4.2.4. Assessing results (2011–2020)

Between 2011 and 2020 IAEA regional and interregional training activities in nuclear law have benefited more than 1000 officials from Member States, while close to 60 fellows and scientific visitors have been hosted by the Office of Legal Affairs. With more than 60 national training courses and workshops conducted since 2011, the number of officials having benefitted from these activities is estimated at 800–1000.

4.3. CURRENT TRAINING NEEDS IN MEMBER STATES

An assessment of needs in Member States at the regional and national level, as reflected in the legislative assistance workplans agreed with Member States between 2014 and 2020 under the relevant technical cooperation projects, shows that training in nuclear law and the related international legal instruments is one of the key areas where IAEA assistance continues to be required, not only for the training of drafters, but also for the training of specific groups or training on particular topics of regional or subregional interest.

4.3.1. Training for drafters

IAEA training has traditionally focused in helping officials in Member States develop the skills needed for drafting nuclear legislation, in line with their international obligations, and in helping them gain the knowledge needed to assess and advice on the implications of adhering to the relevant international legal instruments.

With a significant number of countries involved in drafting or revising nuclear legislation, or planning to do so, the demand in training for drafters remains high and will continue to be addressed through the NLI and its interactive programme and complemented where needed and requested through tailored national activities.

4.3.2. Training for policymakers and stakeholders

Experience shows that there may be delays in the legislative process when senior officials, decision-makers and non-nuclear stakeholders are not aware of the specificities of nuclear law.

This has led to an increasing demand from Member States for the conduct of awareness missions, workshops and other activities to help them gain a better understanding in this respect in support of the legislative process.

Training for policymakers is challenging as it needs to be kept at a high-level while providing a clear picture on the nuclear law topics requiring policy decisions at the national level and on the specificities of nuclear law of which they need to be aware of when considering joining international legal instruments or deciding on national legislation in the nuclear field. These interactions are supported by targeted reference material such as the legal briefs for policymakers developed in the recent years [4 – 7]. For institutional stakeholders, the goal of the training is to provide a good understanding on the interrelations between the nuclear legislation and their respective legal framework so that they may be in a position to provide useful input to the legislative process.

4.3.3. Training for legal advisers and regulators

In response to requests from Member States, a meeting for legal advisers of regulatory bodies was held in Vienna in 2019, during which participants exchanged on their role in the development and maintenance of the national legal and regulatory framework and in the

exercise of regulatory functions for the control of facilities and activities involving nuclear technology. They also considered that increased training and networking opportunities would be very useful to support them in their role.

Training for legal advisers, including on the areas where legal support is normally required and the competences needed, was considered particularly relevant for Member States having only recently enacted nuclear legislation and/or established a legal and regulatory framework for the control of facilities and activities involving nuclear technology.

4.3.4. Training for trainers

As Member States seek to enhance self-reliance, rather than relying only in the Agency training to satisfy all the internal demand, there is an increased focus on train-the-trainer programmes.

With such programmes in place, officials trained by the Agency may further a multiplying effect, enhancing impact and sustainability at the national level.

The requests for the development of training curricula and train-the-trainer programmes in nuclear law have therefore grown in the last years, particularly from Member States introducing nuclear power programmes that face appointments of new legal staff at nuclear regulatory bodies and operating organizations on a regular basis and that would like to complement Agency national and regional training opportunities with their own programmes to face the need for ongoing training. These programmes seek to provide future trainers with the tools needed for teaching nuclear law in their respective countries, including the development of soft skills through practical exercises.

4.4.OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE

4.4.1. The NLI: An Evolving Programme

The NLI has made a major contribution to the establishment and maintenance of adequate national nuclear legal frameworks in Member States. A key to the success of the programme is that it has evolved throughout the years based on the feedback received from facilitators, lecturers and participants. New lectures and special sessions on topics like terminology in nuclear law, the legal framework for small modular reactors and for a nuclear power programme, have been introduced in response to this feedback. New self-assessment and practical exercises have also been introduced and adapted to lessons learned from previous sessions.

The NLI team will continue to monitor trends and developments in the international and national contexts so that they may be factored into the programme. Based on feedback from NLI alumni, special sessions, which address topics of interest for Member States, such as the legal framework for a nuclear power programme and for small modular reactors and the legal aspects of decommissioning of nuclear facilities, among others, are expected to be expanded to address also areas like decommissioning of radiation facilities, liability for radiological damage other than nuclear damage and the return of radioactive sources to the country of origin at the end of their useful life.

4.4.2. Regional and topical approaches

Feedback from participants consistently rates the NLI as a unique networking and interaction opportunity among lawyers from different regions and legal systems, but questions are also often raised as to whether the NLI could be replicated in other languages so that a higher number

of participants may benefit from the programme, including those that may not have the necessary language skills to apply for the NLI, which is conducted only in English. To address these issues, regional training approaches on nuclear law are expected to increase in the coming years to complement the NLI, in line with regional needs, interests and priorities. These approaches could be facilitated through collaborative arrangements with regional or national training or education centres, as some Member States have expressed interest in hosting centres for training in nuclear law at the regional level.

4.4.3. Virtual and online training

The Agency has always been actively involved in the development of online and e-learning modules as part of its capacity building activities. The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 that led to the postponement of face-to-face training activities, including the 2020 session of the NLI that was scheduled for the month of October, highlighted however the importance of further focusing on these training modalities. In this context, a series of interactive webinars on nuclear law was launched for the first time in October 2020 with the aim of enhancing awareness of the role and importance of nuclear law and providing an opportunity for officials to engage in a virtual information exchange on related topics. Structured in three parts and comprising nine webinars, the series ran from October to December 2020. The high number of participants in the series, for an average of 500 registered participants per webinar, shows the continued interest and availability of Member States to engage in learning activities through alternative means and the importance of finding innovative approaches for training.

An e-learning module was developed in 2018 to provide an overview on the development of a legal framework for the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technology, including for a nuclear power programme [8]. It has become however necessary to expand the offer for online training in nuclear law and to develop a full-fledged training course that would be available online for Member States. To enhance impact, the online course should preferably be available in several languages, not only in English. Along the same lines, virtual workshops and meetings with Member States on different aspects of nuclear law are expected to increase, with approximately 10 of such activities in planning as of August 2020.

4.4.4. Partnerships and networking

The Agency is not alone in providing training in nuclear law. Other international organizations, as well as educational centres and universities in Member States, also offer training in this area.

In the framework of the technical cooperation programme, the Agency grants fellowships for participation in the International School of Nuclear Law (ISNL) conducted annually by the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency in collaboration with the Montpellier University. It also grants fellowships for participation in nuclear law conferences like the Inter Jura Congress of the International Nuclear Law Association (INLA). Additionally, several Member States with experienced regulatory bodies have agreed to host, as scientific visitors, legal advisers of newly established regulators to support them in gaining a better understanding of their role in providing legal support to the exercise of regulatory functions. In some cases, rather than providing training, the role of the Agency is to provide a forum for officials from Member States, such as legal advisers of regulatory bodies, to exchange on current topics of interest.

In this context, the Agency will continue its focus on strengthening partnerships to increase and maximize the impact of training and networking opportunities in nuclear law. The first international conference on nuclear law to be held in 2022 will provide an opportunity to

identify and explore possible modalities to expand regional, international, South-South and triangular cooperation in this field.

4.5.CONCLUSION

The increase in demand for legislative assistance in drafting nuclear legislation led in 2011 to a dedicated formal training programme, the NLI, to address this need in Member States. The design of the NLI programme drew on decades of Agency experience in providing drafting assistance to its Member States. With the further evolution of the legislative assistance programme to also address the needs of Member States in terms of nuclear law training and awareness-raising of national officials in other contexts, together with the demand for further regional, topical and online training and networking opportunities, it appears timely to formally recognize and consolidate these needs and experience through specific programmes.

It is therefore expected that in the coming years, while the NLI remains the main general training programme on nuclear law and legislative drafting, there will also be a focus on specific training modules, curricula or networking opportunities for the groups that have been identified in Member States as particularly important, such as legal advisers of regulatory bodies, policymakers and trainers, as well as an increase in the offer of virtual and online training programmes on nuclear law, with an emphasis on multilingualism.

The identification of innovative training approaches and strategic partnerships with other training providers at the national, regional and international levels will necessarily be a key driver in the development and implementation of these initiatives.

REFERENCES

[1] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, Nuclear Law for a Developing World. Legal Series No. 5, IAEA, Vienna (1969).

[2] STOIBER, C., BAER, A., PELZER, N., TONHAUSER, W., Handbook on Nuclear Law, IAEA, Vienna (2003)

[3] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, Handbook on Nuclear Law: Implementing Legislation, IAEA, Vienna (2010).

[4] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, Legal Brief for Policymakers, The Importance of Having and Adequate National Legal Framework for the Safe, Secure and Peaceful Use of Nuclear Technology, IAEA, Vienna (2017).

[5] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, The Legal Framework for IAEA Safeguards, Legal Brief 2018/2, IAEA, Vienna (2018).

[6] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, Legal Framework on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage, Legal Brief 2020/2, IAEA, Vienna (2020).

[7] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, The Legal Framework for Nuclear Security, Legal Brief 2020/1, IAEA, Vienna (2020).

[8] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, E-Learning Module on Legal Framework, IAEA, Vienna (2018).

5. THE IMPACT OF IAEA’S LEGISLATIVE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME IN