RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
AND DECOMMISSIONING at the nea
The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) seeks to assist its member countries indeveloping safe, sustainable and societally acceptable strategies for the management of
all types of radioactive materials, with particular emphasis on the management of longlived waste and spent fuel and on decommissioning of disused nuclear facilities. The
programme of work in these areas is carried out for the most part by the Radioactive
Waste Management Committee (RWMC) assisted by three working parties:• T he Forum on Stakeholder Confidence (FSC).
• T he Integration Group for the Safety Case (IGSC).
• T he Working Party on Decommissioning and Dismantling (WPDD).
Other NEA Committees also have interests in this field: the Committee on Radiation
Protection and Public Health (CRPPH) and the Nuclear Development Committee(NDC).

Composition and mandate of the RWMC
The NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee is a long-established international committee ofsenior representatives from regulatory authorities, radioactive waste management and decommissioningorganisations, policy making bodies, and research-and-development institutions from the NEA countries.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) participates in the work of the RWMC, and the European
Commission (EC) is a full member of the Committee. The RWMC maintains strong ties with national
high-level advisory bodies to governments and with transnational bodies such as the International
Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). Collaboration also takes place with the GovernanceDirectorate of the OECD.
The purpose of the RWMC is to support international co-operation in the long-term management ofmaterial from nuclear installations, including facility decommissioning. The Committee:• Fosters a shared and broad-based understanding of the state of the art and emerging issues.
• Facilitates the elaboration of waste management strategies that respect societal requirements.
•H elps to provide common bases to the national regulatory frameworks.
• E nables the management of radioactive waste and materials to benefit from progress of scientific andtechnical knowledge, e.g., through joint projects and specialist meetings.
• Contributes to knowledge consolidation and transfer, e.g., through the publication of technical reports,

consensus statements, and short flyers.
•H elps to advance best practice, e.g., by supporting international peer reviews.
The regulator members of the RWMC also meet separately. They exchange and report on topics ofspecific regulatory interest in the RWMC Regulators’ Forum (RWMC-RF) and orient the discussion ofsuch issues within the full Committee.

Our website www.oecd-nea.org/rwm has hyperlinks to RWMC documents.

NUCLEAR•ENERGY•AGENCY

RWMC
Radioactive Waste
Management Committee

Overview of recent RWMC initiatives and outcomes• The latest collective statement of the RWMC on “Moving forward with geological disposal ofradioactive waste” dates to 2008 (a summary 2-page flyer is available).
• The latest peer review is that of “Dossier 2005”, the national French study for the geologicaldisposal of long-lived high- and medium-level radioactive waste.
• The RWMC promotes multi-stakeholder national workshops from which important lessons
have been drawn. The latest workshop (April 2009) was in France, in the siting region for thenational HLW repository.
• The RWMC manages a database of country information, in the form of 30-page country reports
and 10-page country profiles. A summary of the regulatory infrastructure in NEA countries isalso maintained.
• Current work areas include:– Promoting greater understanding and integration of radioactive waste management anddecommissioning disciplines.
– An international project on the topic of “reversibility and retrievability” culminating in a
conference-dialogue in Reims (France) in Dec. 2010.
– Assisting in the organisation of an “International Conference on Geological Repositories”
in Japan in 2011 (follow-on to the Berne conference of 2007).
– Dialogue with ICRP which is intended to lead to the revision of ICRP guidance in the fieldof disposal.
– A project on preservation of records, knowledge and memory (RK&M).
• Current technical and conceptual topics in the field of disposal include: optimisation, dealing
with very long time scales, evaluating the state of the art in safety assessment methods, andthe operation phase of repositories.
• Current decommissioning topics include: the management of large components, research anddevelopment needs, standardisation of reporting norms for decommissioning cost estimates,and cost control on decommissioning projects.
• Further work is carried out through the joint International Co-operative Programme for theExchange of Scientific and Technical Information Concerning Decommissioning Projects (CPD).
• Current study areas in societal confidence include: the interests and roles of regional authorities,
how to increase the knowledge base of journalists, providing added value (beyond economicbenefits) to communities hosting waste management facilities.
A wide range of documents is produced by the RWMC and its working parties. Most can be
downloaded via the web, including short brochures and 2-page flyers for quick consultation andbroad distribution.

The OECD/NEA is at the forefront in addressing both the technical and societal requirements fordurable and sustainable waste management and decommissioning solutions. Through the RWMC
it provides a neutral forum where policy makers, regulators and implementing organisations candiscuss issues of common interest and develop solutions that meet the diverse needs of its member
countries.

NUCLEAR•ENERGY•AGENCY

Radioactive Waste
Management Committee

November 2010