 Ladies and gentlemen, nuclear law addresses a highly complex, specialized and technical field. This can make it seem inaccessible even to experts in other areas of law, let alone diplomats, scientists and the general public. In October, we launched a webinar series on nuclear law for government officials from IAEA Member States. In response to the interest we received from industry, law firms, NGOs, civil society, academia and the general public, we have decided to hold this further webinar. It is our aim to shed some more light on what we do, how we do it and why we do it within the context of nuclear law. Let's start with the why. The applications of nuclear science and technology play a vital role in our daily life. Yet, for many outside the global nuclear enterprise, this contribution largely goes unnoticed. The IAEA is better known for being the world's nuclear guardian than for its work helping to spread the peaceful use of nuclear technology, especially in developing countries. Yet, the safe, secure, peaceful use of nuclear technology and its applications have the potential to meet a wide variety of basic socio-economic and human development needs in many areas. These include human health and nutrition, water resource management, food and agriculture, marine and coastal protection and climate change mitigation. The best known peaceful application of nuclear technology is of course nuclear power. Today, 442 nuclear power reactors operating in 32 countries satisfy about 10% of the world's energy needs without emitting emissions that cause climate change. Medical uses of ionizing radiation are among the longest established applications of ionizing radiation. Millions of patients are treated safely with radiotherapy every year to cure or control symptoms of cancer, for example. Nuclear's benefits are so comprehensive that the application of nuclear technology directly contributes to no fewer than 9 of the UN's 17 sustainable development goals. But ionizing radiation can also pose risks to the safety of us humans and the environment. These risks need to be carefully assessed, managed and controlled without unduly limiting the contribution nuclear makes to our well-being and economic development. Neither the threat of nuclear terrorism nor the consequences of accidents have much respect for national borders. And so, while nuclear safety and security are national responsibilities, they are also of international concern. Nuclear technology therefore requires special legal norms. Such norms are not of today. They date back to the 1940s and have been established at international, at regional and at national levels in three primary areas. Safety, security and safeguards or non-proliferation. As this webinar will highlight, nuclear law also covers civil liability for nuclear damage. A basic feature of nuclear law is its dual focus on risks and benefits. Several important principles lie at the heart of this field of law. These include responsibility, continuous control compliance, independence. Another important principle is international cooperation. In this webinar, we will highlight these principles. Nuclear law is dynamic. As in other fields, development at the international level can be progressive or they can be reactive. Examples of the latter are the developments in nuclear safety and liability following the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi accidents. And nuclear law does not exist in a vacuum, obviously. International legal instruments coexist with other instruments such as those focused on the protection of the environment. And they are interrelated. So you see, ladies and gentlemen, a comprehensive national legal framework is needed to provide a legal basis for the adequate protection of individuals, society and the environment, now and in the future, against the harmful effects of ionizing radiation. Only when we are confident that risks have been limited can we fully benefit from the contribution of nuclear technology and its applications to our lives and livelihoods. In this regard, the IAA plays a multifaceted role. Our work ranges from concluding agreements with states such as those we have on safeguards to helping our member states comply with their international obligations and commitments through drafting corresponding national legislation. And then, of course, there is the role for which people know us best, that of guardian. In safeguards, the agency has a legally mandated independent verification role to ensure states honor their obligation to use nuclear material and technology exclusively for peaceful purposes. While our lawyers help draft laws, our inspectors go out and make sure states are adhering to one of the most central agreements in international law, the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Before I bid you farewell, I would like to mention one upcoming conference that might interest you. I'm sure it will interest you. I recently decided to convene the IAEA's first international conference on nuclear law. It is planned to be held on the 7th to the 11th of February 2022 here at our headquarters in Vienna. This conference will provide a unique forum for leading global experts from government, industry, academia and civil society to share experiences and debate topical issues. If you are interested in joining us, and I am confident this webinar will give you plenty of information to help you prepare. I thank you for participating and wish you an informative and stimulating time. Welcome to today's webinar on nuclear law in practice. My name is Perry Lynn Johnson and I'm the legal advisor and director of the Office of Legal Affairs here at the IAEA. I'm really happy to be with you today in this virtual format to talk about the role of the IAEA. And in my remarks, I will include a brief segue into nuclear law. And after my presentation, you'll be hearing from my colleague, Wolfram Tonhouser, section head of the Nuclear Entreaty Law section, and he's going to be presenting an introduction to nuclear law. As you heard from the director general in his introductory remarks, he touched on the significance of our work and illustrated that we facilitate the benefits of nuclear science and technology, but also help to manage its risks through nuclear law. So now we are setting the stage by having a closer look at the IAEA and its part in developing and implementing these special legal norms. So we'll begin with some figures. We will look at the origins of the IAEA, our statute, mandate, and then proceed with more on the structure of the IAEA and the responsibilities of the director general, the secretariat, and policymaking organs. After an overview of the IAEA's programed activities, we will conclude with several points that link the organization's functions and the law governing nuclear safety, security, safeguards, and liability, which we refer to as the four pillars of nuclear law. So let me start by sharing some basic figures about our organization. The IAEA is an intergovernmental organization with 172 member states. As a matter of fact, Comoros deposited its instrument of acceptance to our statute just a few weeks ago, making it the last and the newest member state of the IAEA. We have a diverse staff body of over 2,500 staff coming from over 100 countries. And we work primarily here in Vienna, Austria, our headquarters, but we do have a few offices outside of our headquarters. We have two liaison or otherwise referred to as representative offices in Geneva, Switzerland, and New York. In his opening remarks, the director general mentioned that our safeguards inspectors go out to make sure that states adhere to their commitments. And inspectors do travel to a great many states in the context of their work, rain or shine. To support them, we have two regional safeguards offices in Tokyo, Japan and Toronto, Canada. We also run scientific laboratories. We have two in Austria, one here at our headquarters and one in cyber store just outside of Vienna. And we also have a third laboratory in Monaco. So we're a relatively large organization with most of the world's states as our member states. And before we have a closer look at our structure and operations, I would like to share a little bit with you about our origin and our legal foundation. So the idea of an organization such as the IAEA arose from U.S. President Eisenhower's Adams for Peace address to the U.N. General Assembly on 8 December 1953. The address helped to shape the IAEA statute, which 81 nations unanimously approved in October 1956. It entered into force in July of the following year and has since been amended three times. The statute is the founding document of the IAEA and is to our organization the same as the U.N. Charter is to the United Nations. It sets out inter alia, our objectives, our functions, what we're authorized to do. In fact, everything we do as an organization has its foundation in the statute. We'll come back to the statute in a moment. I would like to first briefly note two other agreements of particular importance to the IAEA. If you look at the IAEA emblem, you will see it has certain similarities to the United Nations emblem. This is not an accident. We are frequently asked to explain our relationship with the United Nations. Some are surprised to learn that the IAEA is in fact an autonomous intergovernmental organization, meaning our director general does not report to the secretary general. Our relationship is governed by a relationship agreement, which is a treaty, and the basis for that relationship agreement is in our statute. In this context, the IAEA regularly reports to the U.N. General Assembly about the work of the agency and also to the U.N. Security Council if any questions related to our activities fall within the competence of the council, including matters related to non-compliance of member states with their safeguards obligations. Sometimes we are confused with specialized agencies of the U.N., such as WHO, the World Health Organization, or UNESCO. But actually, we're not a specialized agency because that has a specific meaning and means in fact that these are organizations who have a relationship agreement with the United Nations based on Article 63 of the U.N. Charter. The second treaty I wanted to mention is our host state agreement. This regulates our relationship with the Republic of Austria, and it's the basis for which we maintain our headquarters here in Vienna. On the current slide, you can see a picture of our original headquarters at the old Grand Hotel right next to the Vienna Opera House. Since 1979, we've had our headquarters across the Danube at the Vienna International Center. We share this headquarters with sister U.N. organizations, the U.N. Office of Vienna, which includes also the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, U.N.O.D.C., the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, which we refer to as UNIDO, and the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, which we refer to as the CTBTO PREPCOM. So we're going to turn now to our statutory objectives. And I have my statute here, and you may wish to follow along with me because I'll be referring to a number of provisions in the statute. This is the treaty that established us, and in Article 2 of this statute, you will see that our objectives are, and I'm quoting, to seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health, and prosperity throughout the world. On the one hand, this is one of our key objectives. And on the other hand, I'm also quoting, to ensure so far as it is able that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose. This objective is central to the role of the IAEA, and it reflects both the fears and expectations resulting from the use of nuclear energy. And simply put, our mission is to manage this overall nuclear dilemma. On the one hand, we're mandated to develop and facilitate the beneficial application of nuclear energy and nuclear technology. And on the other hand, to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons throughout the world. As concerns the peaceful uses of atomic energy and that there is no use of atomic energy to further any military purpose, we are authorized to establish and administer safeguards. This is an article 3A5 of the statute. These safeguards include not just accounting of nuclear material, but also on-site inspections. As concerns promoting nuclear energy, the agency was foreseen to act between its members as an intermediary, and also as a provider of materials, services, equipment and facilities, as may be requested by a member. The agency was also conceived as a nuclear pool into which states would deposit special and source materials. This is an article 8 of the statute. Article 9, 10, 11 and 12, if you're interested you can refer to those provisions, and you will see where these aspects that I've just mentioned are addressed. Balancing these two statutory goals of promotion and control has been a significant challenge, but also one which the IAEA has effectively achieved as was recognized through the award of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. So we're going to now look more closely at the structure of the IAEA. First, the Director General. He is the Chief Administrative Officer of the IAEA. A number of offices report to him directly, including the Office of Legal Affairs, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, the Secretariat of the Policymaking Organs, and the Office of Public Information and Communication. In addition, the Director General has appointed six Deputy Director Generals. These Deputy Director Generals head each one of the six major departments of the organization. As provided for in the statute, now we're looking at Article 7 of the statute, the staff of the IAEA, or the Secretariat, is headed by the Director General as the Chief Administrative Officer. And the Director General, you actually met him in his introductory remarks earlier. He joined the organization as our head on 3 December 2019. And on the slide, you see some images of his predecessors. The Director General is appointed by the Board of Governors with the approval of the General Conference for a renewable term of four years. And as previously noted, the Secretariat presently comprises some 2,500 staff coming from over 100 countries. In fact, in the legal office alone, and we're only about 30 staff, we have over 17 countries represented. We're turning now to our policymaking organs. We have two, the Board of Governors and the General Conference, each of them being established through the statute. The General Conference is addressed in Article 5, and it is the plenary policymaking body of the IAEA composed of representatives of all of our member states. Similar to the General Assembly of the United Nations, the General Conference conducts a general debate on relevant current issues and the IAEA's policies and programs and passes resolutions on the various areas of work of the IAEA. The General Conference last convened in September of this year, and like many other international organizations, we facilitated the conference in a hybrid format combining a physical presence with virtual elements in view of the current circumstances that we're all living in. The Board of Governors is addressed in Article 6 of the statute, and it is the executive organ of the IAEA. Everything we're doing in the agency goes through the Board. It meets five times per year in March and June, twice in September, and also in November, and it's composed of 35 member states. We're going to turn now to our program and activities. The Director General noted that the agency is perhaps best known for its role in establishing and administering safeguards to ensure that nuclear material and technology is used only for peaceful purposes. However, the agency has a much broader mandate and scope of activities as defined under Article 3 of the statute. If we look to the agency program and budget for 2021, we will see that the IAEA has six major programs with three key areas of focus. Nuclear science and technology, nuclear safety and security, as well as safeguards and verification. Turning to nuclear science and technology, the IAEA contributes to harnessing the potential of nuclear science and technology acting as the world's focal point for scientific and technical cooperation in the nuclear field. The work aims to fight poverty, sickness and pollution of the Earth's environment by producing tangible contributions to nine of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals otherwise referred to as the SDGs. These are set out in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. For example, by assisting with the development of sustainable and climate smart agricultural practices, tracing of soil contaminants, treatment of cancer, detection of water pollutants in ocean acidification, or testing of industrial facilities for structural integrity. And that work, by the way, was recently done in Lebanon after the explosion at the port. We had a team of experts who were helping to check the infrastructure. The IAEA supports our member states in accomplishing all of these activities which touch on SDGs 2, 3, 6, 9, 13, 14 and 15. In the context of technical cooperation, we support cooperative projects achieving tangible social and economic benefits for people in our member states. This type of cooperation in and of itself contributes to furthering Sustainable Development Goals 17, which is all about partnerships for the goals. In the context of our TC work, a variety of channels and partnerships provide expert services, specialized equipment, training and other types of support. These projects, whether on nuclear power, knowledge management, human health, water management, environment, or identification of pollution sources, help our member states to address these needs. Globally, safety and security make up the largest proportion of the TC program, spending, followed by health and nutrition, and then by food and agriculture. With respect to research and development, we work together with institutes and laboratories worldwide on critical problems that our member states are currently facing. This work targets problems related to food, health, water and environment where nuclear and radiation technologies can make a difference. We also assume responsibilities linked to energy and electricity. This is the best known nuclear application and it is an important option for states who want to include nuclear power in the mix for their energy needs. We help countries assess and plan. We also assist governments, operators and regulators in understanding their international obligations and national responsibilities, as well as in adopting international standards and best practices. In recent years, resources have been devoted to helping so-called newcomer countries in establishing the necessary national infrastructure for a nuclear power program. On a final note, I would say that nuclear energy may not only contribute to achieving sustainable development Gold 7, affordable and clean energy, but it also has a role to play with respect to climate action or Gold 13. And this is something that D.G. Grossi has been highlighting since his tenure as Director General. We're now turning to the first two pillars of nuclear law, as I mentioned in my opening that I'll be including a segue to nuclear law. So the first two pillars are nuclear safety and security. As the Director General has noted, nuclear safety and security are of international concern, not least due to the potential transboundary effects of accidents and nuclear terrorism. The IAEA contributes to managing and controlling these risks by promoting the worldwide achievement of high levels of nuclear safety and nuclear security to protect people, society and the environment. These are the goals. I would first like to illustrate how these instruments relate to the work of the IAEA. Safety. With regard to safety, it's interesting to note that it was originally foreseen that during the negotiations of the IAEA statute that the agency would be mandated to impose legally binding safety standards worldwide backed up by a safety inspectorate to ensure compliance. Does it sound familiar? In the end, this was not agreed, so you don't see this in the statute, but it sounds very much like what was agreed for the safeguards area. We have a safeguards inspectorate and they do look at compliance issues. But for safety, this was not agreed. Instead, our role in safety is a bit more limited. We adopt voluntary safety standards. And the statute is also clear that we require the application of such safety standards in regard to our own projects. We can also support our member states on request with peer review missions, advisory safety missions. And when we offer this support to our member states, we carry this out on the basis of our safety standards so they underpin our technical advice and recommendations to our member states. So for safety, you see it's very different from how our safeguards activities are carried out. And turning to security, we have been actively involved in the more recent progressive efforts to the sensitive area of nuclear security. We now have comprehensive three-year plans of activities pursuant to which the IAEA provides a broad range of services to help ensure that nuclear and other radioactive material and associated facilities are properly protected. A key priority and one that OLA is heavily involved in is implementation of the relevant legal instruments relating to physical protection of nuclear material, the CPPNM and the 2005 amendment thereto. For example, we're regularly hosting technical meetings for national points of contact and competent authorities to allow states' parties to the CPPNM and the amendment to exchange experiences in their implementation. And we are preparing right now for the first review conference mandated in the amendment, which takes place here at our headquarters in July 2021. I want to look briefly at a specific area of safety, which is related to the framework for international emergency and response in regard to nuclear and radiological incidents. These responsibilities stem from the 1986 safety-focused conventions, the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and the Convention on Assistance in the case of a nuclear accident or radiological emergency, which deal with both safety and security events. These conventions are supplemented by safety standards, as well as a number of practical arrangements established by the IAEA secretariat, as well as the policymaking organs and meetings of the competent parties, the competent authorities who are identified under the conventions. I say this because these conventions are not static. It's not just they were adopted in 1986 and nothing grows, expands or evolves. It's through these practical arrangements that I mentioned that are adopted in the secretariat by our policymaking organs and the points of contact that these conventions remain living and relevant to current circumstances. The operational point for this system in the agency is our Incident and Emergency Center within the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security. And part of their work is ongoing convex exercise or drills and exercises, testing, working with our member states so that in the event of a nuclear incident or accident, we're ready to support our member states. Now we're going to turn to the third pillar of nuclear law, and this is safeguards. And as I mentioned earlier, we're authorized by Article 3A5 of our statute, and I'm quoting now, to establish and administer safeguards to ensure that special fissionable and other material services, equipment, facilities and information made available by the agency or at its request or under its supervision or control are not used in such a way as to further any military purpose to apply safeguards at the request of the parties to any bilateral or multilateral arrangement or at the request of a state to any of that states activities in the field of atomic energy. That's the basic mandate. This is done by verifying that states are abiding by their obligations under safeguards agreements concluded with the IAEA, which are treaties. These are primarily bilateral treaties. We have three types. One type is for nuclear weapons states. We call it voluntary offer agreement. We have another type for three states who are not parties to the NPT, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Israel, Pakistan and India. They're called item specific states. And we have the comprehensive safeguards agreement, which most everyone in the world, most states in the world are party to. And it means all nuclear material in those states must be in peaceful activities. Our membership to be a member of the IAEA, there is not an obligation to accept safeguards. It's why safeguards are actually implemented on the basis of these treaties that we conclude. We also have a number of regional treaties that establish nuclear weapon free zones. And these treaties, which are further to the NPT, they require conclusion of agreements with the IAEA for the application of safeguards. I mentioned that most states in the world have comprehensive safeguards agreements and also additional protocols to those agreements. We see this as reflecting what is really recognized today as this higher standard for effective cooperation in verifying states' nuclear undertakings. Currently, we're applying safeguards at over 1200 locations in 183 states. In 2019, we conducted 2,179 inspections worldwide. I'm turning to the last pillar of nuclear, we call it the four main pillars of nuclear law, and this is the last of those four main pillars. And this is nuclear liability. So, mitigation of the consequences of a nuclear accident through prompt and adequate compensation is important. It's an important part of the regime for the safe utilization of nuclear energy. And there are a number of instruments that comprise this framework for civil liability for nuclear damage. Some of these treaties have been adopted under the auspices of the IAEA and others under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD. The IAEA and OECD have together created a mosaic of norms relating to nuclear liability. Overall, we see that the IAEA's activities have set the framework for cooperative efforts to build and strengthen an international safety and security regime. This framework includes advisory international standards, codes, guides, international conventions, international peer reviews. In connection with these peer reviews, we're helping our member states evaluate their operations, their capabilities, and their infrastructures. And as I mentioned, we also have an international system of emergency preparedness and response. So that sums up my brief segue into nuclear law, and you're going to have more on this in the presentation from my colleague just after I finish. And I just am coming to the end. I want to make a couple final remarks. First, what is our role in the development of nuclear law? Since this is a legal webinar, I also want to touch on this, and we explain that we have a three-fold role. First, there are agreements to which the agency itself is a party acting in our capacity as an international organization with legal personality under public international law. And this includes, for example, as I mentioned, the bilateral safeguards agreements, which are treaties. These are concluded based on the NPT. Second, we establish technical standards and recommendations, which I've also referred to, these safety standards and security guidance documents. Like, for example, the transport regulations, which all countries have implemented in their national regulations, as well as our guidance on the physical protection of nuclear material. The third area is agreements concluded by the agency's member states in the form of multilateral treaties, and also joining codes of conduct, which are not treaties, but still helped shape and develop what are the expected international norms in this area of nuclear safety. So we have two codes of conduct and 11 multilateral treaties, all adopted under the agency's auspices relating to nuclear safety, security, and civil liability for nuclear damage. And although we're not a party to these treaties, our member states are joining these treaties, and we serve as depository of these instruments, and also as the main facilitator of these instruments. So you see, there are these three different main areas by which the work we're doing here at the agency is shaping the international legal framework related to nuclear, nuclear technology, nuclear safety, security, nuclear verification. We also help, it's a complex mix of instruments as you see, and a huge part of our work in the legal office is directly working with our member states to support them to implement their legal obligations in their national frameworks. And we refer to this as legislative assistance. So I say this because we want you all to know out there, and I'm certain that many of you listening are in our member states. And so it's an opportunity for us to remind everyone that, yes, the nuclear framework can be complex, and you're not alone. We're here to support you on request. In conclusion, thank you so much for your participation in our webinar today. And as the DG mentioned, we're having our first international conference on nuclear law, the general debate, February 2022. It's going to be here in our headquarters, and we really look forward to seeing you here with us. In order to prepare, you see on the slide, we've included a number of links of documents that we think you might find interesting in case you want to dig in deeper on some of the points that I have referred to in my remarks. I'm now going to be turning the floor over, the virtual floor, over to my colleague, Wolfram Tonhouser, to provide you an introduction to nuclear law. Thank you so much. Thank you, Perry, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Wolfram Tonhouser, the head for Nuclear and Treaty Law at the Office of Legal Affairs of the International Atomic Energy Agency. And it's my pleasure to introduce you to the subject of nuclear law. In my view, a special and interesting area of law, and I hope that you all share this view with me at the end of the session today. We've heard from Perry Johnson about the IAE in general and its role in developing and shaping the international nuclear legal framework. But now let's have a closer look at all of this. Traditionally, nuclear law is defined as the body of special legal norms created to regulate the conduct of legal or natural persons engaged in activities related to fissionable materials, ionizing radiation and exposure to natural sources of radiation. The objective of nuclear law is to provide a legal framework for conducting activities related to nuclear energy and ionizing radiation in a manner which adequately protects individuals' property and the environment. And nuclear law has both a national and an international component. It consists of both binding and non-binding international legal instruments such as treaties, codes of conduct, advisory safety, standard security, guidance documents, and so on. And nuclear law also has some special features over other areas of law, such as the safety and security principle or the principle that the prime responsibility for safety rests with the operator. But the one principle that I think deserves special mention here is what we call the permission principle. You need to bear in mind that in most legal systems, activities not specifically prohibited are considered to be free for persons to undertake without official authorizations. But due to the special risks associated with nuclear technology in nuclear law, it's exactly the other way around. Everything is prohibited unless specifically authorized. And these authorizations may take the form as it says, authorizations, permit licenses, and the like. And finally, as my introductory remarks, nuclear law consists of four main branches or four pillars, as we say, nuclear safety, security, safeguards, and civil liability for nuclear damage. And on this note, let's look at each one of these areas more closely. Let me first turn to the area of nuclear safety. And actually, there is quite a large number of instruments binding and non-binding in this area. There are treaties, codes of conduct, safety requirements, safety guides, there are also peer reviews. And in fact, when we talk about the nuclear safety, we quite often talk about a global nuclear safety framework. And having said this, I would like to highlight a number of these instruments, which I think are of particular relevance. These are the conventional nuclear safety, the joint convention on the safety of spent fuel management and on the safety of radioactive waste management. The two conventions on early notification of a nuclear accident and on assistance in the case of a nuclear accident or radiological emergency. The code of conduct on the safety and security of radioactive sources and the code of conduct on the safety of research reactors. The conventional nuclear safety was adopted in 1994 and ended in fours in 1996, so about 25 years ago. It currently has 89 contracting parties and it applies to the safety of civilian nuclear power plants, land-based civilian nuclear power plants. The conventional nuclear safety contains general provisions that are common to all instruments in the area of nuclear safety, such as the establishment of a legislative and regulatory framework, the establishment of an independent regulatory body, the establishment of a system of regulatory control, authorizations, inspections, enforcement and so on and so forth. But the conventional nuclear safety also contains specific rules related to nuclear power plants, such as the provision on site selection, design, construction of nuclear power plants and the like. But the special feature of the conventional nuclear safety is its peer review mechanism. That's a mechanism whereby parties to the conventional nuclear safety report to their peers, meaning the other contracting parties, every three years on how they implement each of the obligations under the convention. And just to give you an idea, there are more than 1,000 participants attending each one of these review meetings and the review meetings last for two weeks. The conventional nuclear safety important to bear in mind does not apply to research reactors. Since the convention applies to the safety of nuclear power plants, obviously there was an update considered following the Fukushima accident. And that update was considered in the form of proposed formal amendments to the conventions. And these proposals related to the design and construction of nuclear power plants, which then under the terms of the convention, resulted in the convening of a diplomatic conference in 2015. However, I need to say that none of the proposed amendments did go through and instead the so-called Vienna Declaration on Nuclear Safety, a non-binding document which contains updated safety requirements following the Fukushima accident, was adopted at the conferences and which is now being implemented as part of the peer review mechanism, which I just mentioned. The seventh review meeting that was the last review meeting under the convention on nuclear safety was held in April 2017. The eighth review meeting I said before that the review meetings are scheduled to be held every three years. The eighth review meeting was originally scheduled for March 2020, but will be now due to the COVID-19 pandemic most likely be postponed to 2022. The next instrument in the area of nuclear safety is the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radiative Waste Management. This convention was adopted in 1997. It entered into force four years later in 2001 and it currently has 83 contracting parties. It's often referred to as a sister convention to the convention on nuclear safety for two reasons. In terms of scope of applications, the Joint Convention starts where the convention on nuclear safety ends. The Joint Convention applies and covers the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. And the other reason is that like the Convention on Nuclear Safety, the Joint Convention also has a peer review mechanism, meaning a mechanism, as I said before, where parties report to their peers the other contracting parties, how they implement each of the obligations under the convention, as I said, the same process as I had mentioned before. Also, being a nuclear safety instrument, the Joint Convention, like the Convention on Nuclear Safety, contains basic safety obligations that I had mentioned in relation to the CNS, namely the establishment of a legal and regulatory framework, the establishment of an independent regulatory body of a regular system for inspection control and enforcement and so on and so forth. The Joint Convention also contains specific provisions related to the operation of spent fuel and radioactive waste management facilities, including citing and design of spent fuel and radioactive waste management facilities. There is a specificity for that convention because it's called the Joint Convention. It covers spent fuel and radioactive waste in a joint structure. And why is that? This has to do with the definition of radioactive waste. Under the Joint Convention, radioactive waste is defined as all radioactive material for which no further use is foreseen, but obviously for those countries that reprocess, they consider such material not, they have a further use foreseen, they consider this not a radioactive waste, hence the dual structure. Parallel obligations under the Joint Convention, as the title suggests, on spent fuel and radioactive waste management. Another point that I would like you to bear in mind is that I had mentioned that there are 83 contracting parties to the Joint Convention that is not commensurate with the states having radioactive waste, so there is still some work to be done in this context. The sixth review meeting, that's the last review meeting under the Joint Convention, was held in May 2018 and consequently again the three-year peer review mechanism. The seventh review meeting was scheduled or was scheduled from May to June 2021, which however also due to the pandemic will most likely be postponed. Then there are two more conventions that I would like to mention in the area of nuclear safety and these are the conventions on early notification of a nuclear accident and on assistance in case of a nuclear accident or radiological emergency. These are the so-called post-Chernobyl conventions. They were adopted quite rapidly after the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and they have more than 120 contracting parties each. They establish, as the title suggests, a notification system for nuclear accidents from which a release of radioactive material occurs or is likely to occur and which has resulted or may result in an international transboundary release that could be of radiological safety significant for another state. And they also set out an international framework for cooperation among states and with the IAEA to facilitate prompt assistance and support in the event of nuclear accidents or radiological emergencies. Important to note at this point or for these conventions is that they are not merely two conventions but they are really framework conventions being the base for a whole system on emergency preparedness and response with quite a large number of underlying documents and also underlying safety standards. Post Fukushima, there is now a strengthened role of the IAEA. We are no longer only a post box meaning we were receiving and then passing on information but now we have an enhanced role on notification, on public information, on analysis and prognosis of accidents and also in coordinating the response among relevant international organizations. On this note, let me leave the part on legally binding instruments and let me come to two non-binding international legal instruments. These are the code of conduct on the safety and security of radioactive sources and the code of conduct on the safety, on the safety alone of research reactors. The code of conduct on the safety and security of radioactive sources applies to category one to three of sealed radioactive sources. These are the highest risk sources in the agency's categorization of sources. The code of conduct contains, again, because it is a nuclear safety instrument, after all, basic principles of nuclear safety such as the establishment of a legislative regulatory framework, a system of regulatory control or that the prime responsibility for safety rests with the operator, I had mentioned them before, but more importantly this code of conduct also provides for the establishment of a national register of sources and it also has two important additional elements. The first being the import-export guidance documents which supplements the code whereby countries are only allowed to export radioactive sources to countries that have the required safety and security infrastructure in place and now also since 2018 we have the guidance document on the management of disused seal sources. Since the code of conduct is a non-binding international legal instruments, there is also no legally binding adherence process, but rather what states do is they make political commitments whereby they undertake to implement the provisions of the code of conduct on the safety and security of radioactive sources and also under this code of conduct those that made a political commitment meet every three years to discuss implementation of the code. Very similar to a peer review process, less formal it is, but still they meet every three years to discuss implementation of the code of conduct. And the last instrument that I would like to highlight in the area of nuclear safety is the code of conduct on the safety of research reactors which applies to all stages of research reactor lives from cradle to grave and it was developed since, as I had mentioned before, the conventional nuclear safety does not apply to research reactors. Let me now come to the area of nuclear security. Nuclear security is defined as the prevention and detection of and response to theft, sabotage, unauthorized access, illegal transfer or other malicious acts involving nuclear material, other radioactive substances or the associated facilities. It's actually a definition that is used by the IAE advisory group on nuclear security since 2002. You need to bear in mind that in the area of nuclear security there is no single instrument covering the subject matter. Rather, there are all together 19 counter-terrorism instruments with seven of them dealing specifically with nuclear terrorism and I would like to highlight in particular five instruments that you should remember. First, the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material from 1979 and then there is the amendment to the Physical Protection Convention which entered into force on 8 May 2016. The old Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material has a three-fold scope of application. It applies to the physical protection of nuclear material during international transport. It contains provisions on the criminalization of certain offenses and it has provisions on international cooperation. Now, the amendment to the Physical Protection Convention expands this three-fold scope of application to cover also the physical protection of nuclear facilities and of nuclear material in domestic use, storage and transport. There are now new offenses relating to nuclear smuggling, illicit trafficking and sabotage of nuclear material and of nuclear facilities and there is also expanded cooperation among states regarding stolen or smuggled nuclear material, sabotage and related offenses. The amendment to the Physical Protection Convention as I said entered into force on 8 May 2016. It has currently 124 state parties but we need to bear in mind what we call the weakest link concept in nuclear security, meaning nuclear security is only as strong as the weakest link and therefore implementation and universalization of the amendment is still an issue and we're working on this. The next instrument that I would like you to bear in mind is the International, and that's not an instrument that was adopted on the auspices of the IAEA but under the auspices of the United Nations. That's the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. This convention applies to all radioactive material including nuclear material and it deals essentially with the same threefold subject matter as the Convention on Physical Protection and its amendment, meaning physical protection, criminalization of offenses and international cooperation. But the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism has a broader scope of application because it also covers nuclear material used for military purpose, meaning it is not restricted to civilian purposes only and also applies to acts involving all radioactive material, not just nuclear material as the physical protection convention and its amendment does. But regarding the technical aspects of physical protection of radioactive material, the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism refers back to the relevant IAEA recommendations. Now two more non-binding instruments that I would like to mention. The Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources. We had also mentioned this in the safety context before but this Code of Conduct is also relevant here as it establishes a governance framework relating to the security of sealed radioactive sources through providing for effective control systems for radioactive sources. It provides for security assessments, the maintenance of appropriate records. I had mentioned the register of sources before and by requiring specific security measures to prevent the malicious use of radioactive sources during all stages of their management. It was actually the first time that there was a crossover instrument between nuclear safety and nuclear security. Bear in mind nuclear material is not covered by the Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources nor are actually sources in military or defence program. And one more instrument that I would like to mention in the area of nuclear security that's what we normally call or casually call InfSec 2-5-5. These are the nuclear security recommendations on the physical protection of nuclear material and of nuclear facilities. This document contains requirements to guide states on how to develop and enhance, implement and maintain the physical protection regime for nuclear material and nuclear facilities. It helps states to implement their obligations under the physical protection convention and its amendment. It's not legally binding per se, but can be incorporated into national legislation or international instruments, in particular bilateral agreements or also in the project and supply agreements that the IAEA is entering into with member states. A revision of InfSec 2-5-5 is currently being discussed. Just to close on the area of nuclear security, there are also two United Nations Security Council resolutions, 1373 on terrorism including nuclear terrorism and UN Security Council resolution 1540 on weapons of mass destruction. Plus there are also various international nuclear security initiatives, such as the nuclear threat initiatives and so on. And last but not least in the nuclear security area an important document is also the IAEA's nuclear security plan, the current being implemented from 2018 to 2022. Let me now come to the third pillar in nuclear law, the area of safeguards. As Perry Johnson mentioned, one of the core functions of the IAEA implemented for in article 3A5 of its statute is to ensure that nuclear material is not diverted for use in the production of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. And this is done by verifying that states are abiding by their obligations under safeguards agreement concluded with the IAEA. The MPT and five treaties establishing nuclear weapon free zones, that's Tate Lorco, Rarotonga, Bangkok, Palindaba and Semipalatins require among other things the conclusion of such safeguards agreement with the agency in respect of their nuclear activities. And there are three types of safeguards agreement concluded between the agents in states which are first comprehensive safeguards agreements, which are currently enforced with 176 out of 191 states that are parties to the MPT. There are voluntary offer agreements which are currently being implemented for the five MPT nuclear weapons states, that's China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. And then there are item-specific safeguards agreements so-called IMFSAG 66 agreements which are currently being implemented for the three non-MPT states, India, Israel and Pakistan. And then there is the additional protocol based on the model additional protocol which may be concluded to any type of the safeguards agreement that I mentioned and as of the end of September 2020, 136 states with comprehensive safeguards agreement had brought into force additional protocols to their comprehensive safeguards agreements. It's important to note that agency membership and I think this was mentioned before, agency membership does not require the acceptance of safeguards by member states and also that safeguards are implemented by the agency only for those states that have concluded safeguards agreement with the agency which in turn may or may not be IAEA member states. As I said, the basic goal of all safeguards agreements is the same, namely to verify compliance with the undertakings of the state's parties not to use safeguarded items or material for proscribed purposes. And on this note, let me come to the last of the four pillars in nuclear law, the area of nuclear liability. The objective of civil liability for nuclear damage is the establishment of minimum common standards of legal and financial protection against damage resulting from the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, especially in a cross-border context. And as Perry said, there are several instruments comprising the legal framework on civil liability for nuclear damage. Some of them have been adopted under the auspices of the IAEA in Vienna and others under the auspices of the OACD in Paris. And as a result, there are currently two parallel regime as you see on the slide, the Vienna and the Paris regime. But the difference is not so much between Paris and Vienna but between the old regime that you also see on the slide from the 1960s and the new regime. And you also can see on the slide why the Vienna and Paris regime is linked by the John Protocol. There is an additional umbrella instrument which is the 1997 Convention on Supplementary Compensation which is open not only to parties to the Vienna and Paris regime but also to states which have national legislation in place that conforms with the annex to the Convention on Supplementary Compensation as was the case, for example, for the U.S. and Japan and also India when they joined. And this umbrella instrument, the Convention on Supplementary Compensation also establishes an international compensation fund. So in other words, it goes way beyond establishing mere treaty links. The international nuclear liability regime is a major derogation from regular tort law. You need to bear this in mind when you talk about the nuclear liability regime. And this is because of the special risk perceived in the 1960s related to the use of nuclear energy. But both regimes, whether this is Vienna or Paris, follow the same specific nuclear liability principles and you see them listed on the slide. And let me highlight the most important ones. The one principle is that there is liability without fault, meaning absolute or strict liability where the operator is liable regardless of fault and the claimant must only prove a causal link between the incident and the damage for which compensation is fought. Another important principle is the exclusive liability of the operator, where there is channelling of liability to the operator and no liability for anyone else but the operator. Not for the supplier, nor the manufacturer. And there is also no liability outside the regime. Another important principle is that there is a minimum amount of liability of the operator, although the installation state is free to impose higher or even unlimited liability amounts and we can talk about this later during the question and answer session. And another important principle that I would like to highlight is the principle of exclusive jurisdictional competence, meaning channelling of jurisdiction, exclusive jurisdiction of the courts or one contracting party and recognition of judgment in all contracting parties as if it were the judgment of a national court. And one last point in connection with the nuclear liability regime is that you need to bear in mind that the nuclear liability regime and also the principles that I had just mentioned do not apply, for example, to radioisotopes for scientific, medical or industrial purposes, rather in this case, regular tort law still applies. And now let me come to the national component of nuclear law. As I had mentioned earlier in my presentation, nuclear law has both a national and an international component and you need to remember in this context that the international legal instrument that I had just briefly mentioned now are important as states once party to them will have to incorporate them into their national laws. There is, however, no definitive single model on how to draft national nuclear legislation and consequently there may be separate legislative acts covering specific aspects of nuclear law or there may be one comprehensive law covering almost all aspects of nuclear law. But bear in mind in both cases you need to adopt regulations that complement the nuclear law and also in both cases you need to reflect the international legal instruments that you need to implement. There are common provisions of comprehensive national nuclear legislation such as the initial and final provisions, those provisions addressing the establishment of a regulatory body, the core regulatory functions and so on and so forth and there are also specific topics that must be covered in national nuclear legislation such as the provisions covering nuclear facilities, radioactive sources, radioactive waste management, emergency preparedness and response, nuclear security, civil liability for nuclear damage, all of which you see on the slide. In this context let me also mention that we do have a legislative assistance program in place where we assist our member states not only in establishing comprehensive national legal frameworks but also help them join and implement the relevant international legal instruments. The legislative assistance program covers all areas of nuclear law, nuclear safety, security, safeguards and civil liability for nuclear damage. Under the program we offer bilateral drafting assistance to go and help member states on a bilateral basis to draft national legislation. We conduct competence awareness missions where we go out to countries and speak to the senior policy makers about the importance to adhering to international treaties. We conduct regional and national workshops. We carry out training activities, scientific visitors we have in the Office of Legal Affairs and we develop reference material and just to give you an idea under this program we review about 25 national laws and train about 300 lawyers in nuclear law every year and support to our member states is now needed more than ever. Our flagship activities and I'm proud to say in our legislative assistance program is the annual Nuclear Law Institute. Our next session of the Nuclear Law Institute is scheduled for October 2021 for which we're all preparing now. This is an institute where we use new teaching methods where we have issue forum groups where we have topical sessions where we have keynote speeches and where at the end of the day about 60 participants learn how to draft actual national nuclear legislation. Also we develop reference material such as the IAEA International Law Series just to name a few, the Handbooks on Nuclear Law and we also have a e-learning course and we also conducted and that just finished I need to say on last Friday we also held a webinar series on nuclear law on the various specific topics of nuclear law. And in closing I would like to recall what the Director General said at the beginning of this webinar, namely that nuclear law is an essential prerequisite for the safe, secure and peaceful uses of nuclear technology and its applications. And is for this reason that as was mentioned by both the Director General and Perry Johnson we have decided to organize the IAEA's first ever international conference on nuclear law in February 2022. We expect this conference to be a unique forum for leading global experts from governments, industry, academia and civil society to share experience and debate topical issues with a view to developing further the various areas of nuclear law just to give you an idea. The topics will include among other subjects nuclear law and climate change, nuclear law and environmental law, new technologies that will deal with nuclear new build and stakeholder involvement and many more. And on this note I have come to an end of my presentation and actually we have come to an end of this webinar on behalf of the International Atomic Energy Agency let me thank you for your attention, for your interest in this webinar. Stay safe, be well and goodbye. Thank you.