Critical review of ethical and legal issues in the Draft ICRP 2005 Recommendations

-Critical analysis of the draft 2005 ICRP Recommendations concerning the basic safety standards on demand of EC DG TREN to stimulate the discussions of the GoE art 31. The paper reflects a collective work of Belgian experts of PISA SCK.CEN and different universities. The aim was to challenge ICRP in an interactive and provocative way on ethical and legal isues implicitly or explicitly put forxward. The historical evolution of ICRP ecommendations and philosophy is highlighted with particular attention to medical protection issues, social controversies and differenies between USA and Europe. The transdisciplinary methodology developped in PISA is integrating social sciences into nuclear research in a reflective way. Precaution is not yet taken into account for the ethical challenges regarding uncertainties on risk as well for genetic as foetal effects. Implicit value judgements are not specified enough.
The paradigm change of ICRP was criticised regarding natural radiation risk refence. Justification is fading away while optimisation looses its collective dimension. The enlarged anthropocentric approach for the protection of environmental species is lacking an ecosystem approach. Finally a decreased legal enforcement capacity was noticed;