Stakeholders in radioactive waste management include all those involved or having an interest in it, such as waste producers, waste management agencies, regulatory authorities, local communities, elected representatives, the technical intermediaries between the public and decision makers, national governments, civil society organisations, neighbours of facilities, interested members of the public and, in the wider waste management context, international bodies such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-east Atlantic. The involvement of both technical and non-technical stakeholders will become increasingly important as more countries move towards the siting and implementation of geological repositories. This is already true in respect of other aspects of radioactive waste management such as transport, interim storage and the authorised discharge of liquid and gaseous effluents into the environment. A feature of this involvement is the increasing extent to which reference is made to procedures and standards applied internationally as well as
nationally, and to comparisons between them. It appears, however, that such comparisons are not
always well-informed.