Dangerous Goods Regulations in Europe: Inland Navigation and Other Modes of Transport

Abstract

For thousands of years trade has moved goods allover Europe, and once gunpowder had been invented, this trade included dangerous goods. As early as 1831 regulations were introduced for the Rhine river - the world's busiest inland waterway today - to cover the transport of those goods. Another mode of transport was added in 1890 when the foundation for the International Regulations concerning the Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail was laid with the Convention for the Carriage of Goods by Rail at Berne, Switzerland. Today these regulations are known as the RID. Air transport, road transport and carriage by sea, each followed during the 1950s. These international regulatory regimes have been supplemented by national regulations; in Germany alone, for example, these amount to some 4000+ pages. Because dangerous goods regulations have been developed separately for each mode of transport, there now exist several different regulatory regimes. For Europe, these uncoordinated regulations pose a serious problem. Carriage of radioactive materials had not reached significant volumes until approximately 1950 and in 1961 the International Atomic Energy Agency published their Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material for the first time. This meant that, at least as far as radioactive materials were concerned, a single umbrella covering all modes of transport was available. It is due to these IAEA regulations that a unified set of rules governs radioactive materials transport allover Europe, and indeed the whole world. Accordingly hardly any problems exist. The IAEA regulations and the United Nations Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods are discussed as well as the international conventions based upon them (International Civil Aviation Organisation - Technical Instructions, International Air Transport Association - Dangerous Goods Regulations, International Maritime Dangerous Goods - Code, RID, ADR, ADN and ADNR). Special emphasis is placed on the rules for inland navigation in Europe, since these are bound to gain importance after two of Europe's large inland waterways, the Rhine and Donau rivers, were connected by canal on September 25, 1992.