ICRP Publication 104

In this report the Commission recommends approaches to national authorities for their definition of the scope of radiological protection control measures through regulations, by using its principles of justification and optimization. The report provides advice for deciding the radiation exposure situations that should be covered by the relevant regulations, because their regulatory control can be justified and, conversely, those that may be considered for exclusion from the regulations because their regulatory control is deemed to be unamenable and unjustified. It also provides advice on the situations resulting from regulated circumstances but which may be considered by regulators for exemption from complying with specific requirements because the application of the application of these requirements is unwarranted and exemption is the optimum option. Thus, the report describes: exclusion criteria for defining the scope of radiological protection regulations; exemption criteria for planned exposure situations; the application of these concepts in emergency exposure situations and in existing exposure situations; and, addresses specific exposure situations such as exposure to low-energy or -intensity adventitious radiation, to cosmic radiations, to natural occurring radioactive materials, to radon, to commodities and to low-level radioactive waste. The quantitative criteria in the report are intended only as generic suggestion to regulators for defining the regulatory scope, in the understanding that the definitive boundaries for establishing the situations that can or need be regulated will depend on national approaches.