Integration of Government Regulations to Anticipate the Threat of Terrorism with Radioactive and Nuclear Technology

Abstract

The development of science and technology is currently experiencing rapid progress, starting in the fields of energy, oil, non-destructive testing, health, agriculture, and other fields. The use of radioactive substances in the health sector is used for radiotherapy, nuclear medicine, and radiodiagnostics. The use of excess nuclear and radioactive substances can endanger living things and the environment. Monitoring and supervision of the use of these elements are very needed in order to avoid their utilization for non-peaceful purposes, such as terrorism. Nowadays, terrorist attacks in Indonesia began to evolve from the use of conventional explosives to the use of chemical, biological, radioactive, and nuclear materials. The data shows that during the period 2011-2019, there have been six attempted terror attacks using chemical, biological, radioactive, and nuclear elements. This paper examines the role of ministries/agencies in anticipating the use of nuclear and radioactive substances for terrorism. Based on the results of the library study, there are several ministries/agencies that have protocols for handling terrorism attacks that use chemical, biological, radioactive, and nuclear elements, but they are still sectoral. Therefore, it can be concluded that the integration of the regulations/protocols in handling terrorist attacks by using nuclear and radioactive elements are needed in order to increase the monitoring and supervision of the handling of radioactive waste. In addition, it is necessary to add the RPM tools to prevent the misuse of radioactive substances and nuclear materials by irresponsible parties.