Speaker
Description
The global never ending drive to progress in competing technology development has significantly showed rising numbers in import exports industry, while knowledge transfer and information sharing are now enabled by a finger swipe. Being geographically located in South East Asia, Malaysia shares land borders with Thailand, Brunei Darussalam and Indonesia, with wide part of the west coast of the peninsular is directly facing Straits of Malacca, one of the most important shipping lanes in the world. Driven by this economic, society and environmental urges, building and empowering national capacity to look out for nuclear security matters has been identified as one of the matter in hands for this paper. Since early 1980s, Malaysia has identify the essential needs to be able to have optimum regulatory and controlling capacity of radioactive and nuclear materials available in the whole country. The challenges to really achieve the goal lies on the integrating and coordinating critical stakeholders and their genuine roles. Through Malaysia’s Integrated Nuclear Security Support Plan (INSSP) and the establishment of Nuclear Security Support Centre (NSSC) in 2009 that was spearheaded by AELB, various government agencies started to look at nuclear security issues from their own respective point of view, but in the same direction. Malaysian NSSC offers best practices and information sharing that benefit across the nation. A few structured and carefully tailored programs has been developed and implemented to meet the needs of industrial licensees, with some encouraging and optimistic feedbacks. The unique role of National Security Council (NSC) for nuclear security responsibilities has been introduced in a subtle approach. The fact that the NSC is reporting directly to the Prime Minister Office has delicately emphasize the intensity of authority the council has when delivering orders and delegating responsibilities to other relevant agencies. Bilateral cooperation with neighboring countries has also made possible through the NSSC network and IAEA assistance. A few cross border and maritime exercises has not only upgrade and integrate the existing Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) to handle nuclear and radioactive material out of regulatory control that implicate different countries law enforcement agencies, but has further benefit every party involved with the enhancement of networking between them. The design on this responsibilities sharing have significant implications for strengthening national capabilities in nuclear security concerns to protect and maintain this small country sovereign rights. This paper provide observation on experiences, challenges and good practices of Malaysia’s NSSC with regional roles after 10 years of its establishment. The observations covers planning, implementation and way forward in ensuring sustainable nuclear security capabilities in Malaysia.
| State | Malaysia |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
