What nuclear regulation actually looks like in Georgia
Georgia operates no nuclear power plants and conducts no activity in nuclear power generation; accordingly, nuclear regulation in the country means, in practice, the licensing and permit regime for radiation safety — the instruments placed in the Georgian Law on Licences and Permits. The detailed rules of nuclear and radiation safety are governed by separate legislation, but the legal basis of this page is precisely those norms of the Law on Licences and Permits that establish the respective licence and permits. This approach yields an accurate picture: what actually exists in the country is an authorization system with three layers — an activity licence, permits related to materials, and a construction permit for facilities.
The nuclear and radiation activity licence
Article 6 of the Law on Licences and Permits lists the types of activity licences, and item 3 of that list is the licence for nuclear and radiation activity. This is the basic authorization for any person working with radioactive substances or nuclear technologies — from medicine to industry. The licence is the legal basis for carrying on the activity, and without it such activity is impermissible. For an organization entering this field, the activity licence is the first document to obtain and the foundation on which every subsequent operational permit is built.
Permits related to radioactive material
In the list of permits of Article 24 of the law, several items are devoted to radioactive materials. The list provides for the acquisition of radioactive material within the country — this operation occupies its own position in the catalogue. A separate item covers the import, export and transit of radioactive material, the return of radioactive material to its manufacturer, as well as the import and export of nuclear technologies or know-how. In addition, a permit for the export of radioactive waste is defined separately — the removal of waste across the border requires distinct authorization.
The point of these items is that the international circulation of radioactive material — import, export, transit, return to the manufacturer — and even the cross-border movement of nuclear-technological knowledge stand under state control. For a company working with such materials this means that the activity licence is not the only required document: every cross-border operation must be covered by its own permit.
The structure of the catalogue itself carries meaning. The nuclear and radiation activity licence extends to the activity as a whole, while the permits attach to operations — in practice they complement rather than replace one another. An organization acquiring radioactive material domestically cannot rely on the activity licence alone, since acquisition is stated in the permit catalogue as a separate position. The same logic applies to every cross-border operation: import, export, transit and return to the manufacturer are not covered by a single permit.