Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan passed the law "On accession of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the Joint Convention on the safety of spent fuel management and on the safety of radioactive waste management" on 10 September 2008 and Senate approved it on 5 December 2008.

The Joint Convention on the safety of spent fuel management and on the safety of radioactive waste management, the first legal instrument to directly address these issues on a global scale, was opened for signature on 29 September 1997. It entered into force on 18 June 2001.

The Joint Convention applies to spent fuel and radioactive waste resulting from civilian nuclear reactors and applications and to spent fuel and radioactive waste from military or defence programmes if and when such materials are transferred permanently to and managed within exclusively civilian programmes, or when declared as spent fuel or radioactive waste for the purpose of the Convention by the Contracting Party. The Convention also applies to planned and controlled releases into the environment of liquid or gaseous radioactive materials from regulated nuclear facilities.

The Convention calls for review meetings of Contracting Parties. Each Contracting Party is required to submit a national report to each review meeting that addresses measures taken to implement each of the obligations of the Convention.