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STANREC 4790

STANREC 4790 radiological challenge levels

Engineers and nations deciding whether to build AEP-72, Volume V into NATO forces' protective equipment and procedures

STANREC 4790 is NATO's voluntary recommendation that nations use AEP-72, Volume V, Edition A when designing protective equipment and procedures for NATO forces; it does not bind anyone to adopt it.

Edition
1
Published
2017-09-20

What it is

A recommendation, not an obligation

STANREC 4790 is a NATO Standardization Recommendation (STANREC), a different instrument from a STANAG. Where a STANAG asks nations to ratify an agreement and then implement it domestically, a STANREC only ever recommends. The document itself states plainly that it "is a non-binding document employed on a voluntary basis and does not require commitment of the nations to implement the standards which are listed in it." Nobody is obliged to do anything because STANREC 4790 exists.

What it points to

The one substantive thing STANREC 4790 does is name a publication: it recommends that nations use AEP-72, Volume V, Edition A. AEP-72 is an Allied Engineering Publication issued in several volumes, each covering a different category of CBRN hazard, and Volume V is the one this STANREC addresses. This page is about the recommendation, not about AEP-72 Volume V's technical content, which sits in that publication and is out of scope here.

The stated purpose is design guidance: "protective equipment and procedures for NATO forces should be designed to allow unaffected operations." In other words, this is an input to designing equipment and writing operating procedures, not an operational risk-assessment tool.

Who acts on it, and when

STANREC 4790 addresses NATO nations and NATO bodies, not a supplier directly. It becomes relevant to industry only at one remove: a nation, or a contract that follows national practice, has to separately call up AEP-72 Volume V before a designer or a supplier has anything to work to. Watching for that reference in a tender or a specification is the trigger, not the existence of this recommendation. "Nations and NATO bodies may propose changes, at any time, through a standardization proposal to the tasking authority," which is the mechanism by which nations, not suppliers, keep it current.

Because the underlying work is about how protective equipment "should be designed," the point in a project's life where it matters is design, well before acceptance testing. Retrofitting protective performance into equipment that is already built costs far more than designing for it from the outset.

The family it sits in

STANREC 4790 is one of several sibling recommendations built the same way, each pointing at a different volume of AEP-72: STANREC 4741 covers the chemical-agent volume, STANREC 4742 the toxic-industrial-chemicals volume, and STANREC 4743 the biological-warfare-agent volume. A related recommendation, STANREC 4730, covers capability and systems requirements for detection, identification and monitoring equipment rather than design challenge levels.

The wider family of CBRN protective-equipment documents it sits alongside includes STANREC 4548 and AEP-38 on protective clothing, STANREC 4725 and AEP-71 on respirator testing, STANREC 4727 and AEP-73 on protective masks, STANREC 4634 and AEP-54 on collective protection, and STANAG 4653 with AEP-58 on decontamination equipment. STANAG 4521 and AEP-07 cover CBRN contamination survivability in equipment design and acceptance more broadly, and STANAG 2521, STANAG 2522 and ATP-3.8.1 cover CBRN defence on operations. STANAG 2103 with ATP-45 covers CBRN warning, reporting and hazard prediction, and STANAG 2553 covers NATO's planning guide for CBRN casualty estimation. None of these is a requirement of STANREC 4790 itself; they are the neighbouring documents in the same programme.

Governance and currency

STANREC 4790 is Edition 1, promulgated 20 September 2017, and "does not supersede any document." It sits within NATO's CNAD, AC/225 NAAG and JCBRND-CDG structure, and is reviewed at least once every three years, with any nation or NATO body free to propose a change to the tasking authority at any time.

How we help

STANREC 4790 is a recommendation, not a piece of software, and the engineering work of designing protective equipment or writing operating procedures against a radiological hazard is done by specialists working from AEP-72 Volume V itself, not by any compliance tool. What ComplyTrain does is the surrounding evidence work that any organisation touched by this kind of requirement has to do anyway: holding the record of which contract or specification actually named AEP-72 Volume V, tracking the design review or verification activity that shows it was considered, keeping the training record for the engineers and procedure-writers who need to know the requirement exists, and holding the audit trail a customer or a Government Quality Assurance representative would ask to see.

STANREC 4790 does not certify anything and neither does ComplyTrain: there is no accreditation scheme attached to this recommendation, and no tool can stand in for the radiological engineering assessment itself. The applicable tier, and the standards that come with it, are set by the contract and the customer's quality clause. The standards explorer shows what else in this family typically travels alongside AEP-72, and we're glad to talk through what evidencing that work looks like in practice.

Standards it references

Questions

Is STANREC 4790 mandatory?

No. It is a NATO Standardization Recommendation, and its own implementation clause says it "is a non-binding document employed on a voluntary basis and does not require commitment of the nations to implement the standards which are listed in it." A nation may choose to adopt AEP-72 Volume V, or a contract may call it up, but the STANREC itself commits nobody.

What does STANREC 4790 actually specify?

Nothing on its own. Its one substantive clause recommends that nations use AEP-72, Volume V, Edition A; the technical content lives in that publication, not in this recommendation.

What is the difference between a STANREC and a STANAG?

A STANAG asks nations to ratify an agreement and then implement it domestically, so it can bind through that route. A STANREC only recommends: nations are invited to use what it points to, without any ratification obligation.

Who maintains STANREC 4790?

It sits within NATO's CNAD, AC/225 NAAG and JCBRND-CDG structure, with the United States of America as custodian. NATO reviews it at least once every three years, and any nation or NATO body may propose a change to the tasking authority at any time.

Is ComplyTrain certified against STANREC 4790 or AEP-72?

No such certification exists. NATO names no certification body for this recommendation, and ComplyTrain's role here is informational: helping an organisation hold the evidence that AEP-72 Volume V was considered, not certifying against it.