Page 93 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

despite wranglings over the uses of the forenames, these are usually dropped and the institute is simply known by all as the ILL or “Institut Laue-Langevin”.
Another comment concerns the sane restriction to limit the activities to purely peaceful aims. This clause was included at the request of the Germans (meeting on 28 June 1966). The ILL has a detritiation plant for the heavy water, and thus produces relatively large amounts of tritium. Civil uses of tritium have almost completely disappeared, so this isotope is difficult to sell. On the contrary it has a very high value for military use (in the hydrogen bomb). Such usage is prohibited through this clause in the agreement. With the project ITER aimed at testing the use of nuclear fusion to produce energy this tritium may find a useful outlet in the civil domain.
A last important point is that the ILL is a private company under French law, and that the labour laws of France apply, notably requiring a works committee and personnel representatives72.
In addition it requires the personnel to pay French taxes. This
is a major difference from CERN or the EMBL, which have statutes of international organisations where the staff does not pay tax. There is no doubt that this status as a private company with salaries analogous to those at the neighbouring CEA greatly helped the relationships between the scientists of the ILL and those of the CENG.
72 2018 addition: These are now replaced by the “Comité Social et Economique” (CSE). 84
Chapter 4 - The negotiations