Experience and Challenges in Weapons of Mass Destruction Treaty Verification: A Comparative View

Abstract

The discovery of clandestine nuclear programs, first in Iraq following the Gulf War in the early 1990s, and more recently in Iran and Libya, together with the nuclear impasse with the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) and that state’s purported withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), have led some to question whether multilateral approaches to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) proliferation are effective. Do the WMD treaties only work with the committed, while doing little against the uncommitted? In particular, can treaty verification mechanisms be effective, or do they provide only false assurance? These issues go to the heart of efforts to counter the proliferation of WMD. This article will discuss whether such criticisms are valid, and lessons learned from experience with the existing WMD treaty regimes. While this article covers all the WMD regimes, nuclear verification International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards accounts for the greater part of the discussion. This reflects the central place of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty in international efforts against WMD proliferation, and the fact that IAEA safeguards are the longest-established, most developed and most universal of the WMD verification systems.