«IAEA Additional Protocol» and its impact on relations between Brazil and Argentina

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, since the signing of the "Nuclear Cooperation Treaty between Brazil and Argentina" and the establishment of the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) in 1991, relations between Brazil and Argentina in the nuclear field have reached a high level of mutual trust. However, the nuclear partnership is not immune to instability. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands on Brazil and Argentina to join the "Additional Protocol" approved in 1997, which expands and deepens inspections at nuclear facilities, could provoke dissonance between the nuclear policies of Brazil and Argentina and weaken their mutual trust. Brazil and Argentina share the same point of view and refuse to adhere to this protocol because they consider it harmful to the national interest. An eventual adhesion of Argentina under pressure from the AEIA to the "Additional Protocol" will weaken Argentine-Brazilian mutual trust and will do a disservice to the formation of the South American security community. Brazil, defending national technological in its Submarine Development Program (Prosub) is unlikely to adhere to the protocol. In the coming years increasing pressure is expected on the «Centro Experimental Aramar», the Brazilian base of the uranium enrichment laboratory and national ultracentrifuges used to enrich nuclear fuel as part of the «Brazilian Navy's nuclear program». Brazil's position as the only country that does not have a nuclear arsenal, but develops a nuclear military program, will require a new dialogue that can at the same time preserve the security of the nonproliferation regime and the wellbeing of Argentine-Brazilian relations.