International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards Research Articles

Three tons of uranium from the International Atomic Energy Agency: diplomacy over nuclear fuel for the Japan Research Reactor-3 at the Board of Governors’ meetings, 1958–1959

ABSTRACT This paper combines renewed attention to science diplomacy with the rising interest in material and ontological aspects of science studies. It examines nuclear diplomacy by reviewing negotiations over three tons of natural uranium that the Japanese government requested from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1958. The uranium was half the amount required for the Japan Research Reactor-3, which reached criticality in 1962 and became Japan’s first domestically developed nuclear reactor. Japan’s request provided an opportunity to reaffirm the IAEA’s raison d’être and set in motion the process of establishing a safeguarding system against the military use of atomic energy. The IAEA Board of Governors deliberated on the issue from October 1958 to April 1959. Although Japan’s request was generally welcomed, it sparked confrontations between countries that accepted IAEA safeguards and those against them. By analysing the IAEA Board’s official records, this paper shows how the negotiations transformed the uranium into a ‘diplomatic object’.

EU Including: Development of Radiological and Nuclear Training Learning Objectives

Worldwide, about 20 million consignments of radioactive material are transported annually on public roads, railways, aircraft, and ships. About 95% of radioactive consignments are not related to nuclear power. In 2016, a total of 143 incidents of nuclear or other radioactive materials were found to be outside of regulatory control, which occurred in 19 countries. On an international level risk assessment has to account for the potential threats due to millions of radioactive sources in use worldwide and hundreds of tons of military grade U/Pu not under IAEA safeguards. The European Union (EU) has tasked the INCLUDING project consortium, connecting 15 partners from 10 EU Member States, to address this issue and create an innovative cluster for radiological and nuclear (RN) emergencies. The project is coordinated by the Italian Agency for the New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA). INCLUDING will provide comprehensive training in the RN security sector. Thereby, know-how is enhanced for practitioners in this sector. An important part in this endeavor is the development of radiological- and nuclear training learning objectives. INCLUDING partners involved in this task (Work Package 4) represent companies, organisations and government agencies from Austria, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Hungary and Portugal. The task has four main objectives: 1) Harmonisation of RN education/training for EU first responders: 2) Identification of main problems in setting norms; 3) Developing a training matrix using revised Bloom’s taxonomy; 4) Use of the methodology developed for Joint Actions and its application at INCLUDING Cluster Facilities in different EU Member States. The INCLUDING Work Package 4 members have analyzed the EU EDEN Training Matrix and identified gaps in accordance with NATO CBRN training standards related to civil-military cooperation. Furthermore, they analyzed 5 EUHORIZON 2020- and 9 EUFP7-SECURITY projects, and 97 RN training courses offered to the international community by NATO, 6 EU organisations, Qatar, US military- and civilian organisations, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This paper will present these results, which are being used to develop the basic structure for the Learning Objective Catalogue (LOC), comprised of multiple RN-related Learning Objectives for different threat scenarios.

Ядерная программа Ирана – прошлое, настоящее и неопределенное будущее

Over the past two decades, Iran’s nuclear program, its character and direction have been under the scrutiny of the international community. Announcing its plans for the development of nuclear energy, Iran initiated both work to create enterprises for the uranium enrichment and the construction of a heavy water reactor in Arak. However, already in the early 2000s, it was reported about Tehran’s failure to fulfil its obligations under the International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards Agreement. This raised suspicions that the country was conducting covert nuclear activities aimed at creating nuclear weapons. The state of Iran’s nuclear program has become a matter of concern to the world community and, based on a number of resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, the IAEA has made efforts to clarify the nature of the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s implementation of the NPT safeguards agreement. It was found that until 2003, Iran had implemented a nuclear weapons program. The decision by Tehran to disclose all its nuclear activities as well as the efforts of the IAEA and multilateral diplomacy made it possible in 2015 to agree on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to resolve all questions related with the Iranian nuclear program and take measures to guarantee its exclusively peaceful nature. Since the beginning of the JCPOA implementation, Iran has strictly followed its obligations. However, the U.S.’ withdrawal from the Plan in May 2018, restoration and strengthening of their economic sanctions against Iran created a situation where Tehran, starting in July 2019, began to phase out its obligations under the JCPOA. At the same time, to date, Iran has been carrying out all its activities in close cooperation and under the constant supervision of the IAEA. The future of the Iranian nuclear program is difficult to predict, this will largely be determined by the ability of the remaining JCPOA participants to find and implement solutions which would suit all of them.

“The major prize”: apartheid South Africa’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1988–91

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the final years of South Africa’s nuclear-weapon program, particularly on the decision-making process leading up to the signature of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) by the South African government in 1991. In August 1988, after two decades of defiance, negotiations between the apartheid government and the NPT depository powers (the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union) ensued at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. Despite South Africa being the only state to give up its indigenously developed nuclear weapons and subsequently join the nonproliferation regime, little is known about how the national position on NPT accession and IAEA safeguards evolved. Research carried out in multiple archives using hitherto untapped primary sources and interviews with key actors from several countries show how domestic and regional political dynamics influenced Pretoria’s position on entering the nonproliferation regime. In the process, the F.W. de Klerk government managed to skillfully exploit international proliferation fears to advance its own agenda, thereby connecting South African NPT accession with that of the neighboring Frontline States coalition of Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The JCPOA and safeguards: model or outlier?

ABSTRACTAlthough the nuclear safeguards established in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) are explicitly confined to application in Iran, some experts and policy makers have considered whether these supplementary measures could be applied to other states of proliferation concern. While the JCPOA has provided some useful additions to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards toolkit, its legacy for the broader IAEA safeguards mission is unclear. To better assess this potential legacy, this article considers the JCPOA in the context of the evolution of safeguards, particularly the developments following the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent changes to safeguards implementation in Iraq. The article then describes the JCPOA’s safeguards in Iran and the potential to apply similar provisions elsewhere.

The impact of metrology study sample size on uncertainty in IAEA safeguards calculations

Quantitative conclusions by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding States' nuclear material inventories and flows are provided in the form of material balance evaluations (MBEs). MBEs use facility estimates of the material unaccounted for together with verification data to monitor for possible nuclear material diversion. Verification data consist of paired measurements (usually operators' declarations and inspectors' verification results) that are analysed one-item-at-a-time to detect significant differences. Also, to check for patterns, an overall difference of the operator-inspector values using a “D (difference) statistic” is used. The estimated DP and false alarm probability (FAP) depend on the assumed measurement error model and its random and systematic error variances, which are estimated using data from previous inspections (which are used for metrology studies to characterize measurement error variance components). Therefore, the sample sizes in both the previous and current inspections will impact the estimated DP and FAP, as is illustrated by simulated numerical examples. The examples include application of a new expression for the variance of the D statistic assuming the measurement error model is multiplicative and new application of both random and systematic error variances in one-item-at-a-time testing.

Ядерное соглашение с Ираном: феномен или прецедент?

The article deals with the Agreement concluded in July of 2015 by the group of states “5+1” (the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China and Germany, and special envoy of the European Union) with Iran on its nuclear energy program (called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPOA). It is argued, that despite some controversial points the Agreement as a whole is tangibly limiting, reducing and restructuring Iranian nuclear-technical assets, its development program, stockpile and quality of nuclear materials, and is prohibiting potentially military activities. Of special value is the broad and deep regime of transparency, safeguards and control by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which goes much further than the existing safeguards associated with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It is underlined that objectively (regardless of Iranian intentions) manufacturing of nuclear weapon or some secret military activity of significant scale is practically out of question in Iran during the term of various provisions of the Agreement (10–25 years). As proved by the article, a crucial factor in reaching the JCPOA were the U.S. and European Union economic and financial sanctions, adopted against Iran in 2012. They led to the profound economic crisis, which brought the change of government at presidential elections of 2013, and eventually facilitated Iranian concessions (foremost, on the scale of uranium enrichment, deep underground enrichment complex, plutonium-producing reactor, and the scale of transparency). On the other hand, in contrast to American and Russian official statements, the unprecedented tensions between Russia and the West around the Ukrainian crisis since the early 2014 seriously weakened the unity and diplomatic dominance of the “5+1” group of states. Hence, it turned impossible to achieve still more far-reaching agreements on some principle issues (in particular, on the necessity for Iran to receive the approval of the “5+1” and IAEA for the parameters of its nuclear energy program justifiable by peaceful needs – as suggested by the Interim Agreement of November 2013). This has created a precedent for other states to claim the right for developing nuclear energy programs with dual purpose or suspicious elements without obligatory and plausible peaceful justification. It is also underlined, that the future impact of the Agreement on the global system and regimes of nuclear non-proliferation is unclear. The positive side is the JCPOA role in preventing the new war in the Gulf. The dubious aspect is that universalization of the limitations and transparency norms of the Agreement for the purpose of the Non-Proliferation Treaty enhancement is rejected by a number of states, foremost by Russia. It keeps to a tough position that the Agreement is exceptionally Iranian case, which is not applicable to other states, and in fact this point is legally fixed in JCPOA and IAEA documents. This Russian position is in line with its general stance against more restrictive interpretation of the NPT norms and against more intrusive IAEA safeguards. No doubt, in the foreseeable future, these issues will be a matter of serious controversies among states regarding the enhancement of the NPT and overall non-proliferation system and regimes.

Assessment of the Fingerprinting Method for the Verification of Spent Fuel in MACSTOR KN-400 CANDU Spent-Fuel Dry Storage

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power has built a new modular type of CANDU spent fuel bundle dry storage facility, MACSTOR KN-400, at the Wolsong reactor site in the Republic of Korea. Four CANDU reactors operate at the Wolsong site, and the MACSTOR KN-400 has the capacity to store up to 24 000 CANDU spent fuel bundles. The International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards regulations demand an effective method for spent-fuel re-verification at the MACSTOR KN-400 facility in the event of any loss of continuity of knowledge. A radiation signal-dependent spent-fuel re-verification design of the MACSTOR KN-400 is scrutinized through mathematical model development and Monte Carlo radiation transport simulations using the state-of-the-art computer code MCNP. Both gamma and neutron transport simulations for various spent fuel bundle diversion scenarios are carried out for the central and corner re-verification tube structures. The CANDU spent fuel bundles with a burnup of 7500 MWd/tonne U (burned at a specific power of 28.39 MW/tonne) and 10 years of cooling time are considered for the radiation source term. Results of the gamma transport simulations incorporating cadmium-zinc-telluride detectors inside the re-verification tube show that spent fuel bundles diverted from the inner locations of the storage basket cannot be detected by observing a gamma radiation signal change. Neutron transport simulations consisting of a 3He detector inside the re-verification tube show that certain spent fuel bundle diversions could be detected. However, inverse MCNP neutron transport simulations show that the possibility of detecting diversion of ~67% of spent fuel bundles stored in the basket region on the opposite side from the collimator of the re-verification tube is small, assuming a neutron detection counting time of 1 h per re-verification tube. It is also observed that the nondetection probability for most of the diversion scenarios considered is large. Nondetection probability here is defined as the probability of not detecting the diversion of spent fuel bundles from the baskets by observing radiation signal reduction from the removal of the bundles. Containment and surveillance methods are being employed for safeguards purposes at the facility, supplemented by periodic axial profile fingerprinting. However, since the nondetection probability is large for most scenarios, the facility should consider alternatives to this method in case loss of continuity of knowledge occurs.

Prospects for the introduction of wide area monitoring using environmental sampling for proliferation detection

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is committed to strengthening and streamlining the overall effectiveness of the IAEA safeguards system within the context of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The IAEA has investigated the use of environmental monitoring techniques and a variety of techniques were studied as part of extensive field trials. The efficacy of long-range monitoring depends on the availability of mobile signature isotopes or compounds and on the ability to distinguish the nuclear signatures from background signals and attribute them to a source. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) also requires a variety of environmental sampling and analysis techniques. This paper serves as a scientific basis to start discussions of environmental sampling techniques that could be considered for wide-area monitoring for the detection of undeclared nuclear activities within the NPT or for the possible future use within the CTBT.

Reactor Monitoring with Antineutrinos – A Progress Report

The Reactor Safeguards regime is the name given to a set of protocols and technologies used to monitor the consumption and production of fissile materials in nuclear reactors. The Safeguards regime is administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and is an essential component of the global Treaty on Nuclear Nonproliferation, recently renewed by its 189 remaining signators. (The 190th, North Korea, withdrew from the Treaty in 2003). Beginning in Russia in the 1980s, a number of researchers worldwide have experimentally demonstrated the potential of cubic meter scale antineutrino detectors for non-intrusive real-time monitoring of fissile inventories and power output of reactors. The detectors built so far have operated tens of meters from a reactor core, outside of the containment dome, largely unattended and with remote data acquisition for an entire 1.5 year reactor cycle, and have achieved levels of sensitivity to fissile content of potential interest for the IAEA safeguards regime. In this article, I will describe the unique advantages of antineutrino detectors for cooperative monitoring, consider the prospects and benefits of increasing the range of detectability for small reactors, and provide a partial survey of ongoing global research aimed at improving near-field and far field monitoring and discovery of nuclear reactors.

Determination of uranium concentration in an ore sample using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has been recognized as a promising technique for analyzing sensitive nuclear materials such as uranium, plutonium, and curium in a high-radiation environment, especially since the implementation of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards. The uranium spectra of ore samples were quantitatively analyzed prior to analyzing sensitive materials in the nuclear industry. The purpose of this experiment is to extract quantitative information about the uranium in a uranium ore using a standard addition approach. The uranium ore samples containing different concentrations of U were prepared by mixing raw ore powder with natural uranium oxide powders. Calibration sets of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0wt.% uranium concentrations within the uranium ore sample were achieved. A pulsed and Q-switched Nd:YAG laser at a wavelength of 532nm was used as a light source. An echelle spectrometer that covers a 190–420nm wavelength range is used to generate a calibration curve and determine the detection limit of uranium in the ore matrix. The neutral atomic-emission peak at a wavelength of 356.659nm indicated a detection limit of ~158ppm for uranium, and the uranium concentration was determined in a raw ore sample that has an unknown quantity of uranium.

NUCLEAR ISLANDS

Current International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards do not provide adequate protection against the diversion to military use of materials or technology from certain types of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities. In view of highly enriched uranium's relatively greater ease of use as a nuclear explosive material than plutonium and the significant diseconomies of commercial spent fuel reprocessing, this article focuses on the need for improved international controls over uranium enrichment facilities as the proximate justification for creation of an International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Association (INFCA). In principle, the proposal is equally applicable to alleviating the proliferation concerns provoked by nuclear fuel reprocessing plants and other sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities. The INFCA would provide significantly increased nonproliferation assurance to its member states and the wider international community by holding long-term leasehold contracts to operate secure restricted zones containing such sensitive nuclear facilities.

COERCION OR PERSUASION?

From 1961 to 1963, an interagency debate took place within the Kennedy administration as to whether to use persuasion or more coercive means in order to multilateralize nuclear safeguards, that is, to make the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the administrator of safeguards on bilateral nuclear exports from the United States. Persuasion as a general rule was deemed preferable, in order to make the many states that had misgivings about IAEA safeguards accept multilateralization. The coercion-persuasion debate followed years of trying to establish a "common front" among Western nuclear suppliers with regard to nuclear safeguards. Disagreement about the intrusiveness of the system proved a major obstacle, but eventually a common position reflecting the need to take international opinion into consideration was agreed. The adoption of the first IAEA safeguards document in 1961 created for the first time a common standard for the application of safeguards. This was a prerequisite to the U.S. policy of transferring to the IAEA the administration of safeguards on bilateral nuclear agreements. The resulting multilateralization of safeguards laid the groundwork for the IAEA to become the universal safeguarder in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons-an unforeseen outcome, since at the outset, IAEA safeguards were perceived as a "holding operation" while waiting for a disarmament agreement.

NATO Nuclear Forces and the New Nuclear Threats

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's nuclear forces were central to deterrence and defence during the Cold War. Their future role is far less clear in the dramatically changed security environment since its end. Despite concerns about the long-term evolution of Russia and China, the major threats to national and international security today stem not from confrontations between great powers, but from proliferation and terrorism.Proliferation concerns include Iran's suspicious and extensive weapons of mass destruction programs, especially its nuclear and missile activities. The discovery of the large enrichment facility at Natanz as well as other clandestine activities revealed two decades of Iranian noncompliance with its international obligations. North Korea's nuclear test and its diplomatic brinkmanship highlight the increasing dangers of its longstanding nuclear and missile programs and the difficulties of disarming the regime.The growing reality of cooperation among proliferant states is troubling. The weapons of mass destruction and missile cooperation between North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran have been examined in the open literature. The question is whether that cooperation was limited to these and a few other states, or provides a blueprint for the future. Clearly, there are a growing number of states that now possess or are developing WMD- and missile-related technological capabilities and expertise. Will these capabilities be shared, and under, what, if any, constraints? Will they wind up in black markets? All of these activities undermine regional stability and threaten US and NATO security, and could lead to proliferation cascades and regional arms races. There is a second tier of states that might consider nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction in the future, including Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia.The potentially catastrophic nexus between rogue regime behaviour and terrorist tactics is also a grave concern. The active pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction materials and technologies by terrorists and so-called rogue states has been abetted both by other proliferant states and by nonstate networks such as the A. Q. Khan operation. The risks to national and international security are compounded as peaceful pursuits of nuclear energy increase the traffic in nuclear materials and technology.In response, the United States and NATO member states have advocated collaborative efforts to combat terrorism and to strengthen the nonproliferation regime while ensuring access to the advantages of nuclear energy. Multilateral counterterrorism initiatives include the global initiative to combat nuclear terrorism. Efforts to strengthen and enforce nonproliferation norms are being reinvigorated through multilateral programs such as the proliferation security initiative and through efforts to gain universal adherence to the additional protocol to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreements. The United States is currently pursuing a nuclear energy partnership that would both encourage growth of domestic nuclear energy use and promote international arrangements to restrict access to fuel cycle technologies by additional states.International non- and counterproliferation, along with counterterrorism, efforts such as these are critical. However, they are not enough by themselves to protect US and NATO security interests, or to resolve problems. The complex geopolitics ofthe emerging security environment, where issues of WMD proliferation and nuclear weapon policy intersect, demands a clear and credible security strategy that addresses US and NATO security objectives in multiple areas. These include ensuring confidence in the safety, security, reliability, and sustainability of the US nuclear-weapon stockpile and its supporting infrastructure; dealing responsibly with all weapon-usable materials, both nationally and globally; and meeting all international security commitments. …

Reflections on the USA-India Atomic Energy Cooperation

On 2 March 2006, the USA sealed a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with India, which ended more than three decades of US sanction against India. On 9 July 2008, India took a decisive step towards implementing the deal by submitting to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s Board of Governors for approval a draft safeguards plan aiming at applying the IAEA safeguards to its civilian nuclear programme. The proposed deal raises two issues of utmost importance that may become fundamental in shaping the future of the international effort to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Firstly, it impacts on the existing nuclear non-proliferation legal regime, and may have consequences on the behaviour of other actors in the field of non-proliferation. In this sense, the proposed deal appears to be in contradiction with the basic rationale of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that requires a non-nuclear-weapon state to receive civilian nuclear assistance only after it has foregone nuclear weapons. In addition, the deal may have opened up a Pandora's Box for claims based on the safety exception contained in the NSG Guidelines, which would allow members of the NSG to proliferate at will. Secondly, the controversial deal may achieve the very objectives of non-proliferation during its implementation phase, providing that as a result of it, India adheres to the NPT, becomes a full member of the NSG and accepts IAEA's safeguards and NSG Guidelines on export and control. The future of the military component of India's nuclear programme will then depend on the general attitude adopted by all nuclear weapon states towards implementing fully their other basic obligations under the NPT.

IAEA safeguards equipment

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) operates a large diversity of equipment to verify nuclear materials, contributing to the confirmation of the states' compliance with their respective nonproliferation obligations. The variety of physical and chemical properties of nuclear materials, as well as their storage environment, requires an arsenal of instruments. Additionally, the IAEA applies various containment and surveillance measures to maintain the continuity of knowledge on nuclear materials. The IAEA need ongoing equipment development to provide its inspectorate with the state-of-the-art tools for performing various safeguards activities. These activities include the measurement of declared nuclear material inventories and flows, the application of enhanced containment and surveillance measures and the search for the indicators of undeclared nuclear material and clandestine nuclear activities. The IAEA is facing increasing demands to perform remote verification of nuclear material flows utilising unattended monitoring systems. Additional analytical capabilities and effective non-destructive assay methods will be indispensable in the future for reinforcing the IAEA's ability to detect undeclared nuclear materials and activities.

Arms Control Law in Crisis? A Study of the North Korean Nuclear Issue

The North Korean nuclear issues have exposed the international community to a great proliferation risk for more than ten years. They have grown particularly serious since North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK) reportedly admitted in October 2002 that it had clandestinely pursued development of nuclear weapons based on uranium enrichment. Legally speaking, the North Korean proliferation risk reached its worst point in January 2003, when Pyongyang announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) . However, that was not the first instance in which North Korea had declared withdrawal. They had done so in March 1993, but at that time the declared withdrawal was suspended one day before its effectuation (withdrawal takes effect three months after its notification) . Given the complicated nature of the situation, there can be several ways of interpreting the North Korean status under the NPT. This article tries to examine four such interpretations, including those given by North Korea itself and by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) . It will also give some thought to the North Korean obligation to accept IAEA safeguards under the Safeguards Agreement with the Agency and under other legal and political arrangements.

An evaluation method on the integrated safeguards based on fuzzy theory

Many countries concluding comprehensive safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are currently going to agree a new additional protocol (INFCIRC/540). The protocol will make them provide more information to the IAEA. The expanded framework is expected to establish stronger and more efficient IAEA safeguards system, which we call Safeguards. However, there seems to be no evaluation method that enables inspectorate to derive a final evaluation from the information collected through the Integrated Safeguards Implementation. Evaluation of safeguards-effectiveness should be to estimate a degree of assurance to what extent the objective is attained. In this case, the assurance-degree of the following proposition should be given, No nuclear material in a country is used for manufacture of nuclear explosive In this paper, a simple method is proposed to calculate the assurance-degree of non-manufacture of nuclear explosive devices. The method uses a simple logic tree and fuzzy linguistic variables as its inputs. In addition, the method is shown to be useful for considering the efficient implementation of safeguards. For example, case-studies by the method show that conventional safeguards inspection efforts relevant to low enriched uranium and spent fuels can be reduced to half by introducing the integrated safeguards activities relevant to highly enriched uranium and plutonium.

China and the Nuclear Non‑Proliferation Regime

This article surveys China's policy towards nuclear non-proliferation regime and contests view that China has now completed transition from a challenger to an upholder of global non-proliferation regime. It argues that the learning curve hypothesis and bureaucratic politics and profit motives arguments provide only a partial explanation of China's shifting but ambiguous and contradictory policy towards non-proliferation. China has cleverly played the proliferation card by exploiting loopholes in nonproliferation regime and contradictions in major power relationships so as to serve its national security interests. The article examines factors that have led Beijing to disregard non-proliferation regime in past and might make it continue to do so in future. It also analyses changing Asian security environment and its impact on China's nonproliferation commitments in future. Introduction The global nuclear non-proliferation (NNP) regime is an outgrowth of steps taken during second half of twentieth century to halt horizontal spread of nuclear weapons. The NNP regime consists of several components. These are Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), founded in 1957; 1953 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) banning testing of nuclear weapons in atmosphere, outer space, or under water; 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which was extended indefinitely in 1995; London-based Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), formed in 1974, which requires IAEA safeguards on all of its participants' nuclear exports; 1987 Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) aimed at halting proliferation of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and other unmanned delivery systems; 1996 Wassenaar Arrangement (a successor to Cold War era's COCOM) covering conventional weapons and dual-use exports; and Zangger Committee which covers nuclear-related exports. T he 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which has yet to come into force, further constrains all states from conducting nuclear tests. In addition, nuclear weapons free zones (NWFZs) in Latin America, South Pacific, and Africa have further strengthened regime. In 1995, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) proposed establishment of a NWFZ in Southeast Asia, and in 1997 five Central Asian states issued Tashkent statement proposing a NWFZ for Central Asia. The overall record of NNP regime has been a mixture of success and failure. On positive side, five decades of international efforts at curbing spread of nuclear weapons have created a political and normative climate in which no state can easily declare its nuclear intentions. The unsuitability of nuclear weapons to most military situations also renders them useless. Moreover, a number of nuclearcapable states -- notably Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, and former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan -- have in recent years agreed to abandon strive for, or dismantle their nuclear weapons capabilities. In this sense, regime has been fairly successful. On negative side, campaign for nuclear disarmament appears to be failing just when success seemed at hand. Since mid1980s, regime has been undermined by emergence of new suppliers of nuclear technology and delivery systems, as well as by an increase in number of threshold or new nuclear weapons states (NWSs).. Apart from five declared NWSs (the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China), and two new self-declared NWSs (India and Pakistan), several other nations (Israel, Japan, North Korea, and Iran) are widely believed to have made significant progress towards acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities. The changes in international system and global nuclear balance of power since end of Cold War have thrown up new challenges and opportunities for NNP regime. …

On the application of IAEA safeguards to plutonium and highly enriched uranium from military inventories

Progress toward the reduction of nuclear arsenals may render surplus hundreds of tonnes of plutonium and highly enriched uranium by the end of the century. None of the acknowledged nuclear weapon states (NWS) is under a specific obligation to submit surplus military inventories to international control. However, inviting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to apply safeguards to the plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) released from military use could contribute to building confidence as part of the reductions currently envisaged and could encourage further steps within the states currently planning reductions or by other NWS. If invited, specific arrangements for the application of IAEA safeguards to plutonium and highly enriched uranium from military inventories would be determined by: the institutional provisions adopted; the specified verification requirements; the amounts and forms of plutonium and HEU and the types of facilities to be safeguarded; facility-specific features for the control and accounting of the plutonium and HEU; and the number of facilities where safeguards will be applied. These considerations would be used to establish the most appropriate verificiation arrangements, including the technology to be employed and inspection scheduling arrangements, to provide effective and efficient safeguards. If an invitation is made, the IAEAmore » Board of Governors must approve of the obligations and commitments of the states involved and of the financial arrangements that will ensure the safeguards can be implemented as agreed. 2 tabs.« less