Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Management of Verification by the
International Atomic energy Agency (IAEA)
Berhanykun Andemicael, New York University
By
pioneering the practice of international verification with built-in on-site
inspection, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has helped to prepare
the way for major advances in disarmament not only in the nuclear field but
also as regards the elimination of other weapons of mass destruction. Treaties and other binding legal
instruments to exercise full authority in its verification role in a manner
that transcends the normal consensual mode of international organizations
mandate the Agency. By delegating
such authority to the IAEA, State parties have accepted infringement upon their
sovereignty with respect to the Agency’s verification mandate. The management of non-proliferation
verification poses a dual challenge to the IAEA: first, to design and apply
effectively verification system within existing legal authority; and secondly,
to provide leadership in overcoming obstacles, if necessary by mobilising
State-parties to delegate authority for more intrusive verification. Accordingly, even though it
enjoyed the reputation as one of the best-managed agencies of the United
Nations system, the IAEA had to make a major shift in approach when its
traditional safeguards approach was found to be inadequate after the discovery
in 1991 of Iraq’s clandestine nuclear-weapon program. In 1991 the news media often charged the
IAEA of having failed to detect Iraq’s clandestine nuclear-weapons program. Even though it was
unfair to blame the IAEA for the failure, it raised the legitimate issue of
effective management of verification for the nuclear non-proliferation regime
in which the IAEA is expected to play a central role. Thus on the basis of the
experience acquired from the IAEA’s Security Council mandated operation
in Iraq, the Director General and the Board of Governors of the Agency were
able to initiate a reform process resulting in a strengthened safeguards system
which would provide credible detection of illicit undeclared activities of
States party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Safeguards, according to the Concise
Oxford Dictionary, are “a proviso, stipulation, quality of circumstance,
that tends to prevent something undesired.” In the context of
international security, IAEA safeguards can be described as a comprehensive set
of internationally approved technical and legal measures, applied by the IAEA,
to verify the political undertakings of States not to use nuclear material to
manufacture nuclear weapons and to deter any such use.” Safeguards are
therefore the means to verify compliance.
The
dual purpose of this paper is: to
examine IAEA’s safeguards system as a key element in managing the nuclear
non-proliferation regime under the NPT; and to analyse the strengths and
weaknesses of the overhauled verification system and its potential for
effective management of the regime.
For this purpose an attempt will be made to consider the following
issues: universality of
membership; institutional authority; access to territory, to relevant
information and to verification technology; response to non-compliance. The
paper will also address the issue of resource availability and cost-benefit
factors of further improvement and go beyond efficiency concerns to explore
possible synergies with other verification mechanisms as a way of enhancing
effectiveness. .
The
safeguards system of verification has gone through three major phases of
evolution.
The first phase covering the period 1957-1970, aimed
to facilitate a promising trade in nuclear plants and fuel while ensuring that
this trade did not lead to the spread of nuclear weapons. In view of the resistance of States to
accept any multilateral action constraining such trade, the IAEA was authorised
to carry out a modest set of export-oriented and item-specific safeguards applicable by 1967 to all sizes of nuclear
reactors, reprocessing plants and fuel fabrication plants. Such
transaction-base safeguards were prescribed by agreements between the IAEA and
a State, based on a model document known as INFCIRC/66/Rev.2. Today this model of limited application
of safeguards is still applicable only in four States – Cuba, India
Israel and Pakistan – all Member States which have decided not to accede
to the NPT.
The
second phase covering the period 1971- 1991 was ushered in by the entry into
force of the NPT, which was designed to prevent proliferation of nuclear
weapons outside the nuclear-weapon club.
The new system was designed to apply safeguards on all the nuclear
material in non-nuclear –weapon States party to the NPT and to keep
account of material, Based on model document INFCIRC/153, the Agency’s comprehensive
safeguards agreements
focused almost exclusively on verifying that there was no diversion of nuclear
material that the States concerned had declared and placed under safeguards. The five nuclear-weapon States –
the U.S., the Soviet Union (later the Russian Federation), the United Kingdom
and, eventually, France and China - had undertaken under the NPT to pursue in
good faith the goal of elimination nuclear weapons in due course and, in the
meantime, offered voluntarily and to accept IAEA safeguards to their civilian
nuclear facilities, as a gesture to diffuse the charge of discrimination
between nuclear haves and have-nots built into the NPT. During the 1970s and 1980s, the
vast majority of non-nuclear-weapon-States in all the regions of the world
became parties to the NPT and, with more accessions early in the 1990s, the NPT
now claims over 180 non-nuclear-weapon parties. Of these, all but 51 States have concluded comprehensive
safeguards with the IAEA, the rest being mostly States without nuclear
facilities excepting for the four mentioned earlier). However, major setbacks in the early 1990’s
necessitated a far-reaching review to launch a new phase of the safeguards
system.
The third phase began in 1991 as a response
by the IAEA to new challenges to the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the
Agency’s safeguards verification system emanating from the discovery of
an extensive clandestine nuclear program in Iraq in 1991 and problems faced in
applying safeguards in the DPRK.
The reform process focused on possible clandestine activities of States
contrary to their non-proliferation commitments and its results culminated in
1997 in the approval by the Board of Governors of the IAEA of a significantly
expanded legal basis for safeguards embodied in Model Additional Protocol to
the Safeguards Agreements, document INFCIRC/540.
Before
focusing on the nature of the strengthened safeguards system, it is helpful to
draw a balance sheet of achievements and setbacks and examine the institutional
response as a factor of verification management. On the plus side, in the wake
of the end of the cold-war, not only have over 180 States accepted the
non-proliferation commitments under the NPT but virtually all States in the
southern hemisphere have established nuclear-weapon-free zones in their
respective regions based on multilateral treaties: Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear weapons in Latin
America and the Caribbean (Tlatelolco Treaty); An African Nuclear Weapon-Free
Zone Treaty (Pelindaba Treaty); South East Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone
Treaty (Bangkok Treaty); South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone Treaty
(Raratonga Treaty); and the
emerging Central Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (CANWFZ Treaty). As the IAEA safeguards are applicable
to all these NWFZ treaties as well as to the NPT, the acceptance of safeguards
has approached universality, with a few significant exceptions. Among the most significant developments
by the mid-1990s were, the dismantlement by South Africa of its nuclear arsenal
and its accession to the NPT and its acceptance of IAEA comprehensive
safeguards, which were successfully used to verify the total elimination of its
nuclear weapons program. The renunciation by Argentina and Brazil of the
nuclear-weapon option and their full acceptance of the Tlatelolco Treaty and
their accession to the NPT is another significant achievement, which has
provided a major opportunity for effective application of IAEA safeguards. The 25th anniversary of the
NPT was an occasion of positive review of the implementation of Treaty,
including the verification role of the IAEA, which culminated in the indefinite
extension of the NPT.
On the minus side, as was mentioned, the
first major set-back was the discovery in the summer of 1991 of Iraq’s
clandestine nuclear-weapons program along with its extensive program of
chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles. This set-back to safeguards was soon
followed in 1993 by the DPRK’s obstruction to IAEA’s safeguards
operation to resolve discrepancies between its declaration of its nuclear
material and the results of IAEA’s inspections which showed unexplained
traces of certain radioisotopes in the DPRK’s reprocessing plant. A
confrontation between the IAEA and the DPRK over access to inspectors to
nuclear waste sites that might provide the key to the mystery led to a crisis
culminating in DPRK’s notice of withdrawal from the NPT that could only
be reversed by a DPRK-U.S bilateral Framework Agreement to freeze the nuclear
program pending the delivery of nuclear technology less prone to weapons
proliferation. Despite the recent
détente between the two Koreas, the IAEA is welcomed only to monitor
compliance with the freeze but not to exercise fully its safeguards
responsibilities. The set-back as regards India and Pakistan is of a different
character: the nuclear-weapon testing by both in 1998 did not involve treaty
violations as both were non-parties to the NPT, but their nuclear tests had
renounced their pledges against testing and broken the testing moratorium which
has shaken the political commitments underlying the nuclear non-proliferation
regime. However, like the Iraq and DPRK set-backs which, in addition to
providing useful lessons for strengthening safeguards and inducing a determined
effort by the international community to ensure compliance, may have
contributed to the indefinite extension of the NPT, the India/Pakistan nuclear
situation may have persuaded the declared nuclear-weapon States to close ranks
with the non-nuclear parties to the NPT adopt a consensus approach to
non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament at the 2000 NPT Review
Conference. Notably, neither the
non-compliance by NPT-parties nor the nuclear testing by nuclear-capable
non-NPT States so far encouraged defection State-parties. The lessons learned are reflected in
the IAEA’s strengthened safeguards system.
The Iraq case of successful deception about
a clandestine nuclear-weapon program had demonstrated the weaknesses of the
existing system of managing the non-proliferation regime by the IAEA as well as
by State parties. The features of
the strengthened safeguards system can be profiled more clearly by contrast
with the safeguards as applied to Iraq until the Gulf War.
First, regarding the mandated approach: the
traditional system was designed to safeguard the declared nuclear material of a
State and to focus on the fuel cycle as a strategic path involving a series of
interconnected plants through which nuclear material flows to generate
electricity, produce radioisotopes or for other peaceful purposes. The
correctness and completeness of the initial declaration is verified at the
outset by as many as necessary ad hoc inspections to establish the baseline for
future accounting, routine inspections and monitoring by a combination of
containment and technological surveillance. In Iraq, this approach resulted in covering only a handful
of the almost one hundred installations in operation at the main Iraqi nuclear
Research Centre at Tuwaitha – only those that contained or were connected
with the safeguarded nuclear material.
Because of the modest size of the peaceful Iraqi nuclear program only
two routine annual inspections were considered adequate. It was revealed after
the Gulf War that many of the facilities in Tuwaitha, to which the IAEA
inspectors did not have the right of access, had played a crucial role in the
clandestine Iraqi program.
Secondly, as regards acquisitions, there was and still is no legally
binding requirement to report on exports of nuclear and dual-use equipment.
Indeed, any party to the NPT could export a reprocessing or enrichment plant to
any other NPT State party without notifying the IAEA. The only obligation to
inform the IAEA was that placed on the importing State, namely to provide the
Agency with design information about the plant “as early as possible before nuclear material is
introduced into it (INFCIRC/153, para.42) 42) – a timing desired by all
parties to mean as late as six months before the envisaged loading of nuclear
material. The possibility of detection of illicit activity was thus virtually
removed by various restrictions and inadequacies of the system: limitation to
declared information, restriction of access to designated facilities,
predictability of periodic routine inspections and lack of meaningful
import/export control regarding proliferation-relevant nuclear equipment,
technology and material.
The strengthened safeguards system, as
embodied in the Model Additional Protocol to the Safeguards Agreements,
introduces fundamental changes in the way IAEA approaches its safeguards
tasks. It main features are:
(a) Comprehensive information: use of an
expanded declaration of a State’s nuclear program to include a totality
of the State’s nuclear activities, in order to set the stage for possible
detection of relevant clandestine activities.
(b) Totality of nuclear activities: a shift
from the traditional facility-oriented approach, which was designed to verify
the absence of diversion of nuclear material in individual nuclear plants, to
one encompassing the totality of a State’s nuclear activities
(infrastructure, equipment and nuclear material, import/export information on
safeguards-relevant items) and designed to detect any undeclared
activities.
(c) Complementary access: broadening the
right of access of inspectors to locations and acceptance of new safeguards
techniques, including environmental sampling and the use of new sensory
technology for near real-time monitoring.
(d) Export/import controls: reliance on an
extensive data bank established by the Agency on imports and exports in nuclear
material, equipment and technology made available to the Agency by member
States as recommended by the Board of Governors, as supplemented by information
gathered by the Agency itself.
The strengthened safeguards system combines: (a)
information analysis to determine consistency between the expanded declarations
and the information gathered from different sources and effective on-site
inspection from all sources; and (b) broader access to nuclear activities
within and beyond nuclear installations through on-site inspections and less
intrusive but effective techniques for radiation detection, thanks to the
unique traces that such activities leave in the environment.
Management issues for effective
verification of the non-proliferation regime
The
IAEA’s comprehensive safeguards system is a vital element in managing the
nuclear non-proliferation system. As strengthened during the past decade, it is
designed to provide more effective verification within existing resources, but
is it by itself adequate for an effective management of the nuclear
non-proliferation regime. By verification management we mean not just carrying
out efficient implementation of safeguards verification by the Director General
and the Agency’s inspectorate but. , more broadly, the provision of
effective institutional leadership to ensure that nuclear-weapon proliferation
is deterred as required by the NPT.
Our assessment of management verification will focus on the main issues
faced by the IAEA in ensuring compliance by States with their non-proliferation
commitment, thereby preserving the non-proliferation regime: universality of
membership; institutional authority and resource factors, access and other
operational factors; and non-compliance and recourse.
Universality issue
The
nuclear non-proliferation regime is universal in its concept as a norm against
the spread of nuclear weapons to States beyond the five major powers but only
the State parties to the NPT and the parties to regional nuclear-weapon-free
zone treaties are legally bound to comply with the requirements of the
regime. Several nuclear weapon
capable States, notably India, Israel and Pakistan have retained their nuclear
option and still remain outside the legal framework of the regime. Until the 1999 nuclear- weapon tests by
India and Pakistan, all States had accepted the non-proliferation norm, which
provided a favourable political/security environment to build a generally
successful verification system. As
the IAEA’s membership includes non-parties as well as parties to the NPT,
its NPT-based comprehensive safeguards agreements have not been accepted and
are thus not applied to those States that have remained outside the NPT or the
NWFZ treaties to which the same safeguards apply. The non-parties to those
treaties have accepted only a limited application of item-specific safeguards
(INFCIRC/66-type). Thus, the
discrepancy between the IAEA’s membership and the composition of NPT/NWFZ
State-parties poses as a major constraint on the Agency’s role as sole
global organization entrusted with the verification task to deter
nuclear-weapon proliferation.
Secondly,
IAEA verification under the NPT/NWFZ system can be considered as a cornerstone
for preserving the integrity of the non-proliferation regime, it is by no means
the only means for the management of the regime. Other major elements of the
regime include: (a) maintenance of
a general consensus and predisposition, against further proliferation; (b)
treaty commitments against nuclear proliferation; (c) peaceful use undertakings
in nuclear scientific cooperation or commerce between suppliers and recipients. As these elements are inter-related, erosion
of one or more components of the regime is bound to limit the effectiveness of
the IAEA’s verification as a catalyst for sustaining the regime. The built-in inter-relationship also
gives the Agency a scope of constructive leadership to help consolidate the
regime.
Thirdly,
even within the framework of the NPT, the
IAEA is not entrusted with responsibilities ensuring compliance by all
the State-parties with the non-proliferation undertakings contained in the
Treaty. Under Article III of the
NPT, IAEA’s mandatory
verification role is applicable only to the undertakings of non-nuclear-weapon
States party to the Treaty (ref. Article II) is addressed, but not to the
undertakings of the nuclear-weapon-States not to proliferate (ref. Article
I). Unlike more recent
multilateral instruments such as the Chemical Weapons Convention and the
Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty that established agencies dedicated solely to
verification and applicable equally to all the parties, the NPT has assigned
the verification task to an existing multi-purpose organization, and only as
regards the non-acquisition undertakings of non-nuclear-weapon States. The IAEA was not to serve as a
permanent secretariat body for the NPT as such although, in practice, it
participates actively in the process review conferences designed to strengthen
the regime. The IAEA’s role
in this regard may range from catalytic to one of leadership.
Institutional authority and resources
As
an intergovernmental organization, the IAEA’s authority to carry out
mandatory verification operations is based on its Statute and on the provisions
of the NPT, relevant conventions and other legal instruments obligating States
to allow infringement upon their national sovereignty. In effect, the
intrusiveness of the verification process within the territories of States may
be considered as a delegation of an aspect of sovereignty to a multinational
agency for a specific task. This
institutional authority rests with the IAEA’s 41-member Board of
Governors that, among other things, is responsible for the planning and
execution of the IAEA’s safeguards system. It is the Board which approves safeguards agreements,
considers any cases of non-compliance that the Director General reports to it,
authorizes special inspections in suspicious cases, exerts pressure on
recalcitrant States and reports findings of non-compliance to the
Agency’s member States, to the Security Council and to the General
Assembly of the United Nations. It acts autonomously on all these matters in
close association with the Director General. However, the Director
General’s proposals for the safeguards budget require the concurrence of
the Agency’s General Conference comprising all member States. The Director General is responsible to
the Board for the functioning of the IAEA’s staff, including the over 500
members of the Department of safeguards.
All secretariat proposals on safeguards submitted for the Board’s
approval are submitted under the Director General’s authority. The Director General works so closely
with the Board during its four or five annual sessions that it in effect
constitutes a partnership between the executive head and a board with a
permanent core 13 States of most advanced States in nuclear technology. A
source of strength and authority for the Board is the fact that it includes
representatives of the five nuclear- weapon States who are also permanent
members of the Security Council. However, difficulties sometimes arise in
deliberations involving vigorous action as the core of the Board also includes
a non-NPT nuclear-weapon-capable State (India) and, periodically, another such
State as an elected member (Pakistan).
Access
and operational issues
Compliance and recourse
(a)
Resources
factor: adequacy of personnel; funding issue
(b)
Operational
effectiveness: (i) access to
territory – sovereignty issue;
(ii) access to information – confidentiality issue; (c) access to higher authority (UN
Security Council) -- non-compliance issue.
D.
Cost benefit
of ideas for further improvements: verification mechanism, methods and
practices and synergies with other verification mechanisms.
E.
Conclusion: The conclusion will derive from the
analysis