International Seminar on Disarmament

Lima, Perú
Dec-1999

"The importance of IAEA Safeguards in the
Non-Proliferation Regime"

Jan Priest
Head of the Verification, Security of Material and Safety Policy Section
Office of External Relations and Policy Co-ordination International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna

It is generally assumed that States entering into treaty commitments do so in good faith. However, in a variety of areas, especially in the key area of national security, assurances are both needed and sought that parties to agreements are abiding by their terms and not engaging in violations. Hence the need for effective verification, a process which seeks to ascertain that States are not cheating and to make the political risks of any cheating unacceptably high through the risk of timely detection.

This paper focuses on the importance of safeguards - or nuclear verification as implemented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - in the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Safeguards have shown themselves, over time and in the light of experience, to be flexible and responsive to a variety of needs and challenges. However, they are neither the only, - nor arguably the first- barrier against nuclear weapons proliferation.

It is well known that the "nuclear non-proliferation regime", commonly denotes the legal norms, voluntary undertakings and policies which the international community has developed to deal with the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation. It rests on a number of assumptions: that the spread of nuclear weapons does not increase a State's security but is likely to weaken it; that nuclear energy can have an important role in the development of States' energy policies and economic development; that, given the dual nature of nuclear energy, arrangements need to be in place to make nuclear co-operation possible without increasing proliferation; and that there is a linkage between non-proliferation and disarmament.

Incentives - or disincentives- to acquire nuclear weapons, are reflected in the nuclear policies of the majority of nations, that do not have nuclear weapons, and of the few that do. Other components of the non-proliferation regime are: multilateral and regional and/or bilateral legal instruments - in particular the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970 - in which non-proliferation commitments are anchored; verification - in particular the IAEA safeguards system; - the compliance and enforcement mechanism built in as part of that system - the Security Council; export controls; efforts to ensure that nuclear material is protected against theft or sabotage; the security guarantees - negative and positive - which the NWS give to NNWS which have renounced the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons - and measures to strive for arms control and disarmament with the ultimate goals of eliminating nuclear weapons (and of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control). All of these components are mutually reinforcing and all depend, in significant measure, on effective verification.

From the very beginning of the nuclear age, efforts to prevent proliferation were based on the premise that the greatest challenge was the acquisition of weapons-usable nuclear material - whether highly enriched uranium or plutonium. It was this which prompted the abortive Baruch Plan and later prompted the US "nuclear secrecy" policy. When events showed that this policy has failed, and President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative of 1953, was promulgated, the new, co-operative approach had clearly abandoned the earlier idea of an international monopoly of nuclear material and facilities in favour of international verification of obligations by States with respect to nationally held nuclear material and nationally controlled nuclear facilities. Important in this context was the notion that it was possible to separate peaceful and military nuclear activities if appropriate assurances (in the form of pledges by States) were given and maintained and if there was effective verification of commitments made. All this led to the creation of the IAEA in 1957, and is reflected in its dual mandate to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy whilst helping to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The IAEA Statute provides the basic authority and a framework for the application of safeguards. Article III.A.5 of the Statute authorises the Agency "to establish and administer safeguards" in three types of circumstances: (1) when the Agency itself is the source or channel of assistance (under project and supply agreements between the Agency and its Member States); (2) when parties to any bilateral or multilateral arrangements request it to do so; or (3) at the request of a State to any of that State's activities in the field of atomic energy. Article XII of the Statute sets out the rights and responsibilities of the Agency in applying safeguards including the right to examine the design of specialised equipment and facilities, including nuclear reactors to ensure, inter alia, that the design will permit effective safeguards application; the right to require the maintenance and production of operating records to assist in ensuring accountability for source and special fissionable material and the right to send inspectors into the recipient State, with respect to any Agency project or other arrangement where the Agency is requested by the Parties to apply its safeguards.

Agency projects have been limited in number and, other than in connection with commitments incurred as a result of Treaty obligations, few states have asked, unilaterally, for safeguards to be applied. By far the greater part of safeguards implementation derives from requests from parties to 'bilateral or multilateral arrangements'. From the early days, safeguards were one of the key conditions of international co-operation but were applied on a bilateral basis and not by an international organization. A major change began even before the NPT entered into force in 1970 and resulted from the transfer of bilateral safeguards arrangements to the Agency. Thus, by the mid 1960's the US had transferred to the relatively new IAEA the responsibility for implementing safeguards on its nuclear exports. It also required the application of safeguards as a condition of new or amended co-operation agreements.

The Legal Instruments

As intimated above, in the first years of its existence, safeguards, the IAEA's technical means of helping to further the non-proliferation objective, applied only to nuclear plant and fuel which countries obtained from abroad and if the supplier insisted on them. The quantum leap forward was the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), opened for signature in 1968.

The NPT was not, of course, the first comprehensive non-proliferation undertaking. The credit for that of course goes to the Tlatelolco Treaty, a trailblazer which not only signals the determination of States of this region to keep nuclear weapons out of Latin America but has been a guide and inspiration to other NWFZ arrangements. Having said that, the entry into force of the NPT in 1970 was a major watershed in two respects: The Treaty was - and remains - the first global nuclear non-proliferation Treaty. It also assigns to the IAEA the responsibility for verifying, at the global level, through its safeguards system, that non-nuclear weapon States (NNWS) fulfil their obligations not to use their peaceful nuclear activities to develop any nuclear explosive devices of any kind. This was a new departure in that non-nuclear weapon States Party to the new, global instrument were - and are - obliged to conclude a "full-scope" or comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA under which safeguards are applied, in accordance with the terms of the agreement, to all "source or special fissionable material", (terms which are defined in Article XX of the IAEA Statute), in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of the State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere. This development acknowledged the Agency's value and acceptance in implementing the safeguards required up until that time and was a vote of confidence in its ability to take on new, heavier responsibilities. It put the Agency firmly into a prominent position on the world stage and brought about a major change in the way in which safeguards are generally applied.

Up until the entry into force of the NPT, the Agency's safeguards agreements reflected limited undertakings not to use supplied nuclear material or plant for proscribed purposes - either at supplier insistence or in cases where the Agency itself was the channel or source of assistance. With the comprehensive undertakings of the NPT, it was clear that the scope of safeguards and the associated agreements needed to be looked at again. The IAEA Board of Governors established a safeguards committee to advise it in this regard and from it emanated, "The Structure and Content of Agreements between the Agency and States required in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons", approved by the Agency Board of Governors in 1972. The Board requested the Director General to use the document as a basis for negotiating safeguards agreements under the NPT. INFCIRC/153(Corr.) has also served since as a basis for the structure and content of other comprehensive safeguards agreements and in connection with the voluntary offer safeguards agreements concluded with nuclear-weapons-States.


Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements

As noted, most IAEA safeguards implementation is pursuant to the NPT and to Treaties (such as NWFZ agreements) which contain comparable non-proliferation undertakings. The safeguards agreements which derive therefrom codify the Parties' basic rights and obligations relevant to the application of safeguards. These include the State's basic non-proliferation undertaking to be verified through safeguards application; its obligation to maintain a system of accounting and control for all nuclear material subject to safeguards, and an obligation to provide the Agency with all information relevant to the application of safeguards. The agreements also include the Agency's right and obligation to verify a State's compliance with its basic undertaking and, in so doing, to avoid hampering a State's economic and technological development. The Agency is also required to protect such of the State's commercial, industrial and other confidential information that becomes known to it in the course of safeguards implementation and to provide Statements to the State on the results of its inspections and about the conclusions it has drawn from its verification activities in the State. Detailed safeguards implementation procedures are set out in "Subsidiary Arrangements", tailored specifically to the requirements of the facilities to be safeguarded. Safeguards agreements represent a balance of rights and obligations, whether for the State or for the Agency. They reflect, inter alia, that safeguards have developed and evolved with particular regard to sensitivity to State sovereignty and also to provide assurance against the risk of arbitrary or capricious conduct by the Agency.


Institutionalised Transparency

Safeguards are essentially a verification process through which compliance with non-proliferation undertakings can be ascertained or other mechanisms put in place should the reverse be true. A technical means of assuring a political end, objectives of "traditional" or "classical" comprehensive safeguards are firstly that the IAEA be able to detect, in a timely manner, diversion of significant quantities (SQ) of nuclear material from a State's peaceful nuclear activities "to the manufacture of nuclear weapons or of other nuclear devices or for purposes unknown" and to ensure that all nuclear material subject to safeguards in the State is declared to the Agency. The second objective is to deter any such diversion by the risk of timely detection.

It is well known that "classical" safeguards have three main components: "nuclear material accountancy" to establish the quantities of nuclear material present within defined areas and the changes in these quantities that take place within defined periods of time; complementary, containment and surveillance measures which take advantage of physical barriers (such as walls, containers, etc.) to restrict or control the movement of or access to nuclear material; and on-site inspection. The fundamental importance of nuclear accountancy is set out in paragraph 29 of INFCIRC/153 (Corr.). The inspection process is also of the highest importance because it is the means by which the credibility of the other verification elements can be established. During the inspection process, Agency inspectors - impartial, international civil servants - perform a variety of functions such as examining accounting records of nuclear material subject to safeguards and operating records for facilities containing such material; taking independent measurements and samples; verifying the functioning and calibration of instruments and applying surveillance and containment measures in order to verify what a State has declared about its nuclear material and activities. An important feature of inspection is that its type, intensity and frequency varies according to the kind of nuclear material and facility and are applied in States without discrimination. The set of inspection activities necessary to achieve the technical objectives of safeguards is defined in the Agency's Safeguards Criteria.

Thus, the safeguards system, consists of measures by which the IAEA verifies declarations made by States about their nuclear material and activities, thereby providing an important service function. Safeguards implementation results in a form of institutionalised nuclear transparency through which the IAEA can provide assurance to the international community that a State's nuclear activities are being used exclusively for peaceful purposes and a State can demonstrate to others that this is the case. Thus, through the assurance given, safeguards promote confidence amongst States and help to strengthen their collective security.

On-site inspection (OSI) has been a component of IAEA safeguards since the Agency's inception but, with comprehensive safeguards based on INFCIRC/153, the concept of OSI was accepted internationally and is now integral to the verification of compliance with other Treaties to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The co-operative aspects of OSI, in a multilateral setting, in themselves provide a valuable service function. Perceived compliance by States with verification related obligations builds confidence and trust and can bring other dividends, for example in the political or economic sphere. Conversely, reluctance to agree to or co-operate with the verification process can provide timely warning of possible non-compliance and enable response and reinforcement mechanisms to be activated. The on-site presence of competent, trained inspectors can also bring benefits that no amount of sophisticated technology or instrumentation can alone provide; for example, familiarity with facilities, plants and operating parameters which contributes to a picture of what is "normal". This makes it easier to identify any unusual or ambiguous events and to seek clarification at a low threshold. Additionally, human observation and inspection can achieve results that even technology at the cutting edge can not. In brief therefore, OSI contributes greatly to transparency, the key to a high degree of confidence and trust in the relevant sphere of a State's activity.

Since the NPT entered into force in 1970, the IAEA has been able to provide a high level of assurance about the non-diversion of nuclear material which has been placed under safeguards and to identify cases where safeguards obligations have not been met. The track record of safeguards implementation has been regularly reviewed and assessed at the quinquennial NPT Review Conferences at which the essential role of safeguards, in a robust non-proliferation regime, has been underscored. The Agency has been acclaimed for its work in implementing safeguards as provided for in comprehensive safeguards agreements and in keeping with the specific principles enshrined therein. Accordingly, acknowledgement has been given that, in carrying out its safeguards responsibilities, the Agency has avoided hampering the economic or technological development of the Parties to the Treaty and has protected the commercial and industrial secrets coming to its knowledge. It has taken full account of technical developments in safeguards; concentrated its verification procedures on "direct use" nuclear material; sought to co-operate fully with States in carrying out its work; and chosen staff with due regard to appropriate standards and geographical distribution. Despite this good report card however, the events of the early 1990's pointed up and provided opportunities for the further evolution of the safeguards system to enable it to respond to new challenges, new expectations and new tasks.


Lessons Learned from Iraq

Iraq's violations of its NPT obligations and safeguards agreement changed the political expectations of the safeguards system and led to the realization that if it were to be truly effective, it had to be equipped not only to verify what States had declared about their nuclear material and activities but also, to the extent possible, to provide assurance about the absence of undeclared activities. In other words, the Agency needed to be able to provide assurance not only about the correctness of nuclear material declarations by States with comprehensive safeguards agreements but also about the completeness of those declarations.

This has been the focus of all the steps taken since to strengthen safeguards through new measures. The underlying premise is that greater the degree of nuclear transparency about a State's nuclear programme, the more comprehensive the verification can be and the assurances derived therefrom about the exclusively peaceful nature of a State's nuclear activities. So, the Agency has been seeking more information about States' nuclear programmes and more access to places and locations at which nuclear material is or could be present as key to enhanced assurance. Important, early strengthening measures with regard to information focused on increased provision of information by the State itself, supplemented by information obtained by the Agency during its verification activities, from in-depth analysis of information in the media and other open source literature and information available from other sources.

Early measures regarding access derived from the Iraq experience which showed that access limited to "strategic points" in declared facilities, for the implementation of specific safeguards measures was insufficient to enable the detection of any undeclared activities. Hence the Agency Board of Governors re-affirmed in February 1992 the IAEA's right, as provided for in safeguards agreements, to conduct "special inspections".

The strengthening safeguards process was given further impetus by the Agency's negative experience in seeking to implement safeguards in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and by its positive experience in South Africa. The inconsistency between the DPRK's "initial report" of its nuclear material subject to safeguards and findings during the verification of that report, and the DPRK's subsequent refusal to allow IAEA access to structures of apparent safeguards relevance, demonstrated not only the potency of new environmental sampling techniques, first used in Iraq but, in a wider sense: (1) the importance of a State's full co-operation with the Agency in enabling it to verify commitments undertaken pursuant to safeguards agreements based on Treaty obligations and (2) the limitations placed upon safeguards when States do not co-operate.

Conversely, IAEA experience in South Africa showed, two-fold, the value of co-operation and transparency. Such co-operation and transparency were apparent during the long (2 year) process of verifying the completeness of South Africa's initial report to the IAEA. Major unsafeguarded nuclear facilities, including a plant for the production of highly enriched uranium, had previously operated outside any kind of international control for many years. Following a number of visits to South Africa by an IAEA team, and maximum co-operation on the part of the relevant authorities, the Agency concluded that it had found no evidence to suggest that the declared inventory of nuclear installations and material was incomplete. The value of transparency was also shown later. Following the declaration made by South Africa in March 1993, the IAEA was invited to examine, with full transparency, the scope, nature and facilities of a former nuclear weapons programme and could ascertain that the programme had indeed been terminated; that all the nuclear devices had been dismantled prior to South Africa's accession to the NPT; and that all nuclear material involved in the weapons programme had been returned to peaceful use. The experience in South Africa expanded the experience of the Agency, sharpened its inspection skills and provided experience in looking into non-nuclear material related activities of a clandestine nuclear weapons development programme.

Access to the Security Council

The case of Iraq, which was shown, post Gulf War, to have clandestine enrichment and nuclear weapons programmes, pointed up the importance of access to the Security Council, the compliance and enforcement mechanism built in as part of the safeguards system. Under the IAEA Statute and in safeguards agreements, the Agency is obliged to report cases of non-compliance with safeguards obligations to the Security Council. The Council responded differently to the case of Iraq and its aftermath, and, to the case of the DPRK. Important for the safeguards system, however, is the Council's Summit Statement of 31 January 1992 which, inter alia, emphasised not only the integral role of fully effective IAEA safeguards in implementing the NPT but also its readiness to take "appropriate measures in the case of any violations notified to them by the IAEA".

Building Further on Experience

Much has been achieved since the first safeguards strengthening measures. In the wake of an April 1993 Report by the Director General's Standing Advisory Group on Safeguards Implementation (SAGSI), the IAEA Board of Governors (June 1993) asked the Director General to develop concrete proposals for the assessment, development and testing of the measures proposed by SAGSI regarding effectiveness and efficiency.
The basic conceptual approach underlying the development programme was that nuclear activities in a State, whether present or future, involve an interrelated set of nuclear activities that require or are indicated by the existence of a certain infrastructure; specific equipment; nuclear material and - as in any kind of manufacturing process - 'tell-tale' even if minute, traces in the environment. All this provides the basis for a conceptual assessment involving an "expanded declaration" (i.e. more information from a State about its nuclear activities and plans); information evaluation; new technical measures and enhanced inspector access as integrated parts of an additional kind of audit function. This involves a detailed evaluation of the internal consistency of a State's declaration and a point-by-point comparison between indications of activities from all information available to the Agency and what the State says it is doing or plans to do.

It is possible to see the measures of the programme (known as programme 93 + 2) in clusters relating to the main areas reform - more information and more access - building on earlier strengthening measures.

Proposals under the programme were presented to the Board of Governors in 1994, with a special presentation of results in March and June 1995. At the former meeting, the Board reiterated that the purpose of comprehensive safeguards agreements is to verify that such material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices and concluded that, to that end, "the safeguards system for implementing comprehensive safeguards agreements should be designed to provide for verification by the Agency of the correctness and completeness of States' declarations, so that there is credible assurance of the non-diversion of nuclear material from declared activities and of the absence of undeclared nuclear activities". Developments since have shown that safeguards continue to respond to the expectations placed upon them, consistent with the authority conferred upon the IAEA.

Prior to the June Board meeting, the Secretariat concluded that some measures could be implemented by virtue of the legal authority already contained in safeguards agreements and that other measures would require complementary legal authority because (1) they would expand the information required from States under their Safeguards Agreements and (2) would also involve greater physical access for inspectors to relevant sites and locations. The Board of Governors noted the Director General's intention to implement the former measures forthwith.

So too did States Parties to the NPT at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference, which again underscored the importance of safeguards to the implementation of the Treaty; stressed the objective of universal application of the Treaty and, in this regard, urged all States required to do so by Article III of the Treaty to bring the relevant safeguards agreements into force; made clear that the IAEA is the competent authority to verify compliance with its safeguards agreements; reiterated that safeguards should be regularly evaluated and assessed; said that decisions of the Board of Governors aimed at further strengthening should be supported and implemented; and that the Agency's ability to detect any undeclared nuclear material or activities should be increased.

Committee 24 and the Additional Protocol

The other measures, requiring additional legal authority were deliberated and refined by an open ended Committee of the Board of Governors which met four times (2-4 July and 1-11 October 1996; 20-31 January and 2-4 April 1997) to negotiate a legal instrument which would contain those measures. The Model Protocol Additional to Safeguards Agreements (the "Model Additional Protocol") was approved by a special meeting of the Board of Governors in May 1997 and is set out in an Agency Information Circular (INFCIRC/540 Corrected).

Rights and Obligations under the Additional Protocol

The Model Additional Protocol is of the highest importance to effective verification of non-proliferation commitments. Building upon earlier strengthening measures, it embodies powerful new tools to help the Agency to verify compliance with a State's legal undertakings. In combination with the relevant safeguards agreement, together with which it must be read and interpreted, it provides for as complete a picture as practicable about a State's production of and holdings of nuclear source material, activities for the further processing of nuclear material (whether for nuclear or non-nuclear use) and of elements of the infrastructure which supports a State's current or planned nuclear fuel cycle. The elements of the voluntary reporting scheme mentioned previously as an early strengthening measure is in substance incorporated into the Additional Protocol as a legal obligation.

The Model Additional Protocol also addresses administrative arrangements, to rationalise safeguards administration through improving the process of inspector designations, the issuance of visas, wider use of IAEA regional offices; and enabling Agency inspectors to use the most up to date means of communications for the transmitting safeguards-related data in timely fashion.

The Model Additional Protocol, like comprehensive safeguards agreements, reflects an agreed balance between rights and obligations. Thus, if a State concluding an Additional Protocol incurs certain additional, legal obligations, the other side of the coin is that its rights are protected under the Additional Protocol through certain obligations on the part of the Agency. Details of the basic obligations of the State and of the Agency under the Model Additional Protocol are given in Annex I.

Following the adoption of the Model Additional Protocol by the Board of Governors, the IAEA Secretariat started and continues to work on the infrastructure necessary for effective and efficient implementation. Brief details are at Annex II.

Current Status of the Additional Protocol

To date, Additional Protocols for 45 States have been approved by the Board of Governors, covering 41 NNWS (including Cuba) and 4 NWS. 45 such Protocols have been signed, and, when in force, will cover a large proportion (about 80%) of the world's civil nuclear activities. Seven Additional Protocols have already entered into force and one is being applied provisionally. All States are urged to conclude Additional Protocols because the full potential of the strengthened safeguards system depends on universal subscription to the provisions in the Model.

Other Contributions

There are other contexts in which the safeguards system either does or has the potential to make further contributions to non-proliferation. Its work in these areas attests to the value placed on its contribution.

NWFZ and New Initiatives

One such area is verifying compliance with bilateral or regional non-proliferation arrangements, such as Nuclear Weapon Free Zones (NWFZs)., arrangements which are the "value added" of the verification system. By catering for specific concerns and needs, such arrangements provide assurances within and between the parties drawing them up and complement the global verification system. The latter nevertheless remains a sine qua non of effective verification because, through it, States can show the international community that they are complying with their non-proliferation undertakings and the international community can derive assurance. This was not lost, inter alia, on participants at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference
Because NWFZs and other regional or bilateral arrangements cater for different needs and problems, there is no definitive model. The obligations assumed by the parties differ, and thus so do the verification arrangements. Nevertheless there are some common denominators. All existing NWFZ, for example, have their roots in the Cold War and all represent the "building block" approach to detente, arms control and disarmament and the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. They aim to ensure that the relevant area is freed from the threat of nuclear war, through specific or additional guarantees against "horizontal" proliferation and by insulating the countries of the zone against any Nuclear Weapon States action which would be incompatible with the underlying Treaty or Agreement. Additional definitions, provided by the UN General Assembly (e.g. in its resolution A/RES/3472B(30) of 1975 and the 1978 Final Document of the 10th Special Session of the General Assembly) have also shaped the overall characteristics of NWFZs including recognition of the need for an international system of verification of compliance with the obligations assumed by the Parties to the zone. This task was assigned to the IAEA from the pioneering days of the Tlatelolco Treaty and is reflected in the successive NWFZ arrangements concluded since. Although the specifics of the 'control systems' vary from one NWFZ to another, effective verification by the IAEA of 'peaceful use' pledges is commonly regarded as an essential component.

In recent years, there has been a gradual shift in the weight of the IAEA role in NWFZs. This reflects, amongst other things, the massive geopolitical changes and dislocations brought about by the end of the Cold War and also radically altered concepts of what 'security' is all about. Thus, NWFZs have come to address - and provide for international verification of compliance with - such diverse regional preoccupations as the dumping of nuclear waste at sea; prohibition of armed attack on nuclear installations; the possibility of hitherto undeclared nuclear explosive devices; the destruction or conversion to peaceful uses of facilities for manufacturing such devices; and the need for environmental clean-up of now redundant nuclear weapons test sites. Developments such as these further attest to the flexibility and responsiveness of international nuclear verification and its ability to carry out new tasks.

Arms Reduction and Disarmament

Other examples of the latter include the work now being undertaken - other than in connection with Iraq, a special case - in certain non-traditional verification activities in the area of nuclear arms reduction and disarmament. For example, starting in September 1993, the US has on several occasions made announcements regarding fissile material designated by the US Government as no longer required for defence purposes and the intention of the US to place such material under international verification. Some such material has been placed under safeguards in the context of the US Voluntary Offer Safeguards Agreement. Other verification work related to material released from military programmes has included tasks associated with the down-blending of 'Sapphire" material purchased by the US from Kazakhstan and with a verification experiment at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant to verify the down-blending of highly enriched uranium.

The principal non-traditional task is an initiative with the Russian Federation and the United States to verify weapon-origin fissile material in both of those countries which has been designated as no longer required for defence purposes. It is foreseen that the Russian Federation would submit weapons-origin fissile material to IAEA verification, while the US would submit weapon-origin and other fissile material no longer required for defence purposes. The amount of nuclear material to be included in this initiative could ultimately total hundreds of tons.

The Agency has been working with these countries since 1996 to develop a verification regime which will ensure that such material is irrevocably removed from nuclear weapons programmes. A crucial aspect of the process will be the requirement for verification procedures which will allow Agency inspectors to derive sufficient information for credible verification, while at the same time preventing access to any classified information associated with the form and composition of the nuclear material. The three parties are now engaged in a work programme to complete a model verification agreement which will serve as a basis for implementation of this new verification role, and to develop and test the necessary verification equipment which will be required.

A further initiative for controlling the proliferation of nuclear weapons involves the negotiation of a treaty banning the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Such a treaty would require appropriate verification arrangements in those States party to the Treaty. The provisions of such a treaty remain to be defined. However, it could, inter alia, bring under verification all production facilities as well as facilities storing, processing, using and disposing of fissile materials produced after the treaty enters into force. This could mean additional verification activities in those States parties which do not already have comprehensive safeguards agreements with the Agency.

The Conference on Disarmament in Geneva is responsible for negotiating this treaty. In 1998, the Conference established an "Ad Hoc Committee" to pursue this goal. The United Nations General Assembly has requested the IAEA to provide assistance, as required by the Conference, and the IAEA Director General has conveyed to the President of the Conference the readiness of the Agency to respond to any such request. The IAEA Secretariat continues to participate in seminars and to respond to requests from States to exchange views on the verification of such a treaty.

Verification has been a sine quo non of nuclear co-operation since the dawn of the nuclear age. In the first years of its existence, safeguards applied only to specific nuclear material or equipment and not to States' entire fuel cycles. A watershed in that respect was the entry into force of the NPT. There have been other major watersheds: The political expectations of safeguards changed in the wake of the Gulf War. The safeguards system is now expected to provide assurance not only about declared nuclear material but about the absence of any undeclared nuclear material or activities and thus enhanced assurance of the exclusively peaceful nature of nuclear programmes in States with a comprehensive safeguards agreement. The measures necessary to achieve that assurance mark the transition to qualitative - rather than just quantitative - assessments. In the light of the experience of the past - and expectations of safeguards in the future - the safeguards system has now been equipped with powerful new tools to enable it to meet the challenges of the twenty-first Century. The high point was the adoption of the Model Additional Protocol by the Board of Governors in May 1997 as a contribution to global nuclear non-proliferation objectives. However, the true potential of the Additional Protocol can be realised only through universal adherence. The Secretariat of the IAEA is now devoting much attention towards this objective but States themselves hold the key.

The Agency's long-standing experience in verification, coupled with the flexibility inherent in its mandate equip it to carry out new tasks and assume new functions. It is already engaged in certain non-traditional verification activities and more could follow in the future.

Annex I


The Model Protocol Additional to Safeguards Agreements (INFCIRC/540(Corr.))

1) State obligations under the Model Additional Protocol include providing the agency with:

(a) information about, and inspector access to, all aspects of the State's nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mines to nuclear waste and any other locations where nuclear material is present;

(b) information about, and access mechanisms related to, nuclear fuel cycle-related research and development;

(c) information about, and short-notice inspector access to, all buildings on a nuclear "site";

(d) information about the manufacture of nuclear-related items and also any exports of sensitive nuclear-related technologies, and mechanisms for physical access to relevant locations in this regard;

(e) information about long-term plans for the development of the nuclear fuel cycle;

(f) wider physical access than hitherto for inspection purposes and for the collection of environmental samples.

The Agency's Obligations under the Model Additional Protocol are to:

(a) ensure that the broader access rights incorporated in the Additional Protocol are not applied in any mechanistic or systematic fashion, but on a selective basis where nuclear material is present (to assure the absence of any undeclared nuclear material or activities) and, where it is not, in order to resolve questions and inconsistencies;

(b) provide advance notice to the State in writing for access rights, referred to in the Additional Protocol as "complementary access", specifying the reasons for the request and the activities to be carried out;

(c) accept ' managed access' upon request by the State, in order to prevent the dissemination of proliferation sensitive information or to protect proprietary or commercially sensitive information;

(d) hold prior consultations with the State, for example, to give the State an opportunity to clarify and facilitate the resolution of a question or inconsistency, before a request for complementary access is made, or, in connection with wide-area environmental sampling, as and when such environmental sampling is approved by the Agency Board of Governors;

(e) inform the State in writing of the activities and results of activities carried out under the Protocol and the conclusions it has drawn therefrom;

(f) agree upon Subsidiary Arrangements with the State, if either the State or the Agency considers it necessary to specify in Subsidiary Arrangements how measures laid down in the Additional Protocol are to be applied; and

(g) maintain a stringent regime to ensure effective protection against disclosure of all commercial, technological and industrial secrets and other confidential information coming to the Agency's knowledge in the implementation of the Additional Protocol.

Annex II


Towards Effective and Efficient Implementation of the Additional Protocol

Work continues on a variety of procedures and guidelines and on training to equip Agency inspectors with the new skills and powers of observation they need with the shift, under the Additional Protocol, to a more qualitative type of assessment. Also important are all the measures which the Agency is taking to enhance its information gathering, analysis and evaluation capabilities. Inter alia in this regard, an Information Review Committee, established in 1996 and involving senior management, oversees the evaluation of information for each State. Evaluation is a continuous process and draws on information from all available sources. The highest priority now is the "integration of safeguards", in other words optimising the combination of all the safeguards measures available to the Agency to achieve maximum effectiveness and efficiency within available resources. The measures available to the Agency, as explained, are the "traditional" or "classical" measures under comprehensive safeguards agreements; the strengthening measures put into place under the legal authority already existing in safeguards agreements; and the further measures provided for in the Additional Protocol.