Of Safeguards...

Last Thursday, I had the chance to listen to Carnegie Endowment’s James Acton discuss "Deterring Safeguards Violations," about nuclear safeguards, noncompliance, and the role they should play in the upcoming 2010 NPT Review Conference. Acton’s concern is in improving the deterrent value of safeguards, because “[i]f the anticipated nuclear renaissance is not to turn into a proliferation renaissance, states must be made to recognize that if they are caught willfully violating their obligations, they and their friends will be unable to delay a meaningful international response for long.”

Noncompliance is a good focus for the 2010 RevCon since, according to Acton, it is an area where progress can be made on nonproliferation without imposing an “additional burden on states that are playing by the rules.” Stronger measures against proliferation also allow the nuclear states to make a better case for nuclear reductions at home. Conversely, seeking an agreement that induces more obligations on non-nuclear weapons states, such as forcing the issues of the Additional Protocol, would be unproductive. More specific issues such as export controls would do better in a forum such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Too often, the reaction to violations has varied based on both the state involved and the nature of their transgression, a reason that not enough states take safeguards violations seriously. Acton uses two cases as an example: the IAEA Board of Governor’s failure to find South Korea in noncompliance over quantities of nuclear material the Board considered insignificant, and the permissive attitude, particularly among non-aligned states, towards Iran’s past violations. In the latter case the implied argument is that “safeguards violations only become significant when a state has actually diverted nuclear material; lesser violations—such as reporting failures or refusing access to inspectors—do not represent a proliferation concern and can be more-or-less ignored.” This ambivalence is based in part, as Pierre Goldschmidt has written, on the role political considerations have played in deciding past cases of noncompliance, creating an inconsistent record on handling violations. Thus, one part of Acton's proposal is to make safeguards rules "country-neutral" to make them a credible nonproliferation tool.

The risk in downplaying violations, no matter who is involved, lays in what Carnegie’s George Perkovich calls the “fourth pillar” of the NPT: security. In addition to the principles of nonproliferation, disarmament, and peaceful nuclear energy use, security through safeguards verification plays a role by assuring states that their neighbors are not arming themselves and vice versa. Thus, a strong, clearly defined system of safeguards would prevent proliferation from begetting proliferation, in the spirit of the NPT.

Acton proposes that, in order for states to take safeguards violations seriously, “States party to the NPT should clarify and emphasize at the 2010 Review Conference that, in the future, non-compliance with safeguards agreements will violate article III of the NPT.” NPT Article III obliges non-nuclear states to accept IAEA safeguards, which would have little meaning unless “accept” meant to abide by a safeguards agreement. In the most serious cases, noncompliance with safeguards will also be interpreted as noncompliance with Article II of the NPT: the non-pursuit of nuclear weapons. Acton provides three clear examples of what he means by “most serious”:

•    the diversion of one significant quantity or more of nuclear material (whether in one large batch or multiple smaller batches) to an undeclared or unsafeguarded facility; or
•    the unilateral termination of safeguards required by a state’s safeguards agreement; or
•    the failure to declare the construction of an undeclared uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing facility.

And states that,

Apart from withdrawing from the NPT…it is hard to envisage a proliferator manufacturing nuclear weapons without taking one of these steps. In fact, if history is a guide, then the third route—acquiring fissile material illegally by setting up a dedicated clandestine production facility—is the most likely. This was the path being pursued by at least four of the five non–nuclear-weapon states that were found in non-compliance with their safeguards obligations (the DPRK, Iran, Iraq, and Libya).

Interestingly enough, under Acton's proposal, the recent discovery of another Iranian enrichment facility near Qom would qualify as such a breach of safeguards. Acton states that small, clandestine centrifuge facilities as "probably pose the single most significant proliferation threat today." Another advantage of a proposal such as Acton's is their application to future cases rather than grandfathering in past violations such as Iran's; a way to avoid perceptions of "moving the goal posts," which could sink support for safeguards.

Despite the lack of additional obligations that his proposal entails, Acton stated that some sort of quid pro quo may be necessary for non-nuclear weapons states to support these steps. Though it's impossible to predict exactly what such an agreement would look like, recent progress by the U.S. and Russia on negotiating reductions, the reemergence of the CTBT into the limelight, and Gordon Brown's Trident proposal look like a good way to start the conference off on the right foot.

I missed this before, but here's James Acton and his take on Iran's Qom facility. Acton finds the facility, unsurprisingly, to be a violation of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA,. Specifically, Iran must notify the IAEA once the decision to construct a new facility is made.