Beitrag aus Mai 2012 für die internat. IALANA

I. Objectives
The IAEA was established by the United Nations (UN) as an independent organization in 1957. Its objectives and functions, the organizational structure and financial questions are regulated in the Statute of the IAEA. The IAEA is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its member states. They have to fulfill in good faith all their obligations assumed by them in accordance with the Stature.
The IAEA has two central – but conflicting - objectives (Art. II of the Statute):
(1) „to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world“
(2) to „ensure, so far as it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose“


The whole IAEA Regular Budget for 2012 amounts to € 331 million; € 128 million of this sum is provided for Nuclear Verification.
II. Nuclear Verification
The IAEA is charged with providing its 151 member states and the international community with credible assurance that no nuclear material in the Non-Nuclear-Weapon-States (NNWS) is – in violation of Art. II of the NPT - diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
Additionally, the IAEA verifies compliance with similiar non-proliferation undertakings by parties to regional nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties: the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (Tlatelolco Treaty); the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Rarotonga Treaty); the Argentine-Brazilian Declaration on Common Nuclear Policy; the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (Bangkok Treaty); the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (Pelindaba Treaty); the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty.
For these purposes the IAEA implements a system of safeguards agreements. To date, 178 States have concluded safeguards agreements with the IAEA.
III. Safeguards Agreements
There are the following main types of safeguards agreements:
1. The so-called Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements
1.1 Agreements with NNWS

Such safeguards agreements which are concluded with the NNWS according to Art. III NPT. They follow the structure and the content set out in an IAEA document, approved by the IAEA Board of Governors and published in IAEA Information Circular No. 153, dated June 1992 (INFCIRC/153 <Corr.>, 1972). INFCIRC/153 is the product of a longer period of controversies and negotiations. It cancelled – especially on the request of Germany, Japan and other „threshold states“- the former IAEA-principle „access at all times to all places and data“.
Under such an agreement the involved NNWS undertakes to accept IAEA safeguards – within the limits of the agreement - on all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within its territory, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere. The IAEA has a corresponding right and obligation to ensure that safeguards are so applied on all such material, for the exclusive purpose of verifying that such material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other explosive devices.
For instance: The „Agreement between Iran and the IAEA for the Application of Safeguards in Connection with the NPT“ (INFCIRC/214) entered into force on 15 May 1974. INFCIRC/214 is – besides of relevant provisions of specific Security Council resolutions on Iran - the basis for the Report of the IAEA-Director General Amano on „Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran“ of 8 November 2011 (GAO/2011/65).
Although the IAEA has the authority, under such agreements of the model INFCIRC/153, to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities, its tools to do so are very limited. They focus essentially on declared nuclear material and safeguard conclusions drawn at the facility level – instead of the entire nuclear fuel circle of a NNWS. These measures – authorized under NPT-type comprehensive safeguard agreements – generally are based on nuclear material accountancy, complemented by containment and surveillance techniques, such as tamper-proof seals and cameras that the IAEA installs at facilities. The IAEA has the legal authority (within the limits of its personal, technical and financial capacities)
to carry out on-site inspections („ad-hoc-inspections“, „routine inspections“, „special inspections“ and „safeguard visits“) which have to be pre-announced and notified to the NNWS to be controlled
during and in connection with on-site inspections or visits at facilities to audit the facility’s accounting and operating records
to compare these records with the accounting records delivered by the NNWS to the IAEA
to verify the nuclear material inventory and inventory changes
to take environmental samples and
to apply containment and surveillance measures (i.a. seal application, installation of surveillance equipment).
The IAEA’s inspectors normally carry out inspections only at agreed „key measurement points“ in the plant/facility concerned. If there is a significant loss of nuclear material or another unusual event, or if the IAEA considers that the information provided is inadequate, it may, but only with the agreement of the government concerned, carry out special inspections at places not specified in the „facility attachment“ which was drawn for each plant or storage facility.
The results of safeguards implementation are evaluated by the IAEA Secretariat in Vienna. Annually the conclusions of the Secretariat are reported („Safeguard Implementation Report“ – SIR) to the IAEA Board of Governors. The Board of Governors with its delegates of 37 IAEA member states decides on the consequences to be drawn (e.g. to ask the UN Security Council to decide on further steps).
The discovery in 1991 of Iraq’s clandestine nuclear activities demonstrated the shortcomings of safeguards implementation based on agreements with the structure and content of IAEA document INFCIRC/153 (Corr.) 1972.


1.2  Agreements with EURATOM-NNWS
On strong requests of Germany and other member states of the European Community the NNWS who are members of the EURATOM have concluded a special Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA in 1973 (INFCIRC/193 of 5 April 1973). Japan succeeded in reaching a quite similiar agreement. This special agreement was an important precondition for the willingness especially of Germany, Italy and Japan to ratify the NPT. It limits the role of IAEA on the purpose to verify the safeguards system of EURATOM (control of declared nuclear material flows on strategic points). The official reason for it was to avoid „repeated controls“. Actually the EURATOM member states wanted to protect their nuclear capacities and facilities against „industrial espionage“ by IAEA inspectors and co-operating states.


2. Item-specific safeguard agreements
The IAEA has concluded item-specific safeguard agreements with three states: India, Israel and Pakistan. These states reached the status of nuclear powers outside the NPT which they didn’t ratify. Such agreements, based on IAEA document INFCIRC/66/Rev. 2, cover only the nuclear material, facilities and /or materials specified in the agreement. There remain great loopholes for clandestine activities.

3. Voluntary Offer Agreements (VOAs)
The NPT does not require the five „old“ Nuclear-Weapon-States (NWS), i.e. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA, to accept safeguards provided for in the NPT (Art. III). For rather symbolical reasons these old NWS have concluded VOAs under which they have voluntarily offered nuclear material and/or facilities from which the IAEA may select to apply safeguards. By this the NWS corresponded to the expectations especially of the governments of Germany and other western countries who had requested that the non-military nuclear facilities in the U.K. and the USA should be verified by the IAEA safeguard systems too. Their purpose was: If there will be no „discrimination“ between NNWS and NWS concerning the safeguards system for non-military nuclear plants and facilities, the NWS would be more interested in limiting the „burden of verification“ for the NNWS.
These VOAs (USA: INFCIRC/288; U.K.: INFCIRC/263; Russia: INFCIRC/327; France: INFCIRC/290; China: INFCIRC/369) follow the format of agreements based on INFCIRC/153 (Corr.), but vary in the scope of materials and facilities covered. All VOAs exclude those nuclear material and facilities which have been declared by the specific NWS to be one of national security significance. And they guarantee the possibility of withdrawing such material and facilities from safeguards.
So it depends on the decision of the national government of a NWS which materials and facilities should and could be verified by the IAEA. Conclusion: There is no comprehensive and effective safeguards system managed by the IAEA on the territories of the NWS or in areas controlled by them.
4. Additional Protocol
On 15 May 1997 the IAEA-Board of Governors approved the Model Additional Protocol on the basis of a draft developed by the IAEA-Secretary and subsequently published as INFCIRC/540 (Corr.) 1998. The purpose was to strengthen the IAEA’s inspection capabilities. The Additional Protocol should enable the IAEA not only to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material but also to provide assurances as to the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in an NNWS. The IAEA inspectorate should be enabled to provide assurance about both declared and undeclared acitivities. It grants the IAEA complementary inspection authority in addition to that provided in concluded underlying safeguards agreements - especially expanded rights of access to information and sites. According to its drafters the Model Additional Protocol is enabling the IAEA to obtain additional safeguards-relevant information and access to locations, and to benefit from new technology (from open and other sources).
The Model Additional Protocol needs to be ratified by every NNWS. To date, the Additional Protocol is ratified by most of the IAEA-member states excluding (i.a.) Argentina, Brazil, India, Iraq (only signed on 9 Oct. 2008), Iran (only signed on 18 Dec. 2003), Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syrian Arab Republic, Venezuela, Yemen.

IV. Conclusions
1. The Additional Protocol (INFCIRC/540 (Corr.) 1998) must be ratified as soon as possible by all those states who didn’t do it to date: i.a. Argentina, Brazil, India, Iraq (only signed on 9 Oct. 2008), Iran (only signed on 18 Dec. 2003), Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syrian Arab Republic, Venezuela, Yemen. The Additional Protocol could strengthen the IAEA’s inspection capabilities. This would close a lot of loopholes which were caused especially by the governments of those states (like Germany, Italy, Japan and others) between 1966 and 1973 who succeeded in preventing an IAEA-safeguards system based on the principle „necessary access for the IAEA inspectorate at all times to all places and data”.
2. The existing IAEA safeguards system grants unjustified privileges: All NWS should not be allowed to exclude those nuclear material and facilities which have been declared by them to be one of national security significance; all NWS should renounce their existing power of withdrawing such nuclear material and facilities from comprehensive IAEA safeguards.

3. There should be established a qualified special entity inside or outside of the IAEA to collect, to register and to evaluate all relevant information and material concerning the compliance of the NWS with their duties stated in Art. VI of the NPT (“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control“).
4. The Item-specific safeguards agreements with India, Israel and Pakistan should be evaluated with the purpose to be replaced by comprehensive safeguards agreements.

5. The privileged special status of the EURATOM member states (according to the Verification Agreement of 5th April 1973) should be evaluated to avoid any further inequality and discrimination between NNWS.

6. The financial and personal inspection capacities of the IAEA and its access to relevant sources of information concerning possible violations of the safeguards system must be increased.

7. IAEA’s traditional safeguards system should be strengthened with supplementary elements of “Societal verification” (see special article on “Societal Verification” in this Newsletter).

References and Bibliography:
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