Origin of comprehensive safeguards agreements

 The successful conclusion in 1968 of the negotiations on a treaty designed to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons--the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)--was a landmark in the history of non-proliferation. The Treaty entered into force in March 1970 and now over 150 States are party to it. These include all the five declared nuclear weapon states (China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America).

Each non-nuclear-weapon State that becomes party to the NPT agrees not to acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices (Article ll). It also agrees to conclude a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA for the application of safeguards to all its peaceful nuclear activities, present or future, with a view to verifying the fulfilment of its obligations under the Treaty (Article lll). In return, the Treaty recognizes (in Article IV) the right of all parties to participate in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials, and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The parties also undertake to pursue negotiations in good faith towards nuclear disarmament (Article Vl) and re-affirm their determination to achieve the discontinuance of all tests of nuclear weapons (Preamble).

COMPREHENSIVE SAFEGUARDS AGREEMENT - Agreement based on the guidelines for Safeguards Agreements in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, as well as other agreements which provide for the application of Agency safeguards to all nuclear material in all peaceful nuclear activities within a State.

Although not obliged to conclude safeguards agreements, the nuclear weapon States have agreed that IAEA safeguards may be applied to all or part of their civil nuclear activities. The nuclear weapon states have done this, inter alia, to demonstrate that they will not derive any commercial advantage by not making their civil facilities subject to international inspection.

In addition to the NPT, two regional treaties which have the objective of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons have been concluded. The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in South America (the Treaty of Tlatelolco, actually concluded before the NPT) is now in force for many countries in the region. This Treaty requires its members to conclude comprehensive safeguards agreements with the IAEA. The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga) also requires each State party to conclude with the IAEA a comprehensive safeguards agreement that will be equivalent in its scope and effect to an agreement required in connection with the NPT.

To implement the safeguards requirements of the NPT, the IAEA needed to devise a safeguards system suitable for application to the complex nuclear fuel cycles of the advanced industrial countries that were expected to join the Treaty, i.e. a safeguards system applicable to reactors and to the conversion, enrichment, fabrication and reprocessing plants which supply and process the reactor fuel (see picture: Measurements of stored uranium). This comprehensive safeguards system, devised in 1970, is set out in IAEA document INFCIRC/153 (corrected). The NPT, the Tlatelolco Treaty and the Rarotonga Treaty require that all of the nuclear material in a signatory State be declared and submitted to safeguards. The Treaties also require that any nuclear material which the State subsequently acquires be also declared and safeguarded.
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