Possible Future Roles for IAEA Verification
It is useful to look to the future to identify areas in which the IAEA experience and expertise in the application of safeguards might be utilized in the remaining part of the 1990s and in the twenty-first century. A number of possible areas have been suggested.
One area is the development of verification arrangements for regional nuclear weapon free zones. Two such arrangements are already in place-- in Latin America and in the South Pacific. Negotiations might lead to regional agreements in Africa, South East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East and on the Korean peninsula. The requirements of such regional arrangements will vary according to the particular needs of the region, and a range of models and options exist. The use of joint inspection teams involving IAEA inspectors in conjunction with inspectors from seates in the zone might give additional confidence to those States that no undeclared activities relating to the development of nuclear weapons were being undertaken by other States in the zone. The extension of verification activities to non-nuclear material such as heavy water, lithium and tritium and to items of nuclear and nonnuclear equipment relevant to nuclear weapons production may also be desirable.
At the global level, the IAEA experience and expertise could be used in verifying an internationally agreed 'cut-off' in the production of nuclear material for weapons use, or in the verification that nuclear material from dismantled nuclear weapons does not find its way into new nuclear weapons but is either stored or transferred to civil use.
The peaceful uses of the increasingly large stockpiles of separated plutonium need to be monitored (see picture IAEA safeguards inspectors verifying irradiated fuel). In States with comprehensive safeguards agreements such stockpiles are subject to IAEA safeguards. However, additional measures may be proposed by the producers and users of such material, and the lAEA's experience could be put at the service of an international management system. Such a system could be based on voluntary undertakings by participating States. The form of the legal arrangements for such a system will depend upon what the participating States propose.
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