Introduction What is Being Done to Halt the Further Spread of Nuclear Weapons? Why Are IAEA Safeguards Important? What Assurances Do Safeguards Seek to Provide? How Are Safeguards Agreements Implemented? What Specific Challenges Have There Been for IAEA Verification? Can the IAEA Prevent the Diversion of Declared Material? How Has the Safeguards System Been Strengthened? How Much Do Safeguards Cost? What is the Future of IAEA Verification? Conclusion Further Reading		What is the Future of IAEA Verification? IAEA's experience and expertise in the application of safeguards might be employed in a number of important areas in the near future. One area is further development of verification arrangements under regional nuclear weapon-free zone treaties. Such treaties are already in place in Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia and in the South Pacific. Negotiations might lead to other regional treaties in South Asia, the Middle East and on the Korean peninsula. The requirements of such agreements will vary according to the needs of the region, and a range of models and options exist. One option involves using joint inspection teams of IAEA inspectors and national inspectors from the zone, thus providing added confidence to those States that no undeclared activities relating to the development of nuclear weapons were being undertaken by other States in the region. Second, steps are underway to establish - in the United States and Russia - an international verification of fissile material removed from nuclear weapon programmes. While some of these verification activities are already performed, the international community, and the IAEA in particular, will need to find new ways to meet this new verification challenge. Already, in the United States, some 200 tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium have been declared surplus; as of mid-1997, some 12 tons are now subject to IAEA safeguards. In Russia, a new storage facility is being built which will house around 40 percent of Russia's stocks of weapons-grade plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons. Russia's President has pledged that, upon completion, the material at this storage facility will be placed under IAEA verification. Once submitted, IAEA verification would continue to assure that those ex-weapon fissile materials are not re-used for nuclear explosive devices. Third, pursuant to a request by the United Nations General Assembly to the IAEA, the possibility exists of some form of future Agency involvement in verification arrangements for a multilateral and internationally verifiable treaty banning all further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. A treaty of the kind envisaged would clearly be an important additional measure, both in terms of arms control and of non-proliferation. Last but not least, the peaceful uses of the increasingly large stockpiles of plutonium from civil and military inventories also need to be managed. 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 IAEA'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.