IAEA Safeguards – Staying Ahead of the Game

The nuclear non-proliferation regime today faces a broad array of challenges. Some refer to the system as being "in crisis"; that may be too strong a statement, but the regime is certainly being tested. A number of vulnerabilities in the system have been exposed in recent years, and changes are clearly needed if we are to avoid the further proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Why are these changes needed?

The answer is quite simple. The world is undergoing rapid changes on many fronts - socially, politically and technologically. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was ratified more than 30 years ago. It should not surprise us that the solutions of 1970 are not a perfect fit to the challenges of 2006 and beyond. The problem is that we have not in all cases made the necessary adjustments to match these new challenges.

In particular, since the end of the Cold War, we have seen three developments related to nuclear proliferation:

1. 1. the increased dissemination of nuclear technology and nuclear "know-how";

1. 1. a renewed drive on the part of a few States and extremist groups to acquire nuclear weapons; and

1. the emergence of clandestine nuclear procurement networks.

In addition to these trends, the renewed interest in nuclear power on the part of many countries - and the expectation for an expansion in new nuclear construction - makes it even more important that we have strong mechanisms in place to minimize the risks of proliferation. The international community will demand no less.

With regard to nuclear proliferation and arms control, the basic solution is clear: either we begin finding innovative solutions or the international nuclear safeguards regime will become obsolete.

First, a real commitment to disarmament - moving away from national security strategies that rely on nuclear weapons, which serve as a justification for other nations to acquire them.

Bringing multinational approaches to uranium enrichment and reprocessing would lower the risk of these materials to be used for weapons. A mechanism to ensure a reliable supply of reactor fuel would contribute to those ideals as well.

The third area of interest is how to deal with three major nuclear countries that remain outside of the NPT. Regardless how much we may wish it, none of them is likely to give up its nuclear weapons or weapon options in the foreseeable future, unless the security outlook for those countries changes. Treating such States as outsiders might not be a realistic option anymore.

Let me now discuss in more detail a number of suggestions on how the regime might be strengthened to meet these new challenges.

Better Control of Access to Nuclear Fuel Cycle Technology

The first question is how to better control access to, and ensure the appropriate use of, sensitive nuclear technology.

In recent years, far more countries have sophisticated engineering and industrial capacity, which is necessary for development, and should be welcomed. However, at the same time, nuclear technology has diversified, making it harder to track illegal or clandestine global procurement and sales. Electronic communication has made it easier to transmit component designs and other information. And many types of sensitive equipment and materials are classified as "dual use" - meaning that they could have both nuclear and non-nuclear applications - which makes it harder to maintain export controls.

As we all agree, under the NPT regime, there is nothing illegal about any State having enrichment or reprocessing technology. A relatively small number of countries have mastered part or all of the nuclear fuel cycle, enabling them to enrich uranium, produce fuel for power and research reactors, and reprocess spent fuel for re-use and waste disposal.

But as more countries gain this expertise, concerns have arisen regarding the margin of security resulting from this situation. The acquisition of high enriched uranium or separated plutonium is generally considered to be one of the most difficult steps towards making a nuclear weapon. By having access to nuclear material, or the capability to produce such material, a country has passed this step. Therefore, if a country with a full nuclear fuel cycle to produce enriched uranium or plutonium were to decide to break away from its non-proliferation commitments, a nuclear weapon capability could be within reach in a relatively short time.

For this reason, the IAEA and others have been exploring options for how the most sensitive aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle - uranium enrichment and plutonium separation - might be better implemented. The overall concept would be to move towards multinational arrangements for these types of operations. This would not happen all at once; as currently envisioned, it would progress as a series of measures:

1. 1. First, a mechanism would be developed to provide an "assurance of supply"; that is, a guarantee that reactor technology and nuclear fuel would be available for all bona fide users for peaceful civilian applications;

1. 1. The second step would be to call for a temporary moratorium (for example, for 5 or 10 years) on new uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities - at the very least for countries that do not currently have such technologies;

1. 1. Third, a similar framework would be created for managing and controlling the "front end" of the fuel cycle (i.e. enrichment and fuel production); and

1. Fourth, we would work on establishing a framework for multinational management and control of the "back end" of the fuel cycle (i.e. spent fuel reprocessing and waste disposal).

The importance of assurance of supply is that, by providing reliable access to reactors and fuel at competitive market prices, the justification is removed for new countries to develop their own front end fuel cycle capabilities. But this means that the mechanism to assure supply must be reliable and credible.

A number of governments, industry groups and other organizations have been offering ideas and initiatives on how to facilitate progress with the assurance of supply. This coming September, at the IAEA General Conference in Vienna, we will hold a "Special Event" focused on developing a roadmap for moving forward in this area.

Ensuring the Protection of Nuclear Material

Another area of vital importance concerns the protection of nuclear material. Many international and regional initiatives are underway to help countries in this effort.

The importance of protecting such material has been elevated by the stated ambition of extremist groups to pursue nuclear and radiological terrorism. The frequency with which the IAEA´s Illicit Trafficking Database receives reports involving nuclear or radiological material makes clear that vulnerabilities remain. Fortunately, only a relatively small number of these cases so far have involved high enriched uranium or plutonium. But this should not be a source of comfort. If an extremist group were to acquire nuclear or radiological material, we must assume they would not hesitate to use it.

Several agreements have been reached on how to enhance nuclear security. The UN Security Council adopted resolution 1540 in 2004. The International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism was adopted by the UN General Assembly last year. Both resolution 1540 and the Convention call on countries to criminalize the illicit possession and use of radioactive material, and aim to enhance efforts to detect and combat illicit trafficking. And the parties to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material - for which the IAEA serves as facilitator and repository Agency - also agreed last year on major changes to better protect nuclear facilities and material. The IAEA has been supporting a number of initiatives — such as the regional seminar held in Quito, Ecuador, in April 2006 - to encourage countries to implement these measures as fully and as early as possible.

Many countries have also been taking steps to convert their research reactors from high enriched to low enriched uranium fuel, and to return the high enriched uranium to the country of origin. But of the research reactors currently in operation, nearly 100 still use HEU enriched to 90% or higher - the level of enrichment needed for use in nuclear weapons.

So while it is clear that these and other steps are helping to reduce the risks posed by existing nuclear material, it is also clear that much work remains to be done.

Supporting Effective Nuclear Verification

A third area of importance is to provide the necessary level of support that will optimize the effectiveness of nuclear verification.

One key to the effectiveness of verification is the extent of access that Agency inspectors are given to information and locations. This access is governed by the legal agreements concluded between individual countries and the IAEA. In today´s security environment, inspections that only verify what a country has declared under a comprehensive safeguards agreement are not likely to be considered effective enough, in terms of the degree of assurance they provide.

On the other hand, the expanded access provided by the "additional protocol" to safeguards agreements has, in recent years, clearly proven its worth. The additional protocol enables Agency verification efforts to focus not only on what has been declared, but also on possible undeclared activities. The Model Additional Protocol was agreed upon in 1997, as a development that grew out of the case of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme in the early 1990s.

As a side note, I should point out here, while discussing the scope of IAEA verification, that both safeguards agreements and additional protocols are focused principally on nuclear material. Therefore, the Agency´s legal authority to investigate possible parallel weaponization activity is limited, unless there is some nexus linking the activity to nuclear material.

The chief problem with the additional protocol is that it has not been universally applied. Today only about 70 countries have additional protocols in force. This limited number, nine years after the adoption of the Model Additional Protocol, falls well short of the Agency´s goal. The Agency´s verification efforts will not be regarded as "fully effective" as long as its inspection rights remain uneven from country to country. For the nuclear non-proliferation regime to be regarded as credible, it seems clear that the additional protocol must become the universal standard for how nuclear non-proliferation commitments are verified.

It is also important to consider that the central reason for verification is to build confidence. In recent years, we have seen that there are cases where proliferation concerns have created a confidence deficit, where even the access rights of the additional protocol may not be sufficient. In such cases, additional "transparency measures" may be called for.

Our verification work in Iran is a case in point. Over the past three years, Agency inspectors have made extensive efforts to compile a detailed picture of most aspects of Iran´s past and current nuclear programme. But since parts of the programme were concealed for nearly 20 years, this naturally has been a complex and labor-intensive effort, and a number of open questions regrettably remain unresolved. Therefore, the Agency´s Board of Governors has asked Iran to provide additional transparency measures - beyond even what would normally be expected under the additional protocol - to help to resolve these remaining questions, and thereby to provide the needed assurance about the peaceful nature of Iran´s nuclear programme.

The points I have outlined so far might sound somewhat negative. But at the same time I would note that, in the past few years, the Agency has been able to make progress on the implementation of integrated safeguards. This includes reaching the conclusion - for States that have both a comprehensive safeguards agreement and an additional protocol in force - that there are no undeclared nuclear materials and nuclear activities in these States. In 2005, this conclusion has been reached for 24 States. And so far, integrated safeguards is being fully implemented in ten States, including Japan. This is a positive development, and should be welcomed. It is particularly significant in the case of Japan, which has the largest and most complete nuclear fuel cycle of any of the States in question. By reaching this conclusion in a given State, the Agency is able to use its resources more efficiently.

Another key to making verification effective is sufficient resources. IAEA verification today operates on an annual budget of about $120 million - a budget that would be comparable to that of a professional baseball team or the police force of a large city, or half the price of a single fighter jet. With these resources, we oversee approximately 900 nuclear facilities in 71 countries. On the one hand, I am very proud of the professionalism and efficiency measures that have made this achievement possible. On the other hand, when I look at our growing responsibilities - as well as the need to "stay ahead of the game" - we are clearly operating on a "bare minimum" level of funding.

People and Technology: Planning for Increased Effectiveness

This brings me to the next topic - and perhaps the most important: as we look to the future, what can be done to assure ourselves and our Member States that the IAEA, as the international nuclear verification organization, will be "staying ahead of the game"? With the global reach of our responsibilities, and the continuous need to sift through vast amounts of information, how can we be sure that we are looking in all the right places? And how do we prioritize, using our limited resources to the best advantage?

Successful nuclear verification involves an interface between technologies, the professionals who use those technologies, and the institutions they represent. So far I have spoken mostly about ensuring the effectiveness of institutions and institutional measures. I would like to use my remaining time to discuss workforce challenges and a number of aspects of verification-related technology.

During the last few years, we have been working on succession planning for the IAEA safeguards workforce. The average age of the Agency safeguards inspectorate has been rising for more than a decade. The overall safeguards workforce has increased in number, but the largest percentage of that increase has been individuals between 55 and 62.

At the same time, we are finding recruitment more difficult. The pool of well-qualified candidates is getting smaller, and the Agency must compete with national governments and industry to hire fresh professionals with the proper expertise. Our salaries and compensation are not always competitive, and our inspector positions often come with long hours and adverse travel schedules. On the other hand, the work is clearly rewarding, challenging and of the greatest importance.

Let me now address a number of challenges we are facing in verification technologies. Our objective is to provide credible assurances to the international community that States are honoring their safeguards obligations. In order to do so we have identified several key priorities:

• • To develop, implement and revise, as appropriate, safeguards approaches for new safeguards challenges (e.g. integrated safeguards), new facility types and new operating conditions.

• • To optimize safeguards equipment and technology development with the view of further improving present detection capability and increasing the reliability of equipment while also ensuring the security of information transmission from the field and improving sustainability and timeliness.

• • To pursue R&D activities in the development of novel technologies for the detection of undeclared activities using, inter alia, Member States Support Programme mechanisms as well as internal resources and expertise.

• • To enhance capabilities in the area of environmental sampling (by expanding the capacity and capability of the network of analytical laboratories (NWAL)).

• • To increase and intensify efforts related to the collection, analysis and evaluation of all available information on States´ nuclear programmes.

• • To maintain an efficient safeguards information infrastructure.

• To enhance the Agency´s present satellite imagery acquisition and analysis capabilities to support the verification work of the Agency.

With these priorities clearly identified, we have also been identifying areas in which novel technologies are needed, based on either adapting existing technologies or conducting additional R&D. For example, in 2005 the Department conducted a search for new technologies that would be capable of identifying nuclear fuel cycle process signatures. Sixty proposals were identified, and five proposals are being developed further.

We are examining a broad range of new technologies for their applicability in verification. These include:

Laser induced breakdown spectrometry, nobel gas analysis, light detection and ranging for monitoring gaseous atmospheric pollutants, optical stimulation luminescence, and semiconductor sensors for UF₆, (uranium hexafluoride). Additional suggestions will be required and more resources will be needed for the assessment and development of these novel technologies.

In the area of environmental sampling analysis, the NWAL remains essential to the Agency´s efforts. It is clear that the global Fission Track Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (FT TIMS) capability should be expanded. And support will be required for the development of new environmental sampling methods, such as, for example to increase the sensitivity for determining particle location and to improve existing relocation techniques.

Finally, on a related note, we are working to improve our information analysis techniques. Information is at the heart of modern verification; in fact, we frequently refer to our work as being "Information-driven Safeguards". The conclusions in the annual Safeguards Information Report are based explicitly on the evaluation of all information available to the Agency. However, with current resources and techniques, there are clear limits to how much information can be evaluated - and the amount of information available is constantly growing. New technologies offer the only solution for the collection and analysis of such large volumes of information. These technologies can quickly and automatically collect, extract, increase the signal to noise ratio of information, and present the results to the analyst in a readily digestible and convenient manner. In order to move forward, we will need to liaison with organizations capable of helping us in the development of these advanced information analysis techniques.

Conclusion

By entrusting to an impartial, independent IAEA inspectorate the task of verifying the peaceful use of nuclear energy, the international community has taken an important step towards improving the transparency of nuclear activities, and thereby indicated its strong support for international peace and security. Though we rely on an increasing amount of information and remote monitoring technologies, it is the physical access by IAEA inspectors to sites, information and persons that remain the pivotal points of the verification regime. Inspectors are, in fact, the "on-site eyes and ears" of the international community. This is a responsibility that we at the Agency take very seriously. Every measure should be taken to ensure the effectiveness of our efforts. By adhering to their safeguards commitments, by taking prompt and responsible actions to correct problems, and by providing the IAEA with the resources necessary to do the job, States demonstrate the political will to ensure the effectiveness of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Thank you.