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George Perkovich

Nonproliferation and International Cooperation for Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy: The Role of the IAEA

1. The IAEA was established in the late 1950s, while the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was not negotiated until 1968. So the IAEA's original purpose and bureaucratic interests gave more prominence to promoting development of atomic energy (and sales of nuclear technology) than to preventing the spread of nuclear weapon capabilities.
2. The Agency would have little difficulty or controversy in promoting nuclear cooperation if the technologies involved are not directly related to the production of fuel that can be used directly to make nuclear weapons.
3. Still, the IAEA Statute declares that the Agency's mission is to ensure that atomic energy not be used "in such a way as to further any military purpose." This responsibility applies particularly to assistance provided by the IAEA or "under its supervision."
4. The establishment of nuclear safeguards, as part of the nonproliferation regime, deepened the IAEA's responsibility to ensure that nuclear technology and materials not be used "to further any military purpose."
5. The Statute also calls for the IAEA to "notify the Security Council, as the organ bearing the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security," if questions of a security nature should arise in connection with the IAEA's activities.
6. Before and after the NPT, the IAEA has had a role promoting purely peaceful applications of atomic energy, too.
7. The NPT enshrines this goal in Article IV.

 

 

8. ARTICLE IV describes "the inalienable right" of all treaty parties "to develop, research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.in conformity with articles I and II" of the treaty. It calls on all parties to facilitate exchanges of "equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy."

Neither Article IV nor the IAEA statute establish a right to obtain or operate any specific technology related to nuclear energy. Rather, the right is to benefit from the end services of atomic energy, for example, electricity, medicinal isotopes, and so forth.

And Article IV requires that all nuclear activity be purely for peaceful purposes. Parties may not cooperate in any activity that is not purely for peaceful purposes. A fair interpretation would suggest that, given the importance of Articles I and II, when there is doubt about the pure peacefulness of a proposed activity or technology, actors should be obligated not to cooperate in it.

That is, there should be "objective guarantees" that nuclear technology or material are going to be used only for non-military purposes, or else cooperation should not occur.

At the same time, there should be "objective guarantees" of assistance to enable countries in full compliance with their obligations to enjoy the benefits of nuclear energy - electricity, medical isotopes, agricultural services, etc.

9. Ultimately, though, the IAEA neither makes nor enforces the rules that govern nuclear technology.
10. The rules are established by states. Ideally this occurs through meetings of NPT parties, or Security Council resolutions. Voluntary rules also are agreed by technology suppliers in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Zangger Committee and so on.

 

 

 

 

11. The board of governors of the IAEA can set rules regarding the terms and practices of safeguards. And the board is the body to which the Director General is required to report "any non-compliance," which Agency inspectors are required to report to the Director General. The IAEA Statute (7C) also says "The Board shall report the non-compliance to all members and to the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations."
12. So, the "role" of the IAEA involves distinctions between the role of the Director General and staff, on one hand, and that of the board of governors, on the other. The staff and Director General, clearly, are to collect and analyze all possible facts necessary to verify that states are complying with their safeguard obligations and their overall commitment to use nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes.

Recently, staff and/or the Director General have been accused of withholding some facts, or interpreting them, rather than reporting all material information to members and the board.

And the board of governors has been accused of failing its responsibilities by not reporting non-compliance to the UN Security Council and the General Assembly, as called for in the Statute.

13. At the same time, some key Security Council members have made clear that they do not wish matters of non-compliance (in Iran and North Korea) to be sent to the Security Council, and would prefer that the IAEA staff and board manage these crises, even though the Council's president in 1992 declared that proliferation would be a threat to international peace and security.
14. The Security Council members who seek to avoid their nonproliferation responsibilities, and the U.S., which does not display willingness to cooperate with others in its approach to non-compliant parties, put the IAEA staff in an extremely and unfairly difficult position. They in effect ask the Agency to do more than gather and analyze facts; they ask that the Agency try to resolve disputes over the interpretation of the facts, and to persuade states, including Iran, to change their behavior. Some ask the IAEA to avoid declaring facts that could cause political crisis.
15. The IAEA's long-term role would best be served by reporting all relevant facts and calling upon the Security Council to do its job and interpret and act upon them.