FIVE DECADES OF SAFEGUARDS, AND DIRECTIONS FOR THE FUTURE: AN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE

An effective regime against the proliferation of nuclear weapons is essential to international peace and stability. The maintenance of an effective non-proliferation regime depends on credible verification, to provide confidence that non-proliferation commitments are being honoured. Under the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the verification task has been entrusted to the IAEA safeguards system. Credible safeguards are vital in reinforcing the commitment of NPT Parties to the Treaty. If safeguards were seen as being deficient, confidence in the Treaty would erode, leading to its failure. This places a heavy responsibility on the IAEA – and on Member States whose support is needed by the IAEA. Safeguards have come a long way from their inception as bilateral inspection arrangements, applied by nuclear suppliers. Following the establishment of the IAEA in 1957, an IAEA inspectorate was developed and bilateral inspections were gradually replaced by IAEA inspections. With the conclusion of the NPT in 1968, IAEA safeguards moved to a position of major international importance. The early focus on “item-specific” safeguards changed to full scope, or “comprehensive”, safeguards, applicable to all the nuclear material in a state. By the mid-1990s the NPT had become almost universal. Over the same period there was substantial growth in national nuclear programs. The IAEA achieved considerable success developing and implementing a safeguards system able to cope with growing workload and complexity. There was however a serious flaw – an emphasis on declared material and facilities and systematic inspection activities resulted in substantial effort for areas of low proliferation risk, while inadequate attention was given to the problem of undeclared nuclear activities. The latter has emerged as the major challenge to safeguards – the IAEA is under considerable pressure to establish a credible capability to detect undeclared activities. At the same time it must continue efficiency improvements, to achieve more effective performance from finite resources. Recent events have highlighted that safeguards credibility depends not only on technical capability but on preparedness to take appropriate decisions in case of non-compliance. This paper outlines the major achievements of the safeguards system, the challenges now faced, and possible developments.