HEU Minimization after the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit

At the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, leaders announced a number of important steps toward minimizing highly enriched uranium (HEU) in the civil sector. These efforts, to some degree, marked the culmination of more than a decade of intense efforts to minimize and eliminate HEU in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks Yet, a tremendous amount of work remains to be done to minimize and ultimately eliminate the use of HEU in the civilian sector, let alone tackle the broader task of preventing terrorist access to any such material. This paper will discuss the accomplishments of the 2012 summit (as well as its 2010 predecessor) and suggest new approaches to HEU minimization that could be taken at the 2014 summit and in other venues.