THE IAEA SAFEGUARDS CRITERIA: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON MOVING TO MORE INFORMATION DRIVEN SAFEGUARDS

The new Deputy Director General for Safeguards laid out a conceptual direction for the further evolution of IAEA safeguards in his opening statement at the IAEA Symposium on International Safeguards, on November 1, 2010. This paper is prepared with the idea that when moving in a new direction, it helps to know where you are coming from. Therefore, this paper will provide historical perspective on IAEA safeguards under the Safeguards Criteria. The author played a leading role in the development of the IAEA Safeguards Criteria from 1987 to 1999. His publications on the IAEA Safeguards Criteria have presented the rationale for, structure and main elements of the criteria and their implementation. This paper will review those considerations and address the matters of over-prescription and inflexibility. The objectives of this paper are to provide a reminder about the thinking that went into the Safeguards Criteria, on which IAEA safeguards implementation has been based for two decades, a notable record, and to assist the international safeguards community in understanding and evaluating the development of more information driven safeguards.