Implementing the State Level Approach for IAEA Safeguards

The IAEA has concluded that the basis for safeguards implementation under integrated safeguards should be a “state-level approach,” developed and documented for each state, as opposed to the criteria-driven approach used under traditional safeguards. Such an approach is intended provide the IAEA with the flexibility to apply safeguards with optimal efficiency. The conventional, criteria-driven approach to safeguards, in which a fixed list of activities is required for each facility of a given type, is now commonly viewed as rigid and inefficient, forcing an inappropriately uniform application of safeguards to disparate circumstances. However, this approach had certain advantages: it enforced a uniform standard of effectiveness at the facility level, Agency-wide; it was clearly non-discriminatory; facility safeguards requirements could be spelled out clearly and transparently; and the Agency could identify implementation goals for its Safeguards Implementation Report based on identified criteria. It is less clear how these characteristics would be achieved under the new approach, in which activities and objectives are identified and assessed state by state. This paper considers the problem of combining the flexibility of the State-Level Approach with standards of effectiveness, non-discrimination, and transparency. It suggests that the structure of the State-level approach be augmented by carefully considered exemplars and objectives that would serve as reference points for the development of individual State-level approaches, whose details would necessarily be state-specific and probably safeguards confidential.