Year
2005
Abstract
Following the 1998 nuclear tests in South Asia and later reinforced by North Korean, Libyan and Iranian nuclear activities, there has been growing concern about increasing proliferation dangers. At the same time, the prospects of radiological/nuclear terrorism are seen to be rising—since 9/11, concern over a proliferation/terrorism nexus has never been higher. In the face of this growing danger, there are urgent calls for stronger measures to strengthen the current international nuclear nonproliferation regime. President Bush’s February 11, 2004, landmark speech on nonproliferation put forward initiatives, including: a ban on the spread of enrichment and reprocessing; assured supply; the Additional Protocol (AP) as a condition of supply; and reforms of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) Board of Governors (BOG). IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei has also enunciated nonproliferation initiatives, including the need for multilateral/multinational approaches to address reprocessing and enrichment. In order to realize the shared goals of the initiatives of President Bush and Director-General ElBaradei, it will be essential to understand better the economic, financial and other incentives and disincentives for reducing proliferation dangers in the current climate. Implementing proposals on enrichment and reprocessing will require, inter alia, an assessment of incentives such as assured supply, including spent-fuel takeback options, a possible transparency protocol and the potential for industry selfregulation, as well as disincentives such as suspension of supply. This paper, which benefits from the rich discussion at a joint National Nuclear Security Administration/Los Alamos National Laboratory workshop on President Bush's initiatives in September 2004, will conceptually revisit incentives and disincentives for nonproliferation, followed by an examination of incentives/disincentives related to the enrichment and reprocessing proposals on the table.