Year
2010
Abstract
Since the transition from “traditional” to strengthened safeguards, the evaluation and analysis of information has played an increasingly important role in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) safeguards activities. During the State evaluation process, the IAEA utilizes all available information for drawing soundly-based safeguards conclusions. Besides State declared information and data gathered during inspections, a large number of information sources are reviewed for any indications of safeguards relevance. The State level approach – in contrast to the facility-based approach under traditional safeguards – considers possible acquisition paths available to a State and adjusts safeguards activities accordingly. An additional protocol broadens the declared information base available to the IAEA for analysis and evaluation and extends the IAEA’s access rights in the field. The use of all information available to the IAEA for determining safeguards activities is often referred to as “information-driven safeguards”. Country officers are inspectors in the Department of Safeguards Operations Divisions who have been assigned responsibility for specific States and who thus form the core of the evaluation process. Information-driven safeguards has led to a significant change in the role of inspectors as country officers. While the verification of declared nuclear material remains the cornerstone of the IAEA Safeguards System, country officers are now not only expected to be knowledgeable about the inspection- related aspects of their work, but they also need to act on information on the State they are responsible for from a variety of sources on an ongoing basis, in order to identify proliferation indicators and assess risks at an early stage. To perform this task, country officers analyse developments in the State as well as the State’s relations and co- operation with other States; review scientific literature for research activities that could potentially be of safeguards relevance; evaluate satellite imagery of declared and potential nuclear sites; assess reports on nuclear trade between the State and other States; and review data provided by the State and corroborate it with information from other sources. This work is carried out in a collaborative effort with other Safeguards staff, who receive, collect and analyze information on an ongoing basis. This paper examines the work and the challenges of country officers under information-driven safeguards.