INTEGRATED SAFEGUARDS – RESEARCH REACTORS AND CRITICAL FACILITIES

There are well-known examples of research reactors that have been involved in proliferation programs. Some of those facilities have been under international safeguards at the time. Thus, the lesson of history is that RRCAs require special consideration when developing integrated safeguards approaches on a State-as-awhole level. For many of the States with comprehensive safeguards agreements, RRCAs are their only significant safeguarded activity. In short, RRCAs are numerous, and some of them are of high safeguards significance. A major aim in developing integrated safeguards approaches at a State -as-a-whole level is to ensure that each facility within a State is subject to verification activities that are sufficient and appropriate to its level of sensitivity and to its overall proliferation potential within the context of the State as a whole. This paper examines issues arising during the development of an integrated safeguards approach to the State-as-awhole, with a focus on cases where RRCAs are a State's only significant safeguarded activity.