INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOPS TO FOSTER IMPLEMENTATION OF THE IAEA ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL

country’s adherence to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Additional Protocol (AP) is an important statement to the world of that country’s commitment to nuclear nonproliferation. Without adherence to the AP it is possible, as demonstrated in Iraq, for a country party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to clandestinely work toward nuclear weapons and be undetected by the IAEA. This is because traditional safeguards under the NPT are directed at detection of diversion of nuclear material from declared activities. But a country may instead build undeclared activities to produce weapons-grade nuclear material. The AP is directed at detecting those undeclared activities. As of June 2003, 73 countries had signed the AP, but the AP had entered into force in only 35 of these countries. To further ratification and adherence to the AP, the IAEA has held regional, high-level seminars in Japan, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Peru, Romania, and Malaysia to explain AP provisions. To supplement these policy-level seminars, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is developing a set of workshop modules on technical competencies required to implement the AP. The intent is to work closely with the IAEA by presenting these technical competencies to countries as well as to complement the IAEA’s regional seminars and other outreach efforts. This paper briefly describes the technical competency modules being developed under the DOE program.