SAFEGUARDS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

Safeguards have evolved substantially over time, reflecting changes in the technical and political environment in which they operate. Key influences have included the extent and scope of nuclear programs under safeguards, the kind of proliferation challenges that have arisen, and state expectations. Safeguards originated with inspections by nuclear suppliers on a bilateral basis, applied to transferred materials and items – hence ‘item-specific’. Following the establishment of the IAEA in 1957, safeguards were gradually multilateralised – and with the NPT, were extended beyond transferred items to cover the entire nuclear program of non-nuclear-weapon states (‘comprehensive’ safeguards). Comprehensive safeguards represented a change of fundamental importance, since they bring the responsibility of verifying the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities. From the early 1990s it has been seen that the main contemporary proliferation risk lies not with mainstream nuclear programs but with undeclared nuclear activities. The challenge of detecting these has prompted a major overhaul of safeguards – including greater use of information, a broadening of verification activity, and the drawing of more qualitative conclusions. Especially important has been the move to a state-level approach, taking account of state-specific factors, under which safeguards effort can be prioritised to areas of higher proliferation risk. This paper outlines the evolution of safeguards to date and suggests some directions for the future.