Timely Detection Under the State-level Concept

The comprehensive safeguards agreement between a state and the IAEA, based on INFCIRC/153, states the “objective of safeguards” carried out in a state as “the timely detection of diversion of significant quantities” of nuclear material. External stakeholders would like to understand and perhaps provide input on how the timely detection safeguards objective will be implemented as the IAEA evolves to the state level concept of safeguards implementation. The intent of this paper is to contribute to that dialogue. This paper starts with how the safeguards objective in INFCIRC/153 originated, has been implemented for the past 40 years, and is now evolving, and will end with proposals for including timely detection in the state-level concept, including detection of undeclared nuclear activities as well as detection of diversion as safeguards objective.