U.S. VIEWS ON INTEGRATED SAFEGUARDS

The United States supports the IAEA’s effort to integrate INFCIRC/540 and INFCIRC/153 measures as a means of strengthening the effectiveness of safeguards and improving their efficiency. This paper provides our current thinking on the development and implementation of integrated safeguards; these views may change as integrated safeguards mature and as more information on the resource requirements and effectiveness of proposed system becomes available. At the December IAEA Board of Governors meeting the U.S. provided a detailed paper outlining our preliminary views on recent progress in integrated safeguards by the IAEA as described in GOV/INF/2000/26. The U.S. supports the general approach taken to integrated safeguards described in that document. We believe the basic principles identified in that document for the development of integrated safeguards are sound. We also believe that the general approach taken by the Agency to the question of information analysis and complementary access is sound, and that the process by which the Agency proposes to come to a conclusion on the absence of undeclared activities is appropriate. The challenge that currently faces the Agency is turning these general principles into specific safeguards procedures; the result of this development process must be an integrated safeguards system designed with a sound and credible basis. We believe that basis should be anchored in a number of additional principles that are outlined in the paper.