The Evolution of IAEA Safeguards: U.S. Perspectives

The first use of the term safeguards is often attributed to theTrilateral Declaration issued by United States, the UnitedKingdom, and Canada on November 15, 1945; in any event theconcept and language of safeguards date from the first days of thenuclear era. In January 1946 the very first action of the UnitedNations General Assembly created a United Nations AtomicEnergy Commission “to deal with the problems raised by thediscovery of atomic energy and other related matters.” The commissionwas to investigate steps concerning “exchange of information,control to ensure only peaceful use of atomic energy,elimination of atomic weapons and other weapons of massdestruction, and effective safeguards.” It was noted that if “thefruits of scientific research should be freely available to all nations,”then there needed to be “effective safeguards by way of inspectionsand other means to protect complying states against the hazards ofviolations and evasions.”1 Although the initial uses of the wordsafeguards were clearly intended to denote a general concept of protection,the specific idea of inspections was already being attachedto it, and the word would come to be used consistently in the contextof the prevention of misuse of atomic energy.