Over a quarter of a century ago, in 1991, the discovery of Iraq’s clandestine program made the international community realize that an approach to nuclear verification that focused only on verifying declared nuclear materials had a major limitation. For about a decade, an undeclared series of activities, ranging from research and development to nuclear material production, many of which were supported by the construction of undeclared facilities and installations, were conducted in parallel to the declared activities subject to verification under Iraq’s 1972 Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement under INFCIRC/253.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) embarked on a comprehensive review of its verification approaches with its “Programme 93 + 2,” aimed at strengthening the effectiveness and improving the efficiency of IAEA Safeguards. An essential change identified to address the existing weaknesses was to abandon a verification approach addressing solely the correctness of state declarations and to include all measures necessary for the IAEA to assess the completeness of state declarations — that is, the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities.
By May 1997, the Board of Governors had approved the “Model Protocol Additional to the Agreement(s) between State(s) and the International Atomic Energy Agency” (referred to as the Additional Protocol [AP]), providing the IAEA with broader access to information through augmented state declarations and better physical access for inspectors in the field.
Over the past two decades, the collection and analysis of safeguards-relevant Open Source and Geospatial Information (OSGI) have become undisputable contributors to the process of drawing safeguards conclusions, particularly with regard to the assessment of the completeness of states’ declarations. At a time when more information is available more quickly than ever before, this special issue of the JNMM is a timely contribution.