A Schematic History of Safeguards Policy

Safeguards are a central feature of the nuclear nonproliferationregime and of the era introduced with President Eisenhower’sDecember 1953 Atoms for Peace initiative at the United Nations.Their importance to a viable and effective international nonproliferationregime cannot be exaggerated. They are for all intentsand purposes a condition sine qua non for cooperative developmentof civil nuclear energy and practicable international nuclearcommerce. There is no identifiable and acceptable substituteshort of some form of international ownership and control of thenuclear fuel cycle, a formulation (based on the judgment of theAcheson-Lilienthal Report that a system of inspection superimposedon an otherwise uncontrolled exploitation of atomic energyby national governments will not be an adequate safeguard andcould not ensure effective separation of civil and military uses ofnuclear energy) advanced by the United States in 1946 at theonset of the nuclear age as the Baruch Plan. This approach isbeing revisited today in the form of initiatives for multilateral/multinational fuel cycle arrangements for enrichment andreprocessing as the international community grapples with thechallenges raised by i) the decreased relevance of the disciplinesimposed on proliferation by the superpowers during the ColdWar; ii) the increasing spread of nuclear knowledge; iii) the diversificationof sources of supply of nuclear materials, equipment,and technology including the emergence of a nuclear black market,epitomized by the A.Q. Khan network; iv) the prospect ofstates in regions of tension developing fuel cycle capabilities thatput them in a position to quickly proliferate if the political decisionto do so is taken, and v) the rising threat of non-state actorsincluding apocalyptic terrorists acquiring nuclear explosives orthe means to produce them which was an important stimulant tothe passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1540. Viableinstitutional arrangements such as multinational enterpriseswould provide additive stability and security to internationalnuclear activity, but safeguards are and will remain indispensableto an effective and credible nonproliferation regime.