Year
2004
Abstract
After the first Gulf War, it was recognized that one of the key weaknesses of the international safeguards system was that there was no systematic attempt by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to analyze all available information about States’ nuclear programs to determine whether these programs were consistent with their nonproliferation obligations. The IAEA, as part of its effort to redesign the international safeguards system, is looking closely at the issue of information review and evaluation. The application of information analysis (IA) techniques to the international nuclear safeguards system has the potential to revolutionize the form and practice of safeguards. Assessing the possibilities of IA, and in particular those embodied in concepts of information-driven safeguards for the IAEA, requires an understanding of IA, the limits on its effectiveness and the requirements placed on such analyses in a variety of safeguards contexts. The Australian Safeguards and Nonproliferation Office (ASNO) and the United States Department of Energy (DOE) agreed in July 2002 to undertake a joint study of “information-driven safeguards” under a long-standing cooperative arrangement. It was decided that a broad range of ideas should be considered, and that the study would not be intended to be and would not be an elaboration of either US or Australian governmental positions. This paper reports some findings of Phase 1 of this collaborative effort, which explored alternative strategies for utilizing IA by the IAEA, and offers some initial thinking on the part of the authors on the outstanding issues to be addressed in Phase 2. Phase 2 will comprise an effort to explore through case studies these alternative strategies to determine whether they provide the same or increased confidence in safeguards conclusions while allowing safeguards resource allocation to be determined not only by the types and quantities of nuclear material and facilities in a State but also by other objective factors.