Reflections on the IAEA Safeguards Symposium and future IAEA safeguards and verification

A meeting titled “Reflections on the IAEA Safeguards Symposium and future IAEA safeguards and verification” was organized by the International Safeguards Division of INMM immediately following the conclusion of the IAEA Symposium on International Safeguards, “Preparing for Future Verification Challenges”, held on November 1 - 5, 2010 in the Vienna International Center (VIC) in Vienna, Austria. The authors co-chaired the meeting, and the ISD Management Team played an important role. There were 25 participants including IAEA staff. The objective of this meeting was to have a group of participants from the IAEA Safeguards Symposium review the information bearing on future IAEA safeguards and verification presented at the symposium and discuss the desired directions in the coming years. This paper reviews results of the meeting. Many of the participants wished to see quick progress in the further development of the state-level approach concept. This progress would be intertwined with making safeguards more information driven, improving cooperation between the IAEA and States and state and regional safeguards systems. Another priority area is improving capability to detect undeclared nuclear activities, which would include enhancing environmental sampling and developing new technologies. To meet the challenge facing the IAEA in performing safeguards for complex nuclear facilities and new nuclear technologies, emphasis should be placed on promoting Safeguards by Design (SBD). For the longer term, the IAEA also needs to prepare itself for future verification tasks. Building stakeholder confidence in IAEA safeguards remains an important challenge, for which communication with all involved parties will be important.