Year
1998
Abstract
In September, 1997, nine of the world’s plutonium-using countries agreed to a set of guidelines for international plutonium management, with acceptances to be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency on December 1. Following three years of discussion, the guidelines provide a unified package of accepted rules for the storage, handling, and transportation of civil plutonium as well as military plutonium that has been declared as no longer required for defense purposes. New requirements include a formal declaration of national plutonium strategies, which will recognize the environmental, economic, and proliferation concerns and the consequent importance of balancing plutonium supply and demand. Nations will also make annual declarations of their non-military stockpiles of unirradiated plutonium, together with estimates of the plutonium content in spent reactor fuel. These guidelines represent the first formally accepted recognition of the need for plutonium management of this scope and could thus provide a partial basis for future monitoring and policy regimes.