DEVELOPING A STATE-LEVEL SAFEGUARDS APPROACH: CASE STUDY

In order to draw a soundly based safeguards conclusion that a State is abiding by its safeguards obligations, the IAEA implements safeguards in a manner that considers the State’s nuclear and nuclear-related activities and capabilities as a whole, within the scope of the State’s safeguards agreement. A State-level safeguards approach is a customized approach to implementing safeguards for an individual State. It consists of technical objectives as well as applicable safeguards measures to address those objectives. The Secretariat is now updating State-level safeguards approaches for States for which the broader conclusion has been drawn that all nuclear material in the State remains in peaceful use, and intends to progressively develop State-level approaches for all States with safeguards agreements with the IAEA. The updated approaches are being developed making greater use of the ability to consider the State as a whole and State specific factors, and are more focused on attaining technical objectives. For a State with a comprehensive safeguards agreement, acquisition path analysis is conducted to identify and analyse the technically plausible paths by which nuclear material suitable for use in a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device could be acquired. Technical objectives are established for detecting the various steps along the paths. Prioritized technical objectives form the basis on which safeguards measures are identified and safeguards activities are conducted for a State. Performance targets define the verification goals to be met when conducting the activities. This paper illustrates the process of developing a State-level safeguards approach for a State with a comprehensive safeguards agreement through a case study.