Exploring Quantitative Framework to Evaluate State-level Nuclear Transparency

One of the ways to address the concern of nuclear proliferation over civilian nuclear power development is enhancing nuclear transparency. Nuclear transparency refers to various forms of openness that enhance international confidence and understanding in a country’s nuclear matters. Further promoting nuclear transparency would be a necessary step for continuing use of civilian nuclear power into the future. To support this global effort, developing a quantitative framework to evaluate state-level nuclear transparency is proposed in this study. Use of quantitative measure to evaluate state-level nuclear transparency with international consensus would be very helpful to promote greater international confidence in a country’s civilian nuclear power program with regards to nuclear nonproliferation. As an initial step to quantify state-level nuclear transparency, a simple framework to define state-level nuclear transparency is proposed in this work. Use of existing database or measures to represent this framework is explored as examples. .