Safeguards at Forty

The fortieth anniversary of international safeguards offers achance to reflect on this remarkable story of international securitycollaboration.The concept of international safeguards on nuclear materialand activities dates from Dwight Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace”speech to the United Nations in 1953. The International AtomicEnergy Agency (IAEA) has, since its creation, applied varioustechnologies and methods to help ensure that nuclear material isnot diverted from peaceful to improper uses. Its safeguards systempioneered on-site inspections and involved unprecedented, albeitlimited, inroads into member states’ sovereignty.