Attributes Verification for Classified Fissile Material

In the Trilateral Initiative, the United States, the Russian Federation, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are exploring means by which the IAEA could verify declarations of classified excess fissile material. This paper reports on the continuing effors under the Trilateral Inititive to develop an attribute verification regime for classified declarations. With these considerations in mind, two propositions are discussed: (1) that multiple unclassified attributes could be declared by the host nation and then verified by the IAEA in order to provide confidence in a declaration of a classified (or unclassified) inventory while protecton classified or sensitive information; and (2) that attributes could be measure, remeasurd of monitored to proved continuity of knowledge in anonintrusice and unclassified manner. The attributes should relate to characteristics of excess weapons materials nad should be verifiable and authenticatable with methods that are usable by IAEA inspectors. Further, attrbutes(and methods used to measure them) must not reveal any classified information. This approach might be applicable n other blateral or multilateral transparency or verification regimes.