Nuclear safeguards are measures to verify that countries comply with their international obligations not to use nuclear materials for nuclear explosives. Since it is the country itself that is regarded as the potential diverter of nuclear material, confidence about the absence of diversion is provided by external, i.e. international, verification. Global recognition of the need for such verification is reflected in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (the NPT). Other than those States that exploded a nuclear device prior to 1 January 1967 (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US), all States that sign the Treaty must do so as non-nuclear-weapon States (NNWS). Some 180 NNWS have now done so thereby, amongst other things, agreeing that the International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA) must apply safeguards on all their nuclear material - according to what are known as ‘full-scope’ or ‘comprehensive’ safeguards agreements.
Implementation of these safeguards agreements had, until the last decade of the 20th century, focused on what are called nuclear materials accountancy measures (sometimes termed ‘classical safeguards’). These measures involved the State providing the IAEA (the Agency) with declarations of its nuclear material (i.e. how much material there is and where it is, what are called nuclear materials accountancy reports), and information on relevant aspects of the design of the nuclear facilities concerned.
The IAEA's verification activities were largely directed at confirming nuclear material was present as declared and that relevant aspects of facility design were as declared. These activities involved regular routine inspections at nuclear facilities to confirm that the nuclear materials accountancy reports and supporting records at the facility were consistent with the information declared to the IAEA, and to perform checks on the material itself - either by means of direct measurement/sampling or by so-called containment and surveillance measures (e.g. sealing containers or stores of material, or video surveillance of plant areas) to confirm that previously measured material remained unchanged.
Alongside the relevant IAEA safeguards requirements, civil nuclear material in the Member States of the European Union is also subject to the safeguards provisions of Chapter VII of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (the Euratom Treaty). These safeguards are applied by the European Commission to provide confidence that nuclear materials in the European Union are not diverted from their declared end uses. The European Commission’s basic safeguards approach has therefore been very similar to that described above for the IAEA.
Further information on IAEA and Euratom safeguards can be found on the websites of the IAEA and the European Commission..
Following the Gulf War in the 1990s it was discovered that, despite having signed the NPT as a NNWS and the IAEA having implemented a comprehensive safeguards agreement, Iraq had nevertheless managed to pursue a substantial nuclear weapons programme. This prompted major efforts to strengthen the safeguards system, in particular to increase the IAEA’s capability to detect undeclared nuclear material and activities.
A key part of the output from this strengthening process is what is known as the Additional Protocol - additional that is to existing safeguards agreements. The main features of the Protocol are that it:
Such extended information and access, allied to systematic collection and analysis of a wide-range of relevant information from other sources (e.g. from publications both academic and media) provides the IAEA with a much more comprehensive picture of a State’s nuclear activities, and means that the IAEA is much better placed than before to spot and pursue indicators of possible undeclared activities.