Can the nuclear Siamese twins be separated?

"Atoms for peace and atoms for war are Siamese twins."
- Hannes Alfvén, Swedish physicist and Nobel laureate

From the very outset of the nuclear age, the challenge has been to facilitate the civilian use of nuclear energy while curbing nuclear weapons. But, as Robert Oppenheimer once observed, “the close technical parallelism and interrelation of the peaceful and the military applications of atomic energy” make countering nuclear proliferation an especially difficult task. At the heart of the problem is a large overlap between civilian and military applications of nuclear energy, which both depend essentially on the same key ingredient: fissile material.

Today the world faces the prospect of a nuclear “renaissance” – a potential expansion in the use of nuclear energy worldwide. Energy supply is a critical economic, national security, and environmental issue for our planet and nuclear energy could be a vital part of the energy mix providing energy in quantities needed to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels.

We don’t know now if there really going to be a nuclear “renaissance” and what form it will it take. But the revival of interest in nuclear power could potentially result in the worldwide dissemination of uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing technologies. This presents obvious risks of proliferation as these technologies can produce fissile materials – high enriched uranium and separated plutonium – that are directly usable in nuclear weapons. As a result more states could acquire the capability to produce materials directly usable for, or easily converted to, explosive use.

And they can do it completely legally. Article IV of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) guarantees “the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”, including technologies of uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seeks to inhibit the use of nuclear energy for military purposes through the system of international safeguards. But the acquisition of uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing facilities would bring states a long way toward nuclear weapons even without directly violating the NPT, namely without “diverting” special nuclear material and, therefore, without any possibility of being restrained by IAEA safeguards designed to verify whether material has or has not been diverted.

One does not have to look far for an example. Japan is currently the only non-nuclear-weapon state that operates all the elements of the complete nuclear fuel cycle. It has a very advanced nuclear infrastructure, including commercial-scale enrichment and reprocessing plants, large quantities of nuclear material (more than 45-metric tons of separated plutonium), modern nuclear scientific, engineering and production capabilities. It’s to Japan’s credit that it has a perfect NPT compliance record and has pursued a consistent policy of non-weaponization of nuclear technology. None of this changes the reality that the country is a “screwdriver turn” away from acquiring nuclear weapons – in months rather than years – if it took the political decision to go nuclear. Indeed, periodically this question resurfaces in Japan and just recently several retired military officials argued that the country should consider possessing nuclear weapons.

Should a nuclear “renaissance” result in more non-nuclear-weapon states acquiring enrichment and reprocessing facilities, the task of safeguarding such facilities could place significant additional work load on the IAEA – already strained both in budget and personnel. Moreover, safeguarding commercial-scale enrichment and reprocessing plants poses significant verification challenges. That’s because large plants process so much nuclear material over the course of their operation that it’s very complicated to make accurate material-accountancy measurements as part of ensuring none of this material has been diverted. Moreover, if a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) is negotiated and agreed, its verification could mean placing under safeguards enrichment and reprocessing facilities in the nuclear-weapon states and non-NPT states, which now are mainly outside the international safeguard system. All of this will require resources and strategic foresight.

All of this said, nobody should contest the right of any nation to utilize nuclear energy in a secure, safe and environmentally sound manner. So key questions are these: how should the international community address the growing security and proliferation risks from the nuclear fuel cycle? How can the international community limit access to sensitive nuclear technologies, all the while protecting states’ rights to develop the peaceful use of nuclear energy?

Continued nuclear development along national lines – the situation we have now – presents a sort of 'Catch-22' because it will create additional proliferation risks undermining the international nonproliferation regime. Even if a large-scale nuclear “renaissance” doesn’t occur, it would not help much. Many countries would not willingly agree to indefinitely preserve the de-facto existing “two-tier” system where some nations – essentially the members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group – are entitled to nuclear fuel cycle technologies, and others are not. Some of them may decide to acquire their own enrichment or reprocessing capabilities, decisions perhaps for political and national strategic reasons rather than primarily driven by economic considerations.

So, how is the nuclear puzzle to be solved? Let’s go back to 1946, when The Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy (generally known as the Acheson-Lilienthal Report) appeared. At the time, the report contained a stark warning: “A system of inspection superimposed on an otherwise uncontrolled exploitation of atomic energy by national governments will not be an adequate safeguard”. The Acheson-Lilienthal report was the first effort to define a policy on the international control of atomic energy. But, in the condition of the time, the task of establishing some form of international authority over the most dangerous aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle proved impossible. Instead, the international community eventually adopted the very approach - occasional inspection by the IAEA - criticized by the report’s authors.

More that sixty years later we face the same problem, only on a much bigger scale. And again it seems that multilateralization can offer a gateway to nuclear fuel cycle services for any nation. A multilateral approach to the nuclear fuel cycle, if appropriately arranged, has substantial potential to ensure that the benefits of nuclear energy are made available to all states, while strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime and reducing incentives to build new nuclear fuel cycle facilities in states that do not now have them.

The rationale for multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle is relatively straightforward. In the case of a multinational enrichment or reprocessing facility, in which ownership, control or operation are shared among a number of states that can watch each other, all of its participants are under a greater degree of peer scrutiny. This would make it more difficult and riskier to cheat. The possibility of seizure of the facility by the host country would always be present, but because of the ensuing confrontation between that country and the other participants and the international community, a considerable political barrier inhibits such action.

The use of multinational facilities instead of an array of national facilities would reduce the number of plants to be placed under safeguards, increasing the feasibility of continuous inspection while possibly reducing costs of these inspections. Multinational facilities could also serve as confidence-building measures, helping to reduce suspicions among participating states about each other’s nuclear weapon intentions. Moreover, large multinational fuel cycle facilities could be cost effective and provide economies of scale smaller national facilities would probably lack. Multilateral fuel cycle mechanisms could respond to the “entitlement” motivation of the customer states in terms of their participation in ownership, management, operation, decision-making, profit-sharing, and so on.

A way to solve the nuclear puzzle is ultimately to “denationalize” sensitive nuclear fuel cycle activities – first of all, uranium enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing, and fabrication of mixed plutonium and uranium oxide fuel – and convert the current “two-tier” system into a truly multilateral fuel cycle arrangement of equal rights and obligations. This multilateral fuel-cycle arrangement could benefit the whole of humankind as:

• The existing “two-tier” system would be virtually eliminated
• “Entitlement” motivations of customer states would be satisfied to a great extent, especially if new multilateral facilities were created taking into account regional considerations
• Open and non-discriminatory access to nuclear fuel services would be guaranteed
• Without nationally-controlled uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing facilities no fissile materials for military purposes would be produced
• It would be difficult to justify a national enrichment or reprocessing program
• No states with nationally-controlled “threshold” capabilities would exist, which is important in a world moving toward nuclear disarmament

The task is tremendous: it is not easy getting international support for dramatic changes in the way we use nuclear energy. Nonetheless, we have no choice if the world is to be protected from the misuse of sensitive nuclear technologies. To begin with, the international community should conduct in-depth discussions and thorough analysis of the technical, legal, political and economic aspects of various proposals and ideas for multilateral nuclear fuel cycle frameworks. The long lead-times for nuclear construction allow us to do that. But states involved cannot allow themselves just to waste this time indulging in endless and selfish politicized arguments.

This is a guest post by Dr. Yury Yudin. Yury is a Senior Researcher at UNIDIR and manages the project ‘Multinational Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle'. A pre-publication version of his new study paper, 'Multilateralization of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Assessing the Existing Proposals' is available in PDF format by clicking here.

Picture credit: photograph of a centrifuge cascade (part of the nuclear enrichment process), courtesy of the IAEA's Image Bank.

NPT: Man Friday

Following the tabling of his draft Chairman’s summary, the mighty Ambassador Volodymyr Yel’chenko of Ukraine (pictured above) held a final meeting of the PrepCom on Friday morning the 9th May. Throughout the two weeks of the PrepCom, Ambassador Yel’chenko had been trying – with increasing irritation – to get states to engage in an interactive debate. Not until this last session did the delegations reward his entreaties. The Nigerian representative’s reference to Ambassador Yel’chenko’s smooth performance being akin to how you never see a monkey sweat (because of its thick hair, apparently) was lost on most delegations, although it’s notable that the NPT Chairman does have a some luxurious locks that could just be hiding mild perspiration in the face of the task of getting a successful outcome.

The Chairman’s summary (now the Chairman’s working paper as it was not adopted by the meeting) is an attempt to reflect the main points of debate made in the two weeks of meetings. Working papers are closely read and ideas are taken from them, speeches made are listened to carefully and any suggestions are added into the pot. Of course not every small suggestion makes the cut. Much depends on how many times a point is made, how strong is the support and how contentious is the issue.

Issues such as disarmament and non-proliferation education made it up the charts (paragraph 29 out of 63 – no longer an issue relegated to an afterthought), a paragraph on the WMD Commission, the Reykjavik Revisited initiative from the Hoover Group, and reference to the environmental consequences of uranium mining all resonated in the text. Many other key issues were there and, as Chair’s texts go, it was very comprehensive; the major points made during the two weeks were there.

However, there were a couple of notable exceptions.

During the two weeks, much of the fire was fanned by the issue of what lay behind the attack by Israeli forces on a Syrian facility last September. Those of you who have yet to see the CIA footage on the Syrian facility should click here and see for yourself. In addition, the concerns over Iranian activities, the IAEA findings and the UN Security Council process, along with the E3+3 process that met in London on 2 May were cause for much debate.

Many states clearly have major concerns about Iran’s enrichment programme. However, as the US pointed out, the Chairman’s text goes easy on both Syria and Iran compared with the strength of the discussion and the content of papers during the PrepCom. In addition, the paper omits completely the charge made by the US that the DPRK was involved in the building of the Syrian facility. So DPRK gets let off the hook in that regard, as well as in others.

Dr Christopher Ford of the US delegation asked if the Chairman’s text was influenced by Iran’s intransigence last year in the 2007 Vienna PrepCom – at which all debate was held up by Iran. Was there indeed a fear that, if strong language on Iran and Syria had been included in the text, either country (or another for that matter) would hold up the adoption of the report as a whole and the PrepCom would end in disarray? Ford contended (just prior to when Syria was to take the floor) that there was no way that Syria could possibly feel hard done by the Chairman’s working paper and thus could not possibly complain about it. He added that despite US disappointment and reservations about the text, it did not intend to impede proceedings or hold the adoption of the report hostage, as had occurred last year.

In that way, I think he demonstrated that often those delegations that cause more fuss and are prepared to hold the meeting hostage to their demands, gain more in a meeting room than those who try to find compromise and behave well.

However, we shouldn’t lose heart. The meeting room isn’t real life. Bad behaviour in a meeting room might gain you a few negotiating score points. But, out there in the real world, such antics can attract a payback. As long-term readers of this blog well know, Tit for Tat is a game often played for real.


This is a guest blog by Dr Patricia Lewis, UNIDIR Director. Patricia’s other blogs on the NPT can be located by typing ‘NPT’ into the search box at right.

Reference

Statements and other documents from the NPT PrepCom can be found at its official website here. As of posting, the Syrian and UK ‘right of reply’ statements were not available.

Rebecca Johnson of the Acronym Institute has been providing ongoing analysis of the NPT Prepcom on the Acronym's website here.

Picture of Ambassador Yel'chenko is from the NPT PrepCom site.

Once more unto the breach ...

This week is a rare pause in a fairly comprehensive schedule of multilateral disarmament meetings that stretches until June. We've reported on the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons' (CCW) work earlier this month, and last week and this week there were regional events on cluster munitions in Mexico City and Bangkok.

While all of this was going on, the second five-yearly review meeting of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) met in The Hague. With the mainly bilateral focus of other diplomatic activity there, those involved in the CWC - not least on the civil society side - sometimes find the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) a bit of a lonely outpost compared with the multilateral hothouse atmospheres in Geneva, New York and even Vienna. In his very useful daily reports on the CWC review conference, researcher Richard Guthrie had this to say:

"The Hague remains less NGO-friendly than Geneva, New York or Vienna. A major part of this derives from less experience engaging with NGO activities. The experience of this Review Conference seems to be that a greater number of delegates appear to recognise that NGOs have a useful role to play in the efforts to reduce the global threat from the hostile uses of poisons."

It's about time, although, historically, the CWC is by no means alone in the arms control field in resisting diverse inputs. Meanwhile, this time around the CWC didn't have an easy time of it in attempting to achieve a review meeting outcome, which took until the early hours of Saturday morning. A declaration text has yet to emerge publicly, but my understanding is that wording on terrorism (including whether UN Security Council resolution 1540 could be specifically mentioned) and what to do about countries about to miss their treaty-mandated deadlines for destruction of their chemical weapons were at issue. You can read all about it, including Richard's daily reports, on the civil society web resource page Daniel Feakes and his colleagues set up for the Second CCW Review Conference.

Next week, the second preparatory meeting of three for the 2010 review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commences in Geneva. Disarmament Insight blog readers may recall that the first PrepCom in May last year in Vienna was very tough, with various Iran-related procedural shenanigans right up until the end of the meeting.

It's difficult to see how this second NPT PrepCom will be easier, but let's cross our fingers. Many Geneva-based disarmament diplomats in the corridors of the Palais already have a faintly harried look - the meeting hasn't even started! - although caucusing of various kinds has, of course, been underway for some time. And, there will be a great number of side events associated with the NPT. We hope to bring you updates from time to time on these nuclear doings.

As if the NPT wasn't enough, the Conference on Disarmament resumes on 12 May - although hopes it would achieve a work programme in 2008 after a decade of deadlock look once again to be fading. There is also the Dublin Conference to negotiate a treaty banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians from 19 to 30 May, which many from Geneva will attend. Then there are the intersessional meetings of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention back in Geneva for a week from 2 June, the IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna at the same time....it's all go.

Fortunately, there is a way to keep track of most of this. Geneva Forum, which along with UNIDIR collaborates in bringing you Disarmament Insight, has a very useful disarmament calendar on its website. It's worth bookmarking in your web browser.

John Borrie

Photo by author of space sculpture in the Palais des Nations grounds.

NPT newsflash - Bingo! Game On!

(For background about the NPT preparatory meeting see our 6 May posting further below.)

Walking into an NPT conference is always a bit of a surreal experience. Here in Vienna we have governmental and non-governmental representatives from over 180 countries sipping exceedingly stimulating coffee and debating the not-so-finer details of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Except that, until now, they haven’t been.

The conference to prepare for the 2010 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference began over a week ago and still they have yet to adopt an agenda. So out of a ten day meeting, we are on day seven with no substantive discussion. This is reminiscent of what happened at the Review Conference in 2005 when Egypt, the US and France, along with a number of other states were locked in battle over how to characterise recent review meetings in the agenda.

This year it has been Iran. And only Iran. The US and Egypt are basking in the praise for their restraint and having put their differences behind them – at least for now and of course only on the decision of the agenda.

So the big question at this meeting has been: will we even get started?

And I can now answer that question at last with an alleluia, shout of proclamation, yes!!

Iran objected to a phrase in the agenda referring to full compliance with the treaty (who could possibly object to that? Indeed, you may wonder). Last Friday, South Africa proposed a fix that a decision could be recorded that:

"The meeting decides that it understands the reference in the agenda to 'reaffirming the need for full compliance with the Treaty' to mean that it will consider compliance with all the provisions of the Treaty".

Following a long statement in which Iran made critical comments regarding the Chair’s conduct of consultations (Ambassador Amano responded in a dignified manner, thus not letting such criticism pass), Iran has just accepted the constructive fix this morning in a “display of goodwill and flexibility”. The fix will be in the form of an asterisk noting the South African-proposed text as a footnote to agenda item six (that deals with the substantive agenda including the phrase on reaffirming the need for full compliance with the Treaty). The agenda was therefore adopted at 11.40am and substantive work can now begin officially.

But why was all this happening?

After all, Iran has received the censure and disapproval of the international community through Security Council resolutions and through the IAEA Board of Governors reports. Why should they be worrying about a mild slap on the wrist contained within a chairman’s summary at a preparatory meeting of the NPT? Why would they isolate themselves in this way and prevent substantive work and development of the Treaty?

A number of explanations have been mooted by varying shades of political opinion and over the next few days in the margins of the official work that will now begin, I may be able to test them out against the evidence.

So now, from the Austria Conference Centre: onwards and sideways!


This is a guest blog from Dr Patricia Lewis. Patricia is Director of UNIDIR.


Reference

Photo of the Austria Centre Vienna, where the NPT meeting is taking place (retrieved from the Austria Centre Vienna website)