Safeguarding our nuclear ambitions

By Nadia Watson - posted Tuesday, 21 November 2006.

From Online Opinion.

The Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office claims that nuclear safeguards "provide assurances that exported uranium and its derivatives cannot benefit the development of nuclear weapons".

In fact, the safeguards system is flawed in many respects and it cannot provide such assurances.

The main component of nuclear safeguards is the monitoring and inspection regime operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory states are expected to bring all nuclear material and activities under IAEA safeguards. There is an important exception to this rule, however, the five “declared” nuclear weapons states (US, Russia, UK, France, and China) are not required to put any nuclear facilities under safeguards though they may do so on a voluntary basis.

All but three states - Israel, India and Pakistan - are NPT signatories. North Korea has effectively withdrawn from the NPT although there are ongoing efforts to bring it back within the NPT “tent” through the protracted six-party talks.

IAEA safeguards involve periodical inspections of nuclear facilities and nuclear materials accounting to determine whether the amount of nuclear material going through the fuel cycle matches the country's records. In theory, the system is simple. In practice, IAEA safeguards have proven to be technically complex and politically contentious.

Five states have been reported to the UN Security Council for non-compliance with their safeguards agreements: Iraq in 1991, Romania in 1992, North Korea in 1993, Libya in 2004, and Iran in 2006. Other countries have carried out weapons-related research projects in violation of their NPT agreement, or have failed to carry out reporting requirements, without the matter being referred to the Security Council - including South Korea, Taiwan, the former Yugoslavia, and Egypt.

The five “declared” weapons states have NPT obligations to pursue disarmament. While none have been reported to the United Nations Security Council, they are arguably all in breach of their NPT commitments given their unwillingness to seriously pursue disarmament.

As IAEA Director-General Mohamed El Baradei noted in a February 2004 speech: "We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security - indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use."

IAEA budgetary constraints

The IAEA lacks the resources to effectively carry out its safeguards role. For more than 15 years, the IAEA's verification program operated under conditions of zero real growth. Then in 2004, the budget was increased by 12.4 per cent, with a further 3.3 per cent increase in 2005.

In October, El Baradei stressed the seriousness of the funding problem in a speech to an International Safeguards symposium in Vienna:

Financial resources are another key issue. Our budget is only $130 million; that's the budget with which we're supposed to verify the nuclear activities of the entire world. Reportedly some $1 billion was spent by the Iraq Survey Group after the war in that country. Our budget, as I have said before, is comparable with the budget of the police department in Vienna. So we don't have the required resources in many ways to be independent, to buy our own satellite monitoring imagery, or crucial instrumentation for our inspections. We still do not have our laboratories here in Vienna equipped for state-of-the-art analysis of environmental samples.

The IAEA oversees approximately 900 nuclear facilities in 71 countries. The problem of inadequate funding is exacerbated by the ever-increasing challenge of safeguards. The volume of nuclear material - and the number of nuclear facilities - requiring safeguarding increases steadily and the expanded inspection rights provided by Additional Protocols (discussed later) further stretch the system.

In addition to resource constraints, issues relating to national sovereignty and commercial confidentiality have also adversely impacted on safeguards. In a 2004 paper, Harvard University academic Matthew Bunn points to the constraints enshrined in the IAEA's basic safeguards template, “INFCIRC 153”:

INFCIRC 153 is replete with provisions designed to ensure that safeguards would not be too intrusive. They are to be implemented in a manner designed "to avoid hampering" technological development, "to avoid undue interference" in civilian nuclear energy, and "to reduce to a minimum the possible inconvenience and disturbance to the State". The IAEA is not to ask for more from the state than "the minimum amount of information and data consistent with carrying out its responsibilities", and specific upper bounds are placed on the number of person-days of inspection permitted at various types of nuclear facilities.

Untimely detection

Detection of diversion can only be discovered after it has occurred, thus safeguards can never actually physically prevent the development of clandestine nuclear programs. IAEA safeguards discourage diversion but they cannot stop it.

The “detection time” should be shorter than the “conversion time”, the latter being the "time required to convert different forms of nuclear material to the components of a nuclear explosive device". Conversion times vary - for metallic plutonium and highly-enriched uranium, the time is seven to ten days; for highly-enriched uranium in irradiated fuel, one to three months; and one year for low-enriched uranium.

Facilities using nuclear materials with shorter conversion times ought to be inspected more often. In practice, this objective is compromised as the IAEA does not actually inspect all facilities which are potentially subject to safeguards, because of the aforementioned resource constraints and political and commercial sensitivities.

For example, the federal parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties is currently assessing the merits of uranium exports to China, and it has emerged during the course of the Committee's deliberations that of the ten Chinese facilities potentially subject to IAEA safeguards last year, only three were actually inspected. (The application of safeguards to China is the subject of a detailed report released by the Medical Association for the Prevention of War on November 7. See here.)

When suspicions arise regarding the possible diversion of nuclear material, the response has proven to be far from “timely”. An October 2005 paper by the Union of Concerned Scientists noted that there have been standoffs where unresolved discrepancies in nuclear material accountancy have remained unresolved for years. Iran and North Korea provide two contemporary examples of protracted disputes.

Material unaccounted for

“Material unaccounted for” refers to discrepancies between the “book stock” (the expected measured amount) and the “physical stock” (the actual measured amount) of nuclear materials at a location under safeguards. Such discrepancies are frequent due to the difficulty of precisely measuring amounts of nuclear material.

Discrepancies make it difficult to be confident that nuclear material has not been diverted for military use.

“Material unaccounted for” is a problem that is possibly unsolvable. In a large plant, even a tiny percentage of the annual through-put of nuclear material may suffice to build one or more weapons without being detected. For example, the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in Japan will have the capacity to separate about eight tonnes of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel each year. Diverting 1 per cent of that amount of plutonium would be very difficult for the IAEA to detect against the background of routine accounting discrepancies, yet it would suffice to build at least one nuclear weapon a month.

The Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office refuses to publicly reveal any country-specific information, or even aggregate information, concerning discrepancies involving Australian uranium or its derivatives. Nor has the Office explained why it refuses to release this information.

Strengthened safeguards

Under traditional safeguards the IAEA was only able to monitor and assess formally declared materials and facilities. This meant that there was plenty of scope for states to develop “undeclared” nuclear capabilities with little or no threat of detection by the IAEA.

Prompted by the inability to address undeclared facilities, and other limitations, the IAEA initiated efforts to strengthen the system in the early 1990s. The IAEA's strengthened safeguards program began in 1993 with “Programme 93+2”. The intention - which proved to be wildly optimistic - was to implement a strengthened safeguards regime in two years.

The Model Additional Protocol was introduced in 1997. With the Additional Protocol in force the IAEA should theoretically be able to develop a more inclusive “cradle to grave” picture of states' nuclear activities. The improvements include:

• requiring substantially more information from states regarding their nuclear activities, other relevant sites, imports and exports, and material holdings;
  
• increased use of environmental sampling, analysis, and remote monitoring;
  
• allowing IAEA inspectors extended access to any location that is included on an expanded declaration, and to other necessary locations; and
  
• additional authority to use the most advanced technologies and intelligence, such as commercial satellite imagery.
  

As of October 2006, 78 NPT states had negotiated and ratified an AP but over 100 NPT states had not done so.

While strengthened safeguards are welcome, serious problems with the safeguards system remain. One is that the development of the full suite of nuclear fuel cycle facilities - including sensitive, dual-use enrichment and reprocessing facilities - is enshrined in the NPT as an “inalienable right” of all NPT states.

El Baradei noted in a December 2005 statement: "If a country with a full nuclear fuel cycle decides to break away from its non-proliferation commitments, a nuclear weapon could be only months away. In such cases, we are only as secure as the outbreak of the next major crisis. In today’s environment, this margin of security is simply untenable."

Another unresolved problem is highlighted by North Korea. It is difficult or impossible to prevent an NPT state from simply withdrawing from the NPT and pursuing weapons. North Korea joined the NPT but withdrew in 2003 and tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006. Iran could be the next country withdrawing from the NPT/IAEA system.

Australia's bilateral safeguards

In justifying Australia's international trade in uranium, the government and the uranium industry place much emphasis on bilateral safeguards agreements which prospective customer countries must negotiate with the government. These agreements cover Australian Obligated Nuclear Material - uranium and by-products such as depleted uranium produced at enrichment plants, and plutonium formed by neutron irradiation of uranium in reactors. The most important provisions are for prior Australian consent before Australian Obligated Nuclear Material is transferred to a third party, enriched beyond 20 per cent uranium-235, or reprocessed.

The provisions for Australian consent for “high enrichment” (to 20 per cent or more uranium-235) and for reprocessing have never once been invoked since the bilateral agreements were initiated by the Fraser government in 1977. No country has ever requested permission to enrich beyond 20 per cent uranium-235. More importantly, permission to reprocess has never once been refused even when it leads to the stockpiling of Australian-obligated plutonium - as it has in Japan and several European countries. Control of reprocessing has also been weakened by allowing open-ended “programmatic” consent instead of the previous policy of case-by-case approval.

Neither IAEA safeguards nor the provisions of bilateral agreements ensure that Australian uranium will not find its way into weapons. Claims from government bodies such as the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, and from the uranium industry, that safeguards provide "assurances" that Australian Obligated Nuclear Material will not be diverted should be disregarded.

Of course, it is possible that safeguards could be improved, and it is possible that Australia could play a leading role in improving safeguards. However, as Professor Richard Broinowski details in his 2003 book Fact or Fission? The Truth About Australia’s Nuclear Ambitions, safeguards pertaining to Australian Obligated Nuclear Material have been gradually weakened over the years. The reason was identified by Mike Rann - then a young Labor Party researcher and now the pro-uranium premier of South Australia - in his 1982 booklet, Uranium: Play It Safe.

"Again and again," Rann wrote, "it has been demonstrated here and overseas that when problems over safeguards prove difficult, commercial considerations will come first".

A genuine nuclear debate in Australia would include a reassessment of the uranium export industry given the risks of diversion and proliferation identified in this article.