Safeguards a model for general arms control?

Transcription

1 Safeguards a model for general arms control? by D.A.V. Fischer* It has been suggested that certain features of the IAEA's safeguards system** might be adapted for use in verifying international arms control and disarmament agreements. At first sight the concepts and techniques which the IAEA uses to verify that states are not making nuclear weapons (or engaging in other military uses of nuclear energy) should have wide application in nuclear arms control and disarmament measures. However, the IAEA's safeguards system has several unique characteristics which differentiate it markedly from the verification approach in arms control agreements like the SALT treaties (setting limits to types, sizes or numbers of nuclear warheads, missiles or launching platforms) or disarmament agreements (designed to verify the destruction and prohibition of chemical, radiological, bacteriological, and eventually nuclear weapons, and the means for their delivery). The main differences are: IAEA safeguards verify a potentially worldwide peaceful activity which the IAEA is designed to promote. Arms control and disarmament agreements usually verify a purely military activity (which is to be limited or prohibited) involving usually a small number of countries and, in the boundary case, only the two super-powers. The IAEA generally verifies declared facilities only, and cannot search for undeclared facilities. Arms control or disarmament measures may include the right of search at least on a limited scale for any undeclared or unexplained activities. IAEA safeguards impede neither the military activities of the nuclear-weapon states nor the (non-explosive) military activities which are permitted to the non-nuclearweapon states party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Despite these differences, the IAEA's safeguards have made breakthroughs which could be very significant for arms control and disarmament. The main achievement has been to gain acceptance of the principle of institutionalized on-site inspections and related verification * This article is a personal view by Mr Fischer, who is former Assistant Director General for External Relations in the Agency. ** Articles about the IAEA's safeguards system appeared in Bulletin Vol. 23 No. 4, December measures. This may be regarded as a voluntary surrender of national sovereignty or a constructive exercise of such sovereignty. And some of the concepts that have been developed for IAEA safeguards especially those of containment and surveillance may have fairly extensive application in arms control and disarmament. Even the basic IAEA safeguards measure - materials accounting - may find application in certain disarmament procedures, particularly in dealing with the production of chemical weapons. Main elements of IAEA safeguards Essentially safeguards of the kind applied by the IAEA are necessary because of the physical characteristics of certain nuclear materials which permit their use both in peaceful activities and as the explosive for weapons of mass-destruction. The system consists of a detailed accounting of the production, consumption, movement, and loss of nuclear materials as they circulate through the peaceful nuclear cycle. A cardinal feature of the system is that the IAEA sends its inspectors to all safeguarded nuclear plants to verify the reports that the state sends to the Agency of all inputs, outputs, production, and losses of nuclear materials in other words to verify the information reaching the Agency. This accounting is supplemented by containment measures (e.g. the use of physical characteristics of a plant to ensure that nuclear material can only move along certain paths or at certain times, use of seals, etc.) and surveillance measures (e.g. cameras, closed-circuit television, sensors, means for counting fuel elements, and more sophisticated measures such as the Recover* system.) These technical safeguards measures are supported by a political apparatus which includes the legal and policy * Recover (Remote Continual Verification) is a secure communication system using small computers and public telephone lines to remotely verify the status of safeguards devices such as cameras, seals, monitors that are installed at various nuclear facilities around the world. The IAEA is carrying out an intensive development and testing programme for Recover, with the help of several of its Member States. IAEA BULLETIN, VOL. 24, No. 2 45

2 services of the IAEA's Secretariat supervised by the Board of Governors. The application of a system has been made much easier by a number of factors. Amongst them are the fact that the radiation emitted by nuclear materials permits their easy detection and accurate measurement. Their toxicity and the danger of criticality obliges the operators of nuclear plants to take unusually strict precautions, make accurate measurements and keep scrupulous records of stocks, input, output, and loss. For practical purposes safeguards are applied to a single relatively scarce and highly priced element uranium (and its product, plutonium) as it works its way through one of the two current nuclear fuel cycles. In the years when safeguards began to be applied, nuclear materials were confined to a handful of countries and were scarce and expensive; elsewhere there were no existing stocks and relatively few sources of feed stock. In short, the production, use, and spread of nuclear materials, and the construction of new plants for producing, processing, or using them could be tracked relatively easily and accurately. Limited applicability of materials accounting As a general rule, the IAEA's safeguards accounting system apart, of course, from the principle of on-site inspection - would have little or no relevance either to agreements for the control of nuclear arms or to agreements for the destruction and prohibition of existing arms whether they be nuclear, chemical, radiological, or biological. There are two exceptions. The first would be an agreement to halt the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for weapons in the military reactors, reprocessing plants, and enrichment facilities of the nuclear-weapon states. In this case the application of materials-accounting techniques would not differ except in one regard* from those used to safeguard civilian reprocessing and enrichment plants. The second exception is the broader category of other materials which, like uranium and plutonium, can serve either a peaceful or a military purpose. Certain chemical warfare agents fall into this category. It has been proposed that controls be applied at their production plants including regular on-site inspections arranged by an international control agency. * Enrichment plants now under IAEA safeguards are gas centrifuge facilities. However, most of the facilities used in the nuclear-weapon states for producing weapons-grade enriched uranium are gaseous diffusion plants for which no safeguards accounting approach has yet been worked out. While the procedures for safeguarding them would differ in detail from those applied to other types of enrichment plants, chiefly because of the very large stock (inventory) of gaseous uranium hexafluoride in the diffusion cascades, the working out of an effective safeguards approach should not pose any insurmountable obstacles. Steps would have to be taken to ensure that application of safeguards did not contribute to the uncontrolled spread of gaseous diffusion technology. While materials-accounting techniques could be used in this way there would be considerable practical problems because of the magnitude, dispersion and diversity of the chemical industry and the relative ease with which many chemical processes can be changed. Those factors which have made accounting for nuclear material relatively easy, do not apply fully to the chemical industry. The physical attributes of the materials used for chemical warfare agents do not usually permit the accuracy and precision of measurement which is characteristic of radioactive materials. (To some extent this is compensated for by the fact that the quantities of material involved in producing chemical warfare agents may be larger than those needed for nuclear weapons.) Compared with the nuclear fuel cycle, many substances and processes are. involved and there may be a greater possibility of inventing new chemical warfare agents or processes for their production. Chemical industrial technology is already very widespread, feedstocks of many different types are readily available and large stocks of dual-purpose chemicals probably exist in many countries. The development of binary weapons, combining two quite different chemicals might further complicate the task of verification. Nevertheless, the matter deserves serious and detailed study. Should it prove feasible to adapt nuclear accounting techniques then certain elements of the IAEA safeguards system could offer useful pointers, e.g. The requirement that the state establish a national system of accounting and control of materials. The IAEA verifies thefindings of this system by measures which include independent measurements and observations. Although the IAEA is legally obliged to safeguard all nuclear material in an NPT non-nuclear-weapon state, responsibility for declaring all material to the IAEA and for subsequent reports devolves upon the state. The technical procedures developed in the IAEA (NPT) safeguards system for records, reports, and for inspections*. The legal hierarchy consisting of the basic Treaty (IAEA Statute or NPT), the safeguards system designed to implement it, the general safeguards agreement with the country concerned, amplified by detailed technical "subsidiary arrangements", and finally by an individual "facility attachment" for each facility. The classification of inspections into three categories: ad hoc, essentially for the initial phase; routine, for normal operations; and special, for unusual events; each category having different access rights. The limitation of routine inspection access to predetermined "strategic points" except under unusual circumstances. (This limitation was designed chiefly to protect industrial and commercial secrets and to reduce the "burden" that inspections place on plant operators. * The IAEA also verifies the design of nuclear facilities to see how they can be safeguarded effectively. This may be less relevant to most chemical plants. 46 IAEA BULLETIN, VOL. 24, No. 2

3 Keeping an eye on possible proliferation: the IAEA's double camera surveillance system. Could the techniques developed for the IAEA's safeguards also be applied to disarmament? However, in certain cases, it militates against effective verification.) The methods and techniques devised for sampling and analysis particularly at plants that handle materials in liquid, gaseous, powder and other bulk forms. After all, nuclear reprocessing and conversion plants are specialized industrial chemical plants. Containment and surveillance techniques Containment and surveillance techniques might be usable in far more cases than materials accounting. For instance, containment and surveillance instruments and techniques already developed by the IAEA such as seals, surveillance cameras, closed-circuit TV coupled with videorecorders, sensors, Recover, might find use in sealing-off and in the surveillance of moth-balled plants or stores of chemical warfare agents, pending their eventual destruction or conversion to purely peaceful use*. * In one proposal it is foreseen that it would take up to ten years to complete the dismantling of plants producing chemical warfare agents, or their conversion to peaceful uses, and that during this time it would be necessary to seal-off or moth-ball those plants that were still capable of producing the agents. Similarly such techniques might be usable, should the need arise, to monitor the dismantling or conversion of plants designed for the production of biological weapons (which are already banned under the 1972 Convention but which, it should be noted, contains no detailed procedures for verification). The same would apply to the 1979 Joint US/USSR proposal for a treaty prohibiting radiological weapons. As far as verification is concerned, this is similar to the Biological Weapons Convention - in other words there is provision for consultations about any problems that might arise, for a consultative committee of experts to make findings, and for complaints to the Security Council, but none for technical verification. International controls of nuclear armaments As we have seen all arms control and arms limitation agreements involve the verification of strictly military activities which will be allowed to continue on a limited or reduced scale. The Agency's materials-accounting techniques and its containment and surveillance measures, if applied by an international organization (or even by IAEA BULLETIN, VOL. 24, No. 2 47

4 - another state), would involve a degree of intrusion into secret military activities that would be out of the question as matters stand today. We already have an example of this. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) does not prohibit the use of nuclear materials for non-explosive military activities, for instance as fuel for the reactors of submarines or other warships. On the other hand, it is currently inconceivable that international inspectors would be permitted to follow nuclear fuel into naval vessels and to apply safeguards in them. Accordingly, the standard NPT safeguards agreement has to make provision for the case when a state wishes to "exercise its discretion" to use nuclear material, which would otherwise have been safeguarded, in such unsafeguarded operations. This provision (Article 14 of INFCIRC/153) foresees the suspension of safeguards while the nuclear material is in the "permitted" military use. It also foresees that the IAEA and the state will conclude a special arrangement which will place certain general reporting and other obligations on the state pending the return of the nuclear material to a peaceful nuclear activity (e.g. for reprocessing). One may draw two conclusions: Firstly, all nuclear arms control agreements are likely to depend, at least to begin with, upon relatively non-intrusive verification techniques. It was the development of "national technical means of verification" that helped pave the way for SALT I, the chief means being satellite observation (photographic, electronic, early warning, and radiation) coupled with agreement by each state not to interfere with the other's "national technical means". While such techniques gather information of great military significance, they do not require the physical presence of the verifying state in the state whose activities are being verified. The second conclusion is that verification of nuclear arms control measures is likely to be exercised by the super-powers themselves or by other nuclear-weapon states if they become parties to such agreements. The matters at issue are so vital for their security that it is most unlikely that any outsiders, whether from international organizations or third-party states would play any role. If on-site inspection were eventually accepted, it seems likely that it would initially consist of a limited maximum number of "challenge" or "adversary" inspections each year (by experts from the other superpower or possibly from other nuclear-weapon states) to examine suspect events, rather than regular inspection of the IAEA type. Should it ever be possible to agree on the partial or complete destruction of nuclear weapons and prohibition of any future production, some safeguards surveillance and containment techniques might play a role, particularly during the transition period when facilities of various kinds might have to be sealed or moth-balled pending their final dismantlement or conversion to peaceful purposes. Such moth-balling would have to be coupled with regular on-site inspection, for instance to see that seals had not been tampered with. A comprehensive test-ban treaty One of the issues impeding a Comprehensive Test Ban is whether an adequate and acceptable means can be found for verifying nuclear explosions of less than 150 kilotons - the limit set by the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (so far unratified but apparently observed). Amongst the questions involved are whether available seismic instruments can distinguish between low-grade nuclear tests and natural events, chiefly small earthquakes, and whether (and if so what number of) on-site inspections would be permitted to the other party or parties to look into border-line cases. Prima facie, it does not seem that any nuclear safeguards approaches would be relevant, although the IAEA's experience in developing tamperproof instruments might possibly be relevant in unattended seismic or tectonic registration devices. An international control agency? The IAEA is designed to promote and verify the use of nuclear energy. The promotional aspects of its work and structure obviously have no direct relevance to arms control and disarmament measures*. Certain aspects of the political and administrative structure and procedures it uses for implementing its safeguards operation may, however, give pointers to any other international control agency that may be set up. Such pointers might include: The IAEA's statutory provisions: These authorize the IAEA to apply safeguards, define the rights that the IAEA must have to apply them effectively, and describe them in broad terms. They give the Board of Governors the authority to oversee the safeguards operation and to make findings of non-compliance, they authorize the Board to apply certain sanctions for non-compliance including reports to Member States, to the General Assembly, and the Security Council of the United Nations. The procedures followed in articulating the safeguards system: The NPT entrusts to IAEA the responsibility of verifying performance of the main obligations of nonnuclear-weapon states that are party to it and requires them to conclude safeguards agreements with the IAEA for this purpose and within specified deadlines, the maximum period being two years. Accordingly, after the NPT entered into force in May 1970 the IAEA Board established a Safeguards Committee which any member of the IAEA could take part in, to draft the contents of the standard safeguards agreement. This allowed * Nuclear arms control and disarmament might however significantly affect the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the IAEA's promotional work - for instance by releasing for peaceful activities large numbers of nuclear scientists and large quantities of nuclear fuel. 48 IAEA BULLETIN, VOL. 24. No. 2

5 interested non-nuclear-weapon states to share in the work of devising the safeguards that would apply to them if they were or became parties to the NPT. The NPT deadlines meant that the Committee had to complete its task expeditiously. (It did so in nine months.) The structure of the Safeguards Department: It has been found necessary not only to have operational divisions of inspectors (based on a geographical rather than a functional approach) but also divisions or units for research and development (particularly for developing new instruments and new approaches); for handling of information; for quality control and evaluation of the operation; and for other functions, such as training of inspectors. The IAEA's experience in drawing up and implementing its two safeguards systems may also provide useful pointers. One example is the procedures developed for accrediting inspectors - and the problems the IAEA has had in this regard. Conclusions Summing up, it appears that: Nuclear accounting systems are likely to be relevant only to agreements for the control or prohibition of non-nuclear armaments and in cases where the materials concerned can serve a dual military or peaceful purpose. However, the principle of on-site inspection which is fundamental to nuclear materials accounting is an important precedent. Containment and surveillance techniques might find a wider application particularly when it may be necessary to seal off, moth-ball, or otherwise "neutralize" a facility, store, or stockpile, or install tamper-proof sensors or registration devices. Measures for the limitation of nuclear armaments seem likely to depend essentially on "national technical means" of verification for some time to come. One is led to the slightly paradoxical conclusion that nuclear safeguards techniques may have more practical implications in the field of non-nuclear than of nuclear armaments. Although these non-nuclear arms could pose a severe and growing threat to mankind and are rightly classified as weapons of mass-destruction, their menace is in no way comparable with that of nuclear weapons. The growing stocks of increasingly sophisticated nuclear arms and delivery systems pose a threat of mutual assured destruction, at any moment, of the nuclearweapon states, their neighbours, and perhaps of all higher life on this planet, a peril which is immeasurably greater than anything that the present non-nuclear-weapon states have done or are likely to do during this century. The IAEA must stick to its mandate which, as far as safeguards are concerned, relates to the latter problem and not to the former. If, however, the techniques and procedures and precedents that the IAEA is developing can be of any help in dealing with the problem of man's survival, this alone would be enough to justify the IAEA's existence. It is a problem we must face for the rest of time: for, even if we succeed in the extraordinarily difficult task of getting rid of nuclear weapons and the means of making them, we have learned how to make them and we shall never lose this knowledge unless we destroy ourselves by using them. The most encouraging breakthrough the IAEA's Member States have so far achieved is to establish the principle of systematic, on-site inspections and to have the IAEA's 129 inspectors* regularly visiting - in a few cases continuously inspecting the safeguarded nuclear plants now operating in 51 countries. These include three of the nuclear-weapon states. While it may take a long time before on-site inspections are accepted as the means of verifying nuclear arms control and disarmament, the way has at least been shown. * As of April 1982, 200 professional staff members had been appointed by the Director General and approved by the Board of Governors to perform safeguards inspections. Of this number, 129 have been designated to carry out inspections in at least one state; the remainder are, in general, employed in other supporting Divisions within the Agency, and are not therefore usually sent on actual inspections. IAEA BULLETIN, VOL. 24, No. 2 49