Of particular safeguards interest and importance to NNWS are the treaty provisions contained in Articles II, III, IV and VI of the NPT.10 For simpli­fication purposes, by its sovereign decision to accede to the NPT, all NNWS Parties to the Treaty commit not to directly or indirectly receive, manufac­ture or otherwise acquire any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, including receiving assistance in the development and manufactur­ing of such devices.11 Additionally, all NNWS Parties to the NPT are legally bound to accept safeguards on all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere in accordance with a safeguards agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the IAEA (in accordance with the Statute of the IAEA and the IAEA’s safeguards system).12 These comprehensive safeguards agreements (CSA) are mod­elled on the standard agreement INFCIRC/153 (Corrected) published in IAEA (1972).

In exchange for the above commitments, all States party to the NPT affirm that the principle benefits of peaceful application of nuclear technol­ogy is an ‘inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty’13, and that the States shall undertake negotiations on effective measures for nuclear arms reductions with the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons (i. e., nuclear disarmament).14

8 The CANWFZ Treaty, which entered into force on 21 March 2009, obligated that ‘Each Party undertakes. . . to conclude with the IAEA and bring into force, if it has not already done so, an agreement for the application of safeguards in accordance with the NPT (INFCIRC/153 (Corr.)), and an additional protocol (INFCIRC/540 (Corr.))’.

9 The Rarotonga Treaty, which entered into force on 11 December 1986, obligated that ‘The agreement referred to in paragraph 1 shall be, or shall be equivalent in its scope and effect to, an agreement required in connection with the NPT on the basis of the material reproduced in document INFCIRC/153 (Corrected) of the IAEA. Each Party shall take all appropriate steps to ensure that such an agreement is in force. . .’.

10 The aforementioned provisions and their relevance to the implementation of safeguards in a NNWS are covered in detail in Section 13.4, Non-proliferation responsibilities.

11 Ref. Article II of the NPT.

12 Ref. Article III of the NPT.

13 Ref. Article IV of the NPT.

14 Ref. Article VI of the NPT.