In the case of the five NPT declared NWSs, the provisions contained in Articles I, III, IV and VI of the NPT are of direct relevance to the issue of safeguards. For example, each NWS undertakes ‘. . . not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices’.[17] NWSs are also obliged not to provide any NNWS with source or special fissionable material, or equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material unless the material is subject to the safeguards.[18]

In exchange for the commitments made by the NNWS Parties to the NPT, the NWSs affirm that the NWS shall undertake negotiations on effective measures for nuclear arms reductions with the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons (i. e., nuclear disarmament).[19]

Though they are not required to have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, each NWS has chosen to do so. A NWS’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA is referred to as a Voluntary Offer Agreement (VOA).[20] The IAEA recognizes that VOAs serve two purposes: to ‘broaden the IAEA’s safeguards experience at advanced facilities, and to demonstrate that nuclear-weapon States are not commercially advantaged by being exempt from safeguards on their peaceful nuclear activities’, as explained in IAEA (2007b), page 7. In practice, the safeguards measures implemented in accordance with VOAs are only applied with regard to declared nuclear material in selected facilities in one or more of the five States.