Milestone 1

The system of safeguards modelled on INFCIRC/153 (Corrected) (IAEA, 1972) is designed to provide assurance about the exclusively peaceful use of nuclear material within the territory of a State, under its jurisdiction or carried out under its control anywhere. Such a comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA) applies safeguards on all source and special fissionable material in all peaceful activities. As expressed in the Appendix to IAEA (2005a), concluding a safeguards agreement (and/or additional protocol) with the IAEA generally requires two or three steps:

1. The State notifies the Agency of its intention to conclude a safeguards agreement and/or an additional protocol, and asks the Agency to submit the draft text(s) to the IAEA Board of Governors for approval, in order for the Board to authorize the Director General to sign and implement it. The notification should contain information on the applicable entry into force procedure (see step 3 below). The text(s) will then be submitted to the Board of Governors, which needs to authorize the Director General to sign, and will subsequently imple­ment the agreement or protocol. After this, the documents are open for signature. Model letters are available from the IAEA (IAEA, 2008b, Annexes 1 and 2).

2. A representative of the State and the Director General sign the text(s). This may be done by the Head of State, Head of Government or Minister for Foreign Affairs or by any other government official — such as the Resident Representative to the Agency — with full powers to sign.

3. The State has two options to bring into force its safeguards agreement/ protocol: either upon signature or on the date the Agency receives from the State written confirmation that its domestic requirements for entry into force have been met. If the latter option is applied, the third step required is for the State to provide such notification to the Agency. Again, a model letter is available from the IAEA (IAEA, 2008b, Annex 3).

From a State’s point of view, there are two fundamental points that a ‘newcomer’ may want to keep in mind, especially when the NNWS is in the early stage of its considerations for launching a nuclear power programme (e. g., prior to Milestone 1): [41]

2. For the exclusive purpose of verifying fulfilment of a State’s obligations assumed under the NPT,[42] the IAEA is the international authority vested with the right and obligation to ensure that safeguards are applied on all source and special fissionable material in all peaceful activities.[43]

In connection with a CSA, the IAEA applies safeguards with a general working hypothesis: non-compliance cannot be excluded and there is low but non-zero probability that a diversion can take place. In this respect, the objective of IAEA safeguards is the timely detection of diversion (of nuclear material) and deterrence through a risk of early detection. The IAEA achieves this objective by the tasks it performs and the safeguards measures that are implemented. For all NNWSs party to the NPT, the task is verifying the correctness and completeness of a State’s declaration. Verifying the correctness of a State’s declaration refers to providing mean­ingful assurance on the non-diversion of declared nuclear material, while verifying completeness of a State’s declarations refers to providing credible assurance on the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities.[44] From the analysis of all information available to it, including the results of the IAEA’s field and headquarters activities, the IAEA derives safeguards conclusions that are reported annually to the Board of Governors in the Safeguards Implementation Report (SIR) for the previous calendar year.[45] Any cases of non-compliance with safeguards agreements are also reported in the SIR. The kinds of conclusion(s) that can be drawn depend upon the agreements that are in force.[46]

In this respect, it is essential for ‘newcomer’ States to readily understand the obligations arising from implementation of a Model Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (INFCIRC/153 (Corrected)) (IAEA, 1972). In terms of a State’s commitment, the reporting of nuclear material (e. g., all source and special fissionable material in all peaceful activities) and facili­ties includes:

1. Nuclear material which has reached the stage of processing where its composition and purity make it suitable for fuel fabrication or for iso­topic enrichment

2. Export and import of material containing uranium or thorium which has not yet reached that stage of processing

3. Any nuclear material produced at a later stage

4. Any existing or planned nuclear facility.

As a matter of procedure, once a safeguards agreement based on INFCIRC/153 (Corrected) (IAEA, 1972) enters into force, the NNWS has an obligation to declare all of its nuclear material and facilities to the IAEA (referred to as a State’s initial report).[47] The initial report (i. e., State decla­ration) is then verified by the IAEA and maintained on the basis of account­ing reports submitted by the State and verification by the IAEA (for correctness and completeness).

Other important CSA-related obligations concern the State’s commit­ment to:

• Establishing an effective system of accounting for and control of nuclear material

• Provision of timely access to the nuclear material, facilities and locations outside facilities[48]

• Provision of early design information for each nuclear facility (planned and existing).

In verifying the correctness of a State’s declaration, the IAEA applies nuclear material accountancy, complemented by containment and surveil­lance measures. As indicated earlier, in a safeguards regime based only on INFCIRC/153 (Corrected), the IAEA does not have all the tools necessary to fully assess the completeness of the State’s declaration.[49] Despite the limitations, the IAEA does evaluate whether there are any indications of undeclared nuclear material and activities as part of a State evaluation process.[50] However, without the additional measures available under the AP, the IAEA remains unable to draw a conclusion on the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in the State as a whole.

Consequently, the focus of IAEA safeguards in these NNWSs has been to independently verify the correctness of the State’s nuclear material accounting and operating records and reports that are maintained by the facility operators and the SSAC. This requires that the State provide accu­rate and complete declarations on all nuclear material and facilities/LOFs in order that appropriate safeguards measures can be implemented and relevant IAEA verification activities completed.

The IAEA verification activities for a NNWS with only a CSA in force are performed in accordance with prescribed requirements.[51] The technical requirements specify the activities considered necessary by the IAEA to provide a reasonable probability of detecting the diversion of a significant quantity of nuclear material from declared facilities and locations outside facilities. These IAEA verification activities are carried out during inspec­tions and design information examination/verification visits.

Under a CSA, there are three types of inspections, each with defined IAEA access. In simple terms, these include:

1. Ad hoc inspections, which typically are made to verify a State’s initial report on the nuclear material subject to safeguards, or reports on changes thereto, and to verify the nuclear material involved in interna­tional transfers. The IAEA’s right of access is to any location where the

initial report, or any inspections carried out in connection with it, indi­cate that nuclear material is present.

2. Routine inspections, which are carried out to verify the declared nuclear material and to verify the consistency of the Operator’s records with the State’s reports. These inspections may be conducted according to a defined schedule or they may be of an unannounced (or short-notice) character.47 IAEA access is limited to strategic points defined in the relevant Subsidiary Arrangements and to locations with relevant records.

3. Special inspections, which may be carried out in circumstances according to defined procedures, if the IAEA considers that information made available by the State concerned, including explanations from the State and information obtained from routine inspections, is not adequate for the Agency to fulfil its responsibilities under the safeguards agreement. Access to information and/or to locations other than those specified for ad hoc and routine inspections may be made.

In addition to the above inspections, design information verification visits (called DIVs) to nuclear facilities may be conducted. Such visits would occur at appropriate times during the lifecycle of a declared facility, in order that the IAEA can verify the safeguards-relevant design information. For example, such visits may be carried out as follows:

• During construction of a nuclear power plant to determine the com­pleteness of the declared design information

• Periodically during routine facility operations and/or following a plant maintenance outage to confirm that no safeguards-relevant modifica­tion was made to the NPP that would allow unreported activities to take place

• As part of a facility decommissioning to confirm that essential equip­ment was removed or rendered unusable.

The information above is intended to be a helpful addition to understanding the State’s safeguards obligations referred to in Milestones 1-3 in the IAEA Milestones document (IAEA, 2007a).