Safeguarding our nuclear ambitions

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.