The NPT, IAEA Safeguards and Peaceful Nuclear Energy

The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) released today a working draft of my essay, "The NPT, IAEA Safeguards and Peaceful Nuclear Energy: An 'Inalienable Right,' But Precisely To What?" In November 2006, I presented a preliminary version of this essay, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Fissile Material?," at Assessing the IAEA's Ability to Safeguard Peaceful Nuclear Energy, a conference held in Paris, and hosted by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, and NPEC.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) does not explicitly mention uranium enrichment, plutonium reprocessing and other nuclear fuel-making activities that provide access to weapons-ready fissile material. Nevertheless, some governments today--most notably, Iran--claim that the NPT affirms the per se right, and even the "specific and undeniable" right, of signatories to nuclear fuel-making and other "sensitive" (diplomatese for "dangerous") nuclear activities. My essay counters such "per se right" claims, arguing instead that the NPT can be consistently read as placing sensible limitations, as well as stringent conditions, on the "nuclear energy for peaceful purposes" to which signatories have an "inalienable right." Foremost among these conditions: a signatory's full and total compliance with its NPT and IAEA safeguards obligations. The NPT is, after all, a nonproliferation treaty.

Posted by Robert at January 29, 2007 11:09 PM