IPFM International Panel on Fissile Materials

Agreements and Institutions to Control Fissile Materials

There are many overlapping bilateral, multilateral and international agreements in place to control the production and use of fissile materials and a diverse array of institutions that have emerged to monitor them. In the past, almost all of these efforts focused on preventing proliferation activities in non-nuclear weapon states. Since September 2001, however, they have focused as well on the physical protection of fissile materials against possible threats from sub-national groups.

Efforts to control access to nuclear-weapon materials predate the bombing of Hiroshima. Even as work on the first nuclear weapon was going on, General Leslie Groves, who was in charge of the that effort, the "Manhattan Project," proposed that the United States try to acquire total control of the world's uranium supplies in order to stop any other state from having access to the raw material from which fissile materials can be produced. But it was clear, even then, that uranium is available virtually everywhere, even if not in economical concentrations.

In the aftermath of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the newly founded United Nations, on January 24, 1946, in its first General Assembly resolution, established an Atomic Energy Commission "to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy." The Commission was given a mandate to make proposals for: sharing the basic science of atomic energy, instituting a system of safeguards to ensure that the uses of the new science were peaceful, and eliminating atomic weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction.

On March 16, 1946, the United States published a "Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy" (the so-called Acheson-Lilienthal Report) which presented the U.S. Government's first public thoughts on the management of atomic energy. In June 1946, the United States presented to the United Nations a modified version of this proposal, known as the Baruch Plan. While the plan failed to gain approval, it informed the Atomic Energy Commission's first annual report to the U.N. Security Council, in December 1946. The Commission proposed a treaty to establish an international agency and "for the control of atomic energy to the extent necessary to insure its use only for peaceful purposes" and argued that:

"Effective control of atomic energy depends upon effective control of the production and use of uranium, thorium, and their nuclear fuel derivatives. Appropriate mechanisms of control to prevent their unauthorized diversion or clandestine production and use and to reduce the dangers of seizure -- including one or more of the following types of safeguards: accounting, inspection, supervision management, and licensing – must be applied through the various stages of the processes from the time the uranium and thorium ores are severed from the ground to the time they become nuclear fuels and are used."

Largely because of the Cold War, there was little immediate progress in this direction. In the struggle for allies in this contest, the United States, in 1953, launched its "Atoms for Peace" program to share nuclear technology with other states for peaceful purposes. The Soviet Union launched a similar program. The outcome was the launch of nuclear research and energy programs in many more countries, some of which subsequently were used as the basis for nuclear-weapon programs.

In the absence of international safeguards, systems of bilateral safeguards were established whereby nuclear suppliers could be assured of the peaceful use of nuclear facilities and materials that they supplied under these and later programs. These arrangements, established most extensively by the United States, required recipient states to provide reports on the use of U.S.-supplied reactors and materials and to permit U.S. inspectors to visit facilities. The United States had negotiated 20 such agreements by the year that the International Atomic Energy Agency was established in 1957.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

The United Nations established the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world" and to do so in a way that "assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose." Specifically, the IAEA was charged:

"To establish and administer safeguards designed to ensure that special fissionable and other materials, services, equipment, facilities, and information made available by the Agency or at its request or under its supervision or control are not used in such a way as to further any military purpose; and to apply safeguards, at the request of the parties, to any bilateral or multilateral arrangement, or at the request of a State, to any of that State's activities in the field of atomic energy."

According to its founding statute, the IAEA is required to both promote and regulate nuclear power. This double role is seen by some to be problematic.

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and its safeguards system

The 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) commits signatories which had tested nuclear weapons before 1967 (United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China) to eliminate their nuclear weapons (but not by any specified date) and requires all other signatory states to not acquire such weapons. It also assures non-nuclear-weapon states access to the peaceful use of nuclear technology under a system of inspections by the IAEA.

With regard to safeguards, non-nuclear weapon states agree to subject all their "source or special fissionable material" to IAEA safeguards. The generic IAEA safeguards agreement, INFCIRC/153, requires non-nuclear weapon states who are parties to the NPT to declare all nuclear facilities containing source or special fissionable materials, to report all activities involving significant quantities of such materials, and to allow IAEA inspections of such facilities and activities. The requirement that all of a country's peaceful activities be put under safeguards is referred to as "full-scope" or "comprehensive" safeguards.

The goal of these safeguards is to be able to detect in a timely fashion, and hence deter, possible diversion or production of a significant quantity of fissile material. A significant quantity is defined as "the approximate amount of nuclear material for which the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive device cannot be excluded," taking into account possible losses due to conversion and manufacturing processes (see Table 1 below). Timeliness of detection is determined by comparison with the estimated time that it would take to extract or produce metallic fissile materials from the diverted material and convert it into a nuclear weapon component (see Table 2 below).


Fissile Materials	Significant Quantity
Plutonium containing less than 80% Pu-238	8 kg
U-233	8 kg
HEU (uranium containing more than 20% U-235)	25 kg of contained U-235
Materials from which fissile material could be produced
LEU (containing less than 20% U-235)	75 kg of contained U-235
Natural uranium	10 tons
Depleted uranium or thorium	20 tons

TABLE 1. IAEA 'Significant Quantities' of Nuclear Materials.


Beginning material form	Conversion time
Pu, HEU or U-233 metal	7–10 days
Pure Pu compounds such as PuO₂	1–3 weeks
HEU, U-233 and plutonium in other forms, including in irradiated fuel	1–3 months
LEU and thorium	3–12 months

TABLE 2. Estimated times for producing finished weapons-usable metal components.

In addition to the comprehensive safeguards embodied in INFCIRC/153, the IAEA has concluded INFCIRC/66 safeguards agreements on specific facilities in India, Pakistan and Israel, which remain outside the NPT.

Since the late 1970s, in response to charges of discrimination, the five NPT nuclear-weapon states have negotiated individual "voluntary offer" agreements with the IAEA whereby the Agency can monitor and inspect materials at facilities placed on a "facilities list" by the host state. All of these states reserve the right to remove facilities from the list. In the United States, about 250 facilities have been offered for safeguards. But, because of the IAEA's limited resources, only four containing large amounts of HEU or plutonium are actually being safeguarded and are being inspected monthly.

The most recent IAEA report, for 2004, shows that the Agency had safeguards agreements in force with 144 States. These covered 923 facilities and locations, and about 164,000 tons of nuclear material, including 15 tons of fresh HEU and 89 tons of separated plutonium. During 2004, there were 2302 safeguards inspections at 598 facilities and locations.

In 2004, the IAEA's safeguards budget was $104.9 million, with an additional $16.3 million in voluntary contributions from member states for equipment, services and staff training. The total IAEA budget for 2004 was $268.5 million.

After the Gulf War of 1991 revealed that Iraq, a party to the NPT, had been pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program, the international community concluded that the authority of the IAEA would have to be extended to allow it to look for undeclared activities as well as monitor declared activities. The interpretation of the IAEA's rights under INFCIRC/153 were therefore strengthened, and an Additional Protocol (INFCIRC/540) was concluded in 1997 allowing the Agency to require more comprehensive information about nuclear-related activities, increased access to sites, and authorization to employ environmental sampling and other means to look for undeclared activities.

As of March, 2006, 107 countries had signed the Additional Protocol, and 75 of those had ratified it. Several non-nuclear-weapon states with active nuclear programs have not yet signed, including Argentina, Brazil, Egypt and South Korea. Iran has signed but not yet ratified. All of the original five weapon states have signed the Protocol as a supplement to their voluntary offer agreements, but it has not yet come into force for the United States and Russia. Even after full ratification, however, implementation of the Additional Protocol in the nuclear weapon states will be limited, with the weapon states allowed to keep facilities out of bounds to the IAEA under national security exceptions.

Click on figure to go to IPFM Fissile Material Atlas and view interactive map.
Countries that have signed (blue) and ratified (green) the IAEA Additional Protocol.

Regional initiatives

Some groupings of states have established regional and national mechanisms that complement IAEA safeguards. Two of these are Euratom and the Argentine-Brazil Agency for Accounting and Control (ABACC). These have generally worked well but not without controversy because of disputes over their authority relative to that of the IAEA and the issue of "self-policing." Also, large groups of non-weapon states have joined regionally to reinforce the Nonproliferation Treaty by declaring their regions to nuclear-weapon-free zones.

Euratom. France and the United Kingdom are NPT nuclear-weapon states and therefore exempt from compulsory IAEA safeguards except to the extent that these safeguards follow nuclear materials from non-weapon states. Because the are members of Euratom, however, under the terms of the Euratom Treaty of 1957, all materials in France and the United Kingdom that is declared to be civilian have to be placed under Euratom safeguards. Under this treaty, the European Commission can send inspectors to any place in the EU where declared nuclear materials are located. Safeguards agreements between the EU, the IAEA and the EU member states lay out the arrangements whereby the IAEA can oversee and complement Commission controls of nuclear materials. The United Kingdom and France report civil nuclear material stocks and activities to both Euratom and the IAEA in the same detail as do non-weapon-state members. The IAEA and the Commission both perform inspections in the non-nuclear members of the EU; but only Commission inspectors do so for U.K. and French civilian nuclear materials.

ABACC. In 1991, Argentina and Brazil signed a bilateral agreement to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only, and to prohibit and prevent the acquisition or testing of nuclear weapons. In this way they formally ended the secret nuclear weapons programs that had been underway in both states since the late 1970s. To monitor the agreement, they established the Argentine Brazil Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC). Subsequently, both countries joined the NPT – Argentina in 1995 and Brazil in 1998. Under ABACC, Argentine and Brazilian inspectors regularly visit facilities in the other country. And, as with Euratom, the IAEA oversees and complements the ABACC safeguards arrangements.

The model adopted in Europe and Latin America of regional confidence building in tandem with broader international oversight has proven to be quite effective and might be appropriate in other regions such as the Middle East and South Asia.

Nuclear-weapon-free zones. Nuclear weapon free zones forbid the manufacture, production, acquisition, testing and stationing of nuclear weapons in their regions. These zones now include Latin America (the Treaty of Tlatelolco, 1967), the South Pacific (the Treaty of Rarotonga, 1985), South-east Asia (the Treaty of Bangkok, 1995), and Africa (the Treaty of Pelindaba, 1996, which has not yet entered into force). In 2005, the Central Asian states agreed on the text of the Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty. A number of other zones have been proposed, including for the Middle East and South Asia. Figure 1 shows the existing zones.

Click on figure to go to IPFM Fissile Material Atlas and view interactive map.
Since 1967 many states have joined their neighbors in creating regional Nuclear Weapon Free Zones. The map shows these states up to 2005, but does not include the associated ocean areas that are also covered.

Conditions and constraints imposed by nuclear suppliers

Bilateral safeguards. The IAEA has taken over most of the verification responsibilities associated with bilateral safeguards. However, the constraints included in the bilateral arrangements continue to condition the supply and uses of facilities, equipment, technology and materials. These conditions have extensive coverage, in large part because of the United States use of such agreements, and in particular, the ‘consent rights’ it attached to uranium that it has supplied or enriched or that has passed through a reactor using U.S. licensed technology. By one estimate, the United States has consent rights on over 80% of the non-Russian origin fuel currently in the civil nuclear sector worldwide.

Canada and Australia have also applied bilateral safeguards patterned on those developed by the United States. These are significant because Canada and Australia are responsible for 65% of the world’s uranium supply. Australia, for example, requires that its bilateral safeguards will be applied if, for any reason, IAEA safeguards cease to apply.

Nuclear Suppliers Groups. Groups of states exporting nuclear material and equipment also have agreed on guidelines for these exports. The first was the Nuclear Exporters Committee, known as the Zangger Committee, established in 1971. The Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) established n 1977, has now largely superseded the Zangger Committee. It includes 44 nuclear suppliers and plays a major role in managing international trade in nuclear technology. The NSG has agreed on a set of guidelines for nuclear transfers in 1978 that includes a list of items that suppliers agree to export to non-nuclear weapon states only when the receiving state has brought into force an agreement with the IAEA for full-scope safeguards on all its current and future nuclear activities. Suppliers have also agreed to exercise restraint on the transfer of sensitive technologies, such as reprocessing and enrichment facilities. In practice, since the NSG was founded, its members have exported enrichment or reprocessing technology to only one non-nuclear-weapon state: Japan.

Click on figure to go to IPFM Fissile Material Atlas and view interactive map.
The members of the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG).

Physical protection of nuclear material and nuclear facilities

Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. To counter the risk of theft of fissile materials, a Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material was signed in March 1980 to set security standards on international transport of nuclear materials and cooperation among states for the protection, recovery, and return of stolen nuclear materials. In July 2005 the Convention was renamed the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities and amended to legally require signatories to protect nuclear facilities and nuclear materials in peaceful domestic use and storage as well as in international transport. The amendments will take effect once they have been ratified by two-thirds of the signatories of the Convention.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540. In April 2004, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1540 requiring all states to "adopt and enforce appropriate effective laws which prohibit any non-State actor to manufacture, acquire, possess, develop, transport, transfer or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery." States are also required "to develop and maintain appropriate effective measures to account for and secure" nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and materials, including putting in place physical protection measures, border controls, law enforcement efforts to prevent illicit trafficking, and export and trans-shipment controls.

The resolution required each state to submit, within six months, a report on what measures it had taken to comply. A "1540 Committee" was set to oversee implementation of the resolution. The chair of the 1540 Committee reported in December 2005 that 124 States had submitted reports and that sixty or so states had not yet reported. The 1540 Committee’s original mandate was to expire in April 2006 but has been extended until April 2008, when it is to submit its report to the Security Council.