IPFM International Panel on Fissile Materials

[This entry is drawn from Chapter Five of the 2006 Global Fissile Material Report: "A Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty." The printed version includes endnotes and, in some cases, additional figures. Entries are updated to reflect current data.]

A Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty

Advocates of nuclear reductions have sought since the 1950s a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) that would cap the amount of fissile material available for nuclear weapons and lay a basis for irreversible reductions. With the end of the Cold War, both the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States decided to support an FMCT and, in 1993, the UN General Assembly passed by consensus a resolution calling for the negotiation of:

"a non-discriminatory, multilateral and international and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."

Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the non-weapon states have already committed not to produce fissile material for weapons and are subject to stringent verification by the IAEA. Therefore, the FMCT would impose new limitations only on the five countries that have joined the NPT as weapon states (United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China) and the four countries that are not parties to the NPT (Israel, India, Pakistan – and North Korea, if it does not rejoin the NPT as a non-weapon state).

All five NPT nuclear-weapon states made known in the early 1990s (China informally) that they had ended or suspended their production of fissile material for weapons. An FMCT would turn this informal production moratorium into a binding commitment. If they became Parties to the Treaty, an FMCT also would cap the stockpiles of the four non-NPT countries, all of which may still be producing fissile materials for weapons.

The 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences reaffirmed the importance of achieving an FMCT and, in 2000, the Review Conference specifically called upon the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to commence negotiations immediately and conclude them within five years.

Initiation of negotiations on an FMCT in the UN’s Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (CD) has been blocked for a decade, however, by disagreements over proposals to link the negotiations to parallel negotiations on other issues. The most recent attempt to break this impasse was made in 2003 by five CD Ambassadors who proposed that negotiations on an FMCT proceed in parallel with negotiations on a treaty to bar nuclear threats against non-nuclear-weapon states and separate discussions (but not negotiations) on possible treaties on nuclear disarmament and on arrangements to prevent an arms race in outer space. This compromise has wide support in the CD but not by the consensus that is required to proceed.

The impasse on issues of linkage may reflect the reality that none of the NPT weapon states currently gives a high priority to pursuit of an FMCT. The United States recently showed some interest and tabled a draft FMCT at the CD on May 18, 2006. Reportedly, it sees negotiation of an FMCT as helpful in reducing opposition in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the U.S. Congress to the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal. In the absence of an FMCT, this deal would allow India to accelerate the buildup of its stockpile of fissile material for weapons. India formally supports negotiations on a cutoff but sees it in the distant future and expects to produce more fissile material for weapons in the interim, as does Pakistan. Israel is unenthusiastic about a cutoff, in part at least because it produces tritium with its plutonium-production reactor at Dimona and is loath to accept intrusive verification there.

Even if the logjam at the CD could be broken and negotiations on an FMCT finally launched, there would be a number of contentious issues to deal with. These include the definition of fissile materials, the treatment of pre-existing stocks of materials, the production of fissile materials for civilian purposes, the manner of verification of the treaty, and its duration. Each of these issues is discussed in turn below.

Definition of Fissile Materials

The definition of fissile material in the U.S. draft FMCT is close to the definition adopted by the IAEA for weapon-usable or "direct-use" material: uranium enriched to more than 20% in U-235 or U-233 and plutonium containing less than 80% Pu-238.

Russia proposed an alternative definition in 2005 that would ban only the production for weapons of "weapon-grade" plutonium and uranium containing more than about 90 percent of the isotopes Pu-239 and U-235 respectively. Such a narrow definition, however, has not received support from other members of the CD. While the Russian definition specifies materials that are optimal for weapons use, lesser-quality materials could be used for weapons. The uranium in the Hiroshima bomb, for example, was enriched to about 80% U-235. Also, "reactor-grade" plutonium in the spent fuel of power reactors is now widely understood to be weapon usable. Its isotopic fraction of Pu-239 is typically about 60 percent.

In addition to the materials designated by the IAEA as direct-use, two other reactor-produced fissile materials are also potentially weapon-useable and are defined by the IAEA as "alternative nuclear materials:" neptunium-237 and americium. Neptunium-237, in particular, has nuclear characteristics quite similar to those of U-235. Small but significant quantities of these materials have been separated for various purposes. The definition of fissile material in the FMCT should allow for the future inclusion of such materials.

Tritium, a heavy form of hydrogen with a half-life of 12 years, is widely used in nuclear weapons but it is not a fissile material. It is made in nuclear reactors and is used to "boost" the power of the fission triggers in modern nuclear weapons. Because of its relatively short half-life, most of the nuclear-weapon states will eventually produce tritium unless they reduce their weapon stockpiles at a rate faster than tritium decays. Therefore, any attempt to include it in an FMCT would likely encounter strong resistance from most of the weapon states. In any case, nuclear weapons can be made without tritium but no nuclear weapon has ever been made without fissile material.

The Question of Pre-Existing Stocks

The U.N. General Assembly resolution that called for an FMCT does not refer to fissile-material stocks acquired before the treaty comes into force. Most of the nuclear-weapon states support this exclusion, and the draft FMCT tabled by the United States at the CD in May 2006 explicitly leaves the use of previously-produced fissile material unconstrained:

"No party shall, after the entry into force of the Treaty for that Party, produce fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or other explosive devices" [Article I]

"The term 'produce fissile material' does not include activities involving fissile material produced prior to entry into force of the Treaty, provided that such activities do not increase the total quantity of plutonium, uranium-233, or uranium-235 in such fissile material." [Article II.3]

Many non-weapon states have strongly argued, however, that the use of pre-existing stocks of fissile materials should be constrained and the "Shannon mandate," adopted by the CD as a basis for FMCT negotiations in 1995, explicitly does "not preclude any delegation from raising for consideration…past production [or] the management of such material."

In fact, a ban might be considered on the weapons use of three categories of pre-existing fissile material not currently dedicated to weapons:

Materials in civilian use,
Materials from dismantled Cold War weapons that have been declared excess for future military use, and
Highly-enriched uranium that has been reserved for future use in naval reactors

Such bans also might be negotiated separately from an FMCT.

A Ban on the Production of Civilian Fissile Material?

The use of fissile material for civilian purposes has been controversial since at least 1974, when India used the first plutonium that it had separated for nominally peaceful purposes to make a "peaceful nuclear explosion." The Ford Administration reversed the previous U.S. policy of promoting plutonium as the nuclear fuel of the future and both the United States and Soviet Union launched programs to reduce the use of HEU as a civilian reactor fuel. The question therefore naturally arises as to whether an FMCT should ban the production of fissile material for any purpose, not just explosive purposes.

The effort to eliminate HEU as a civilian reactor fuel is currently receiving broad international support because of concerns about the possibility of terrorists might use stolen HEU to make simple gun-type nuclear explosives. It is therefore conceivable that a fissile cutoff could be broadened to include production of HEU for civilian use. If such a ban were broadened further to end HEU production for naval-reactor use, however, other nations with nuclear-powered submarines and ships would be forced to follow France’s example and design their future naval reactors to use LEU. Today, such a proposal would likely be opposed by at least the United States -- and probably the United Kingdom and Russia as well.

Any effort to ban the separation of plutonium for recycle as a civilian fuel could attract the opposition of at least those countries currently engaged in civilian reprocessing that expect to continue to do so: France, India, Japan and Russia. The Bush Administration has proposed to reverse the U.S. anti-reprocessing policy but opposes the separation of pure plutonium.

Verification

The critical verification issues to be resolved are:

Activities to be monitored,
Measures to look for undeclared fissile material production, and
Means to verify the non-weapon use of pre-existing stocks of fissile materials, to the extent that such stocks are included in the FMCT.

Scope of Verification

The new Bush Administration position. The 1993 U.N. General Assembly consensus resolution called for an "effectively verifiable" FMCT. In July 2004, however, the Bush Administration announced that, while the United States still supported an FMCT, it would oppose verification arrangements. In a "white paper," submitted along with the draft FMCT treaty to the Conference on Disarmament on May 18, 2006, the Bush Administration argued that:

"'Effective verification' of an FMCT cannot be achieved…even with… verification mechanisms and provisions…so extensive that they could compromise the core national security interests of key signatories, and so costly that many countries will be hesitant to accept them…mechanisms and provisions that provide the appearance of effective verification without supplying its reality…could provide a false sense of security" [emphasis in original]."

The U.S. draft FMCT therefore would limit verification to "national means and methods" and, accordingly, the United States submitted a proposal to the CD to revise the 1993 U.N. mandate for FMCT negotiations by removing the phrase "effectively verifiable." This reversed the previous (Clinton Administration) position, which had emphasized the importance of international verification.

Focused vs. Comprehensive Safeguards. If there is international verification at all, then there are differing views on the scope of verification appropriate for an FMCT. The non-weapon states tend to argue for a "comprehensive" approach while most of the weapon states favor a "focused" approach." In either case, it would be necessary for the IAEA to confirm the status of shutdown enrichment and reprocessing facilities.

In a comprehensive approach, the entire civilian fuel cycles of the nuclear weapon states would be put under the same type of safeguards required by the NPT in the non-weapon states. Thus, IAEA safeguards in the nuclear-weapon and non-weapon states would be identical except inside the nuclear weapon complexes where previously produced fissile material could be stored and recycled into new nuclear weapons. IAEA monitoring could also be excluded from the naval-fuel-cycle to the extent that previously produced fissile material was being used for fuel.

In a focused approach, safeguards would be applied only on enrichment and reprocessing facilities, and on new fissile material that could be produced in these facilities. This approach would monitor all the inputs and outputs of declared reprocessing facilities and down-stream mixed-oxide (MOX, i.e. plutonium-uranium) fuel-fabrication plants, and follow the MOX fuel until it is loaded into a reactor. It would also verify that uranium-enrichment plants are not producing HEU or, that, if they are, that its use is monitored. However, safeguards would not be applied to natural-uranium or low-enriched uranium fuel or reactors using such fuel, or to any type of spent fuel. Low-enriched uranium is monitored in non-weapons states to safeguard against the possibility of diversion to a clandestine enrichment facility for further enrichment. Spent fuel is monitored to safeguard against the possibility of a clandestine reprocessing plant.

The principal argument for a focused approach to verification is that it would be less costly. Also, it would allow countries to exclude IAEA monitoring from any facility where newly produced fissile material was not present. The principal argument for a comprehensive approach is that it would remove discrimination in the current nonproliferation regime with regard to safeguards on civilian nuclear activities.

Any comparison of the two approaches to verification should take into the account the fact that many nuclear facilities in the NPT nuclear-weapon states are already under safeguards or have been offered to be placed under safeguards:

Following their decisions to end their production fissile materials for weapons, France and the United Kingdom declared all their operating enrichment and reprocessing facilities to be civilian. In conformity with the requirements of the Euratom Treaty, these facilities became subject to Euratom safeguards.
As a result of the 1983 Hexapartite Agreement on Safeguards on gas-centrifuge enrichment plants, the centrifuge enrichment plants in the United Kingdom are under IAEA safeguards and the centrifuge enrichment plants being built in France and the United States will be as well. The U.S. and French gaseous-diffusion enrichment plants will be shut down as the operating capacity of the replacement gas-centrifuge plants increase.
China's two centrifuge-enrichment plants, which were provided by Russia, have been offered for IAEA safeguards and safeguards have been implemented in one.
In the non-NPT states, the IAEA safeguards six power reactors (including two under construction) and a reprocessing plant in India; two power and two research reactors in Pakistan; and a research reactor in Israel. Under the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal, India has offered to place eight more reactors under safeguards.

In addition, all NPT nuclear-weapon states have volunteered to allow the IAEA to apply safeguards on additional civilian nuclear facilities. The United States has offered to accept "safeguards…on all source or special fissionable materials in all facilities within the United States, excluding only those facilities associated with activities of direct national security significance to the United States." The United Kingdom and France have made similar commitments, while Russia and China have offered safeguards on only a very limited list of facilities. Given the limited budget it has been given by member countries, however, the IAEA has not been able to take advantage of these offers, giving priority instead to verifying nonproliferation in the non-weapon states.

Cost of FMCT verification. In 1995, the IAEA estimated that applying the same measures that it applies in non-weapons states to all the civilian nuclear facilities and materials in nuclear-weapon states (i.e., the comprehensive approach to verification) would cost $140 million a year. In comparison, in 1995, the total IAEA safeguards budget was $87 million.

The results of the 1995 IAEA study may not be a good basis, however, for estimates of the costs of expanding safeguards to the nuclear weapon states today. The IAEA published neither the methodology that it used nor the list of facilities that it assumed would be covered. We have examined, however, a similar study published in 1996 by Brookhaven National Laboratory, a U.S. laboratory that provides technical support to the IAEA safeguards.

A widely used measure of verification effort is "person days of inspection effort (PDI)." The Brookhaven study estimated that implementing comprehensive safeguards in the nuclear-weapon states would require annually 35,000 PDIs. The corresponding estimate in the IAEA study was about 25,000. The Brookhaven study also estimated that almost 60 percent of the IAEA's verification effort in the nuclear-weapon states would be expended on 23 operating reprocessing plants.

Most of the military reprocessing plants in the NPT nuclear-weapon states have been shut down, however. Today, by our count (see Table 3.3 in Chapter 3), there are 13 operating reprocessing plants in the nuclear-weapon states of which four are scheduled to be shutdown and at least three more likely would be shut down under an FMCT. As a result, even if China and the United States go forward with proposed pilot reprocessing plants, the number of operating reprocessing plants to be monitored in the nuclear-weapon states would be about one third of the number assumed in the Brookhaven report.

Also, as we pointed out above, a significant number of reprocessing, enrichment, and associated facilities in the nuclear weapon states already are subject to international safeguards. This would further reduce the additional monitoring requirements of an FMCT.

With regard to the comparison of the costs of the comprehensive and focused verification approaches, the critical point to keep in mind is that reprocessing, enrichment and MOX fuel-fabrication plants would be monitored in any case and require far more intensive efforts to safeguard than do reactors fueled by low-enriched uranium. Indeed, it takes about the same number of person-days of inspector effort to monitor operations at one large reprocessing plant as it does to safeguard 100 LEU-fueled reactors. Therefore, not only would the cost of verifying an FMCT be less than sometimes imagined, but so also would be the cost difference between comprehensive and focused safeguards.

Verification that no clandestine enrichment or reprocessing is taking place. After the establishment of either comprehensive or focused monitoring at declared civilian nuclear facilities, the next challenge to both NPT and FMCT verification is to assure that there are no clandestine enrichment or reprocessing activities.

Once a suspect site has been identified, a general approach has been developed that would be applicable in nuclear-weapon as well as non-weapon states. This general approach involves what is called "managed access" in the Chemical Weapons Convention, i.e. arrangements for the inspectors to resolve the treaty-related concerns of the inspecting agency without acquiring unrelated national-security or proprietary information of the host state.

The IAEA's Information Circular (INFCIRC) 153, which controls NPT verification in non-weapon-state, allows the IAEA to make "special inspections" at suspect sites not declared to have nuclear activities or materials. The Additional Protocol to INFCIRC/153, which is voluntary, but which countries are under considerable international pressure to ratify, allows the IAEA to request access to "[a]ny location specified by the Agency…to carry out location-specific environmental sampling…for the purpose of assisting the Agency to draw conclusions about the absence of undeclared nuclear material or nuclear activities at the specified location" [emphasis in the original].

Questions raised by detection of particles of enriched uranium at various Iranian sites resulted in Iran revealing to the IAEA more information about its enrichment activities than it had originally provided (see Figure 1 below). In a nuclear-weapon facility, particles of enriched uranium might be associated with weapons-manufacturing activities but, if they contained degradation products of enriched uranium hexafluoride, one possible explanation could be the presence of a centrifuge cascade. Other indicators, such as electromagnetic emanations associated with the high-frequency electrical motors that spin the centrifuges, then could be sought.

FIGURE 1. Images of micron-sized particles of uranium oxide made with a Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer. A beam of ions scans the particle, knocking out ions whose masses are then measured in a mass spectrometer. The images on the left and right show respectively the U-235 and U-238 concentrations on the particle surface. Particles that are brighter on the left-side image carry highly enriched uranium.

A clandestine reprocessing facility could similarly be identified by the detection of radionuclides from reprocessed spent fuel or targets. Such contamination can be dated using the mix of different half-life radionuclides present. It was such an analysis of environmental samples from North Korea’s reprocessing plant by the IAEA that undercut the DPRK’s claim that it had reprocessed only one batch of spent fuel there.

A reprocessing plant also can be detected from a considerable distance through its releases of the radioactive gas, krypton-85. Kr-85 is difficult to contain because it is chemically non-reactive like helium. It is generally released during reprocessing when the spent fuel is chopped up and dissolved. As shown in the figure below, locally increased concentrations therefore are an indicator of possible reprocessing activities.

FIGURE 2. One-week average atmospheric Kr-85 concentrations measured at Tsukuba Japan, 1995-2001. Unless extraordinary precautions are taken, the reprocessing of spent fuel will release the radioactive gas, krypton-85, to the atmosphere. The spikes in the figure show the detection of krypton-85 released from Japan’s Tokai pilot reprocessing plant 80 kilometers upwind. No spikes are seen between April 1997 and July 2000 or from August to December 2000, periods during which the Tokai Mura plant was closed down. Original data courtesy of C. Schlosser and H. Sartorius, German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) Freiburg, private communication, May 2006.

Both INFCIRC/153 and the Additional Protocol allow a state to refuse access to a site if it is concerned about revealing sensitive proprietary or national-security information. INFCIRC/153 requires, however, that if "unusual circumstances require extended limitations on access by the Agency, the State and the Agency shall promptly make arrangements with a view to enabling the Agency to discharge is safeguards responsibilities in the light of these limitations." The Additional Protocol similarly requires that the host country "shall make every reasonable effort to satisfy Agency requirements without delay, at adjacent locations or through other means."

All the NPT nuclear-weapon states have signed the Additional Protocol and for three (China, France and the United Kingdom) the Additional Protocol is in force. However, the information and access that are to be provided to the IAEA are much more limited than required under the Additional Protocols for non-weapons states. Under an FMCT, the Additional Protocols in the nuclear-weapon states would have to be amended to allow inspectors to look for clandestine enrichment or reprocessing plants, as they already may in non-weapon states.

Before it ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997, the United States assured itself that managed access sufficient to satisfy the Convention-related concerns of the inspectors of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons could be arranged at all its major nuclear facilities without revealing sensitive information. During the Clinton Administration, the State Department official responsible for coordinating the U.S. negotiating position on the FMCT suggested that similar arrangements should make it possible to determine without revealing sensitive information whether or not a nuclear facility harbors enrichment or reprocessing activities.

Verification of Pre-existing Stocks

As noted above, some possible versions of an FMCT might subject certain pre-existing stocks of fissile materials to international monitoring: civilian fissile materials, weapons materials declared excess to military purposes, and/or HEU reserved for naval reactor fuel. In the following, we present a brief summary of how such declarations could be verified.

Civilian fissile material. The global stockpile of civilian fissile material is currently dominated by separated reactor-grade plutonium. It seems unlikely that any of the countries owning this material would wish to convert it to weapons use. Nine countries that own almost all of this material (Belgium, Canada, France, Gemany, Japan, Russia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) have declared it to be civilian in the IAEA information circular INFCIRC/549. Most of the plutonium is stored in the United Kingdom and France and is subject to Euratom safeguards, and a significant amount belongs to non-weapon states and is therefore already subject to IAEA safeguards. Since, under any approach to verification, the reprocessing plants, MOX-fuel-fabrication facilities and associated transportation links and storage facilities would be subject to IAEA safeguards for plutonium separated after the FMCT comes into force, it would be straightforward -- and indeed a simplification -- to extend the safeguards to cover pre-existing separated plutonium as well.

Among the non-NPT states, India has a stockpile of reactor-grade plutonium that is being separated out to provide startup fuel for India’s prototype breeder reactor. Whether India would wish to declare it irreversibly civilian under an FMCT, however, is uncertain. In connection with the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal, India plans to exempt this plutonium from IAEA safeguards.

The NPT nuclear-weapon states also have some tens of tons of HEU in the cores and fuel cycles of their research reactors and of Russia’s nuclear-powered icebreakers. There is currently a global effort to replace this HEU with LEU because of concerns about the potential for nuclear terrorism. Under the comprehensive approach to FMCT safeguards, the research-reactor fuel could be declared to be civilian and subjected to IAEA monitoring in the same way as HEU in the corresponding facilities in Japan and other non-weapon states. Such arrangements also could be extended to plutonium in civilian nuclear-reactor R&D facilities.

Stocks declared excess to military needs. The United States and Russia have already agreed in principle to work out verification arrangements for the plutonium and HEU that they have declared irreversibly excess to weapons. The blend-down of most excess Russian and U.S. weapon uranium is already being verified.

But much of the fissile material that Russia and the United States have declared excess will remain in weapons components for decades. In addition, since Russia considers the exact isotopic make up of its weapon-grade plutonium classified, that material will not be accessible to international inspectors as civilian plutonium until after it is blended with civilian plutonium to produce an unclassified mix.

In 1996, Russia, the United States and the IAEA launched a "Trilateral Initiative" to develop equipment that would allow IAEA inspectors to verify some unclassified attributes of stored weapons components and materials by measuring the gamma and neutron radiation coming out of their containers. The working group devised one such approach for plutonium still in a weapon "pit" and demonstrated it with an actual U.S. pit in August 2000. The attributes verified included that the container held at least two kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium metal in an axially symmetric form. A computer analyzed the data and passed the results through an "information barrier" that filtered out information such as the size and shape of the pit and the exact amount of plutonium that it contained. Systems that have been developed to determine that a warhead or a container contains HEU could similarly be adapted for IAEA use (see Figure 3).

FIGURE 3. The U.S. Nuclear Materials Identification System can measure the quantity and enrichment of HEU in a container or warhead. A weak source of neutrons on the right (one microgram or less of californium-252) irradiates the interior of an object – in this case a nuclear bomb – causing fissions in the HEU. The transmission of the source neutrons and the timing and intensity of gamma-rays and neutrons from the fissions are measured by detectors on the other side of the object. For FMCT verification, the data would be filtered through an information barrier so that the inspectors verify only agreed attributes.

Although the United States and Russia lost interest in the Trilateral Initiative after 2002, if the parties agreed to an FMCT, the techniques developed in the Trilateral Initiative could be implemented to verify excess stocks.

Verifying non-diversion of naval-reactor fuel. In most nuclear-weapon states, the challenge of verifying that HEU newly produced for naval-reactor fuel has not been diverted might not arise for many decades. The issue might arise first with India, which is reportedly developing a HEU-fueled naval reactor. France is phasing out HEU use in its naval reactors and China is believed to use fuel enriched to about 20 percent, the boundary between LEU and HEU. Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, which use HEU fuel in their naval reactors, all have access to large stockpiles of excess weapons HEU.

Indeed,the United States has set aside 160 tons of excess weapon-grade uranium for future use in naval-reactor fuel.

Using the standard estimate of 25 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium per warhead, the 160-ton U.S. naval stockpile would be enough to make 6,400 warheads. In a future world with much smaller numbers of nuclear weapons, the possibility that such a huge stockpile could be converted back to weapons use would surely raise concern and possibly prevent deeper cuts in the nuclear arsenals.

The best solution would be for the United States and other states with naval-propulsion reactors to follow the example of France and design their next-generation naval reactors to be fueled with LEU. In the meantime, verification arrangements could be devised to assure that HEU stockpiles committed to naval use are not diverted to weapon use.

If HEU reserved for naval-reactor fuel were placed under IAEA monitoring, withdrawals could be verified and, when the fuel had been fabricated into naval reactor fuel, the owning country could allow IAEA inspectors to verify non-intrusively that the containers declared to hold the fuel did indeed hold the amount of HEU that had been released from the monitored stockpile. The inspectors could seal and tag the containers and later verify that they had been delivered to a naval reactor. It might also be possible to devise arrangements whereby they could verify that the fuel had been loaded into the reactor. The reactor could be sealed just as the IAEA seals light-water power reactors between each re-fueling. After the fuel is irradiated, diversion would have to include reprocessing to separate the HEU from the fission products.

When spent naval-reactor fuel is discharged from the reactor, it could be assayed again and placed in monitored storage.

Duration of an FMCT

The U.S. draft FMCT treaty includes a provision that the treaty "shall remain in force for a period of 15 years from the date of its entry into force" and that the treaty could be extended by consensus. This means that any party could veto its extension.

This provision appears provocative and unwise. The United States and other nuclear-weapon states expended considerable effort in 1995 to persuade the non-weapon states to make the NPT permanent. They would court derision from the non-weapon states if, in their turn, they were willing only to sign onto a 15-year FMCT. In any case, the U.S. draft FMCT contains the standard withdrawal clause that "each party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized its supreme interests."

A Step-by-Step Approach?

At the moment, there is little prospect that negotiations on an FMCT will begin anytime soon or, if negotiations began, that they would not be long and tortuous. Given this situation, an ad hoc step-by-step approach toward realizing the objective of an FMCT could be considered:

Additional nuclear-weapon states could join in the production moratoria that have been formally announced by four of the five NPT weapon states and informally by China.
After an enrichment or reprocessing plant is shut down, the nuclear-weapon states could allow the IAEA to verify that fact. The United States and Russia are already verifying the shutdown of each other's plutonium production reactors.
When they are not producing HEU at their enrichment plants, the nuclear-weapon states could allow the IAEA to verify that fact. The United Kingdom and China have opened their centrifuge enrichment plants to such monitoring and France and the United States intend to do so once their new plants are completed.
More nuclear-weapon states could offer their operating reprocessing plants and the plutonium that they separate for international monitoring. France and the United Kingdom already accept Euratom and IAEA safeguards at their reprocessing plants and on the plutonium that they separate.
U.S., Russian, and U.K. weapons materials declared excess for military use could be put under IAEA safeguards, using procedures such as those worked out under the Trilateral Initiative.
Experts from a group of nuclear-weapon states could form a study group to devise managed-access arrangements that would allow IAEA inspectors to determine whether or not there are undeclared enrichment or reprocessing activities at their nuclear-weapon or naval-reactor fuel cycle sites. A relevant precedent is a joint study by U.S. and Russian nuclear-weapon experts that devised procedures by which the two countries could verify the dismantlement of each other's nuclear without acquiring weapon-design information.
A similar group of experts could work out arrangements with the IAEA to verify that HEU committed for naval-reactor use is not being diverted to weapons use.
An additional source of funding could be devised for the IAEA to ensure that it could take full advantage of such opportunities.