Verification, Implementation and Compliance

VERTIC publication on multilateral nuclear disarmament

2013-04-25T17:47:00.001+01:00

As I write this post, state parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty are meeting in Geneva to prepare for the next Review Conference, scheduled for 2015. I am not attending this year, but am following the various tweets coming out of the meeting. The meeting runs for two weeks, and there are plenty of plenary statements. So far, the conference appears to be evolving along familiar lines: a set of non-nuclear weapon states arguing that disarmament is not happening fast enough, and the nuclear weapon states saying that they're making progress towards an ultimate goal. Hence, the plenary appears to have regressed into the usual debate between those who have weapons and those who have not.

Often, it is said that those who don't have nuclear weapons vastly outnumber those who do; meaning that the majority of peoples want immediate nuclear abolition. This argument is true if one looks at the number of undisputed sovereign states in the world (where the tally is 181 to 9). But the argument rings false if one looks at other statistical parameters. The nine nuclear armed states control about 45 per cent of the world GDP, and have 48 per cent of the world's population. This number jumps up significantly if one counts the allies to the nuclear armed states, as they presumably fall under a "nuclear umbrella". Of the top 10 countries by nominal GPD, only four does not possess nuclear weapons. Three of those (Japan, Germany and Italy) were defeated in the Second World War, and they are all now "sheltered" under a nuclear umbrella. The fourth is Brazil, once suspected of harbouring weapons ambitions of its own.

Those who are nuclear armed often refer to their weapons as their ultimate guarantee. This view, in some countries at least, seems to enjoy the backing of a significant portion of the population. The mixed public opinion in these states, combined with the strength that deterrence theory has in the mind of their decision makers, will make nuclear abolition extremely difficult to achieve, and a delicate task for those willing to take it on.

Personally, I have come to believe that nuclear weapons are unlikely to be abolished through a grand treaty. To me, a Nuclear Weapons Convention sounds very much like the 1518 Treaty of London, which brought the promise of peace in Europe, but which was brought down in flames almost before the ink had dried on the paper. As any student of the Volstead Act will point out, a ban on something for which there is strong demand is likely to fail.

Instead, abolition will occur gradually, as the demand for these weapons decline. Once demand is gone, or at least very low, a treaty banning them once and for all is likely to form the capstone. Not before then. While not speaking for my co-authors, I believe that it is against this backdrop that VERTIC's new briefing paper should be read.

In this brief, the case for multilateral involvement in nuclear disarmament verification is discussed, with reference to VERTIC’s ongoing capacity-building effort with non-nuclear-weapon states and intergovernmental organisations. This project has been running since 2011, with the objective of consolidating a role for the IAEA in disarmament verification, as well as reviewing the requirements of verification technology.

The presumption here is not that disarmament will happen tomorrow, or that the IAEA needs to urgently be prepared for the task. Neither does it say that negotiations should start in Vienna. On the contrary, it takes the long view, it assumes that the Agency will take progressively larger responsibilities over decades to come. It also argues that preparations for this role needs to begin today, or that we risk of finding ourselves unprepared in the future.

Above all, the disarmament debate needs to find common ground. This need is urgent. The debate needs to find a space where those without weapons can discuss disarmament with those who possess them, not from positions of strength and weakness, but as equals. Efforts such as the UK-Norway Initiative have shown that this is possible in a bilateral setting. There is no reason why similar discussions cannot take place elsewhere, such as in Vienna.

Nuclear Policy Conferencing

2013-04-12T15:45:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrapped up their 15th bi-annual Nuclear Policy Conference. This conference, widely recognised to be one of the highlights on the nuclear arms control and disarmament agenda, spans two days and attracts some 800 participants from 46 countries. The conference was lively. Printing off all Twitter comments alone would consume at least 100 pages of paper.

This year opened with a keynote address by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and closed with a discussion with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. Sessions in-between featured speakers such as Rose Gottemoeller, Christopher Ford, Christoph Eichhorn, and Bruno Tertrais. Sessions focussed on topics ranging from ‘Proliferation Implications of New Fuel Cycle Technologies’ to ‘Deterring Cyber and Space-Based Threats.’

Verification, monitoring or implementation featured only occasionally, and not very prominently. Most of the discussion revolved around the on-going Iranian situation, flaring hostilities between the two Koreas, and the apparent slow-down in talks between the United States and the Russian Federation. Over coffee, one participant characterised the present situation as a “hangover” following several years of optimism and progress. It is difficult to disagree. During breaks, several organisations were highlighting a downturn in funding, and a tendency of states to retreat back into familiar and well-rehearsed positions. And indeed, we heard that in sessions on the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and we heard it in the session on ‘What Nuclear Weapons Can the United States Afford?’ Increasingly, it would seem, non-governmental organisations are asked to come up with the ‘next big thing’ while the sector’s funding base is shrinking.

Leaving pessimism behind, however, Director General Amano was on good form, and delivered a spirited, balanced and well formulated speech. Of interest to us verification practitioners was his emphasis on the Agency’s potential role in nuclear disarmament verification, his remarks on progress of the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, and his comments on the ‘State level concept’ in safeguards implementation.

Mr. Amano correctly noted that, “the IAEA is not a nuclear disarmament negotiation body; it is rather the conference of disarmament in Geneva or the first committee in United Nations that negotiates the nuclear disarmament agreements or bilateral negotiations have taken place.” And indeed, overall conference participants appeared to support the operation of existing, albeit dysfunctional, multilateral fora.

According to Mr. Amano, however, the Agency can contribute with technical insights. He held that, “What the IAEA can contribute is to make its expertise, gained through verification, available for the countries, if so requested.” Very helpfully, he pointed out that “the IAEA helped to verify the disposal and dismantlement of nuclear weapons when South Africa abandoned nuclear weapons and joined the IAEA as a nonnuclear weapon state. If there are requests,” he noted, “the IAEA is ready to do more too in the area of verification of nuclear disarmament.”

On the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, Mr. Amano, responding to a question from the floor, highlighted that “there are discussions how to deal with the disposal. There are various techniques. Shall we irradiate it in the reactors, or shall we store it or shall we dispose it? These aspects should be addressed. We need to address the financial aspects; we need to define the role of the IAEA. So this is not an easy, simple task, but we have been working on this issue. Rounds of discussions have taken place. And we are continuing these efforts.” Others in the conference that I spoke to, however, were less optimistic about the prospects of getting PMDA verification arrangements agreed. One diplomat, for instance, told me that the agreement had been stalled, and that progress was slow.

Finally, in respect to safeguards, it should be recalled that the IAEA General Conference in September 2012 requested that the Secretariat reports “to the Board of Governors on the conceptualization and development of the State-level concept for safeguards.” (see GC(56)/RES/13). This report is still pending. At least one member state oppose the concept of a state level approach, maintaining that the safeguards system should be materials-driven.

There are several views of what is driving this sudden interest in an arcane area of safeguards implementation. Opinions are also divided on how the Agency should handle this request, and what the consequences might be if it is done so poorly. Mr. Amano stressed that the Agency treats all its member states in an equitable fashion. He said that they “use the standards that all the countries have to implement fully the comprehensive safeguards and other relevant obligations.” He was also careful to point out that there “is not such a thing that, well, some countries, we – our safeguard approach is generous, or some country’s approach is strict. We apply the same rule, that is, the comprehensive safeguard and relevant obligations.” The Director General’s full report is expected later this year.

The highest standards of peacekeeping

2013-01-31T20:08:00.000Z

Lately, one of the researchers at my organisation, David Cliff, has started to take a keen interest in peacekeeping. In particular, he is examining recent events experienced by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which is operating in the Golan Heights. This force has been on the heights ever since 1974. Composing of about 1,000 personnel running of a $46m budget, their tasks have been to:

Maintain the ceasefire between Israel and Syria;
Supervise the disengagement of Israeli and Syrian forces; and
Supervise the areas of separation and limitation, as provided in the May 1974 Agreement on Disengagement.

Now, squeezed as they are between demarcation line 'Alpha' and 'Bravo' they find themselves caught between a Syria on the brink of collapse and Israel, which is becoming increasingly anxious. Tracers have started to fly over the Golan for the first time in a long while. And that is worrying, of course.

Makes me think that VERTIC should revive its peacekeeping studies.

It's rare that the work of those who keep the peace gets appreciated. Some of us who served still carry horrible memories with them. I am lucky, I have few. Others are not. A friend of mine, for instance, recently got invited to talk about his experiences in Bosnia to his daughter's class. He noted, on Facebook naturally, how difficult it had been to explain concepts of loss and despair to a bunch of young Swedish kids. But he felt relieved. For him, he remarked, perhaps the healing process is about to start, fifteen years later.

Reading Cliff's post, however, made me think about the job that these thousands of men and women are doing, every day, often lightly armed and armoured, and on a shoestring budget. Many of us don't often think about them, but we should.

So I need to share a video from a little reported incident in Lebanon, some two years ago. Indonesian peacekeepers, observing a sudden flare of hostility between Israeli and Lebanese Forces, went between the two forces waving their blue flag yelling "stop, stop," "down with your guns" and "stop doing anything" in broken english. Anyone who's ever had a gun pointed at them will know that that, if anything, is a remarkable act of bravery.

The Secretary-General's November 2010 report sums up the incident. Sadly, UNIFIL did not escape without criticism, as Wikipedia notes. I am not surprised. Those who are neutral are seldom liked by either of the warring parties.

As for me, I'm just proud to be able to say that I once served the same mission as those Indonesian men, who tried to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, and not cause it.

Disarmament education and the CTBTO

2012-11-23T15:49:00.001Z

Capacity building, ITU style

In September, Angela Woodward wrote about the UN Secretary-General’s report on Disarmament Education (see UN document A/57/124). She also highlighted the subsequent updated reports of the Secretary-General, and in particular the July 2012 report (see UN document A/67/138). This report makes for an interesting read.

The Austrian government, for instance, highlights the establishment of the Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, which is now running intensive policy courses on disarmament. Several other governments are mentioned, although the absence of a Norwegian contribution is striking, as it funds and supports a large portfolio of educational initiatives. I strongly suspect that this will be rectified in the updated 2014 document.

Amongst the intergovernmental organizations, the International Atomic Energy Agency reports on its fellowship programme and its sponsorship of various institutes and schools. These are worthwhile and important initiatives. However, the real gem in disarmament education is hidden in paragraph 54 and 55 in the report, namely the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s Capacity Development Initiative.

I remember clearly how the CDI started, and even had a very small part in its beginnings. I was invited into the room of a CTBTO staffer who had received directives from the Executive Secretary to make it happen. On his wall was a gigantic map full of boxes and arrows, ideas and topics, technologies and solutions. I gave only one piece of advice, to go for simplicity and to ‘think about scalability’ (a term I had borrowed from a good friend at the UK Ministry of Defence). I told him to implement one module at a time. The staffer reminds me of this advice every time I now meet him, and points to the massive gains that the organization has made in the time since. It is a remarkable accomplishment, and it has gained momentum as it has moved along.

There is plenty that the CTBTO can be proud of. I call the CDI a gem because the initiative wholly embraces the age of information that we live in. It is also somehow an embodiment of the forward-leaning and cutting-edge thinking that permeates the work of the organization. Hence, the initiative is fully networked, has an e-learning platform, and even publishes all lectures and modules on iTunes. There is even a live streaming feature (in high definition, of course) on the website when the course is running.

One particular aspect of the CDI is the high level of interactivity that the course offers those who participate. Back in August 2012, I wrote about the first ever simulation of the Executive Council, the body that eventually will decide on whether an ambiguous event constitutes non-compliance with the treaty. This was a learning experience not only for the students participating, but for me personally, and for the professionals that deal with on-site inspection issues within the organization. It turned out that there are many issues that need further consideration: how you present highly technical and scientific community to a diplomatic community, for instance. Less fundamental but nevertheless important issues centered on how much information the Director-General should include in his updates to the Council.

After this simulation, someone remarked that state parties would bring their own technical experts to such a meeting. Perhaps this may be the case, but that means that those governments with very little or no scientific expertise would need to rely on the technical pronouncements of those more endowed, or on the explanations of the CTBTO Technical Secretariat. In other words, education matters, as it allows for the free and accurate exchange of scientific views—and for greater understanding by all.

This model of high interactivity, simulations and the skillful use of modern communications technology, is, ultimately, an exceptionally refreshing experience in a field otherwise characterized by a rather dogmatic and old fashioned view of science. It certainly got me thinking about how to revitalize disarmament education, and how to bring it up-to-date with the world we presently live in.

It would be a great shame if the Secretary-General’s report in 2014 notes that the Capacity Development Initiative has been shut down. It would be a cause for deep satisfaction, though, if the report notes that this model of teaching has helped transform the field of disarmament education, and that there is a legion of young scholars from all walks of scientific life emerging, ready to take up a challenge where past generations failed.

Introducing the candidates

2012-10-18T19:14:00.001+01:00

The plenary body of the Preparatory Commission of the CTBTO will meet next week, on 22-24 October 2012, to consider, amongst other things, the bids to take over after Ambassador Tibor Toth. Who might be elected?

I have had the pleasure of cooperating with the organization under two Executive Secretaries: Wolfgang Hoffman and Tibor Toth. And since VERTIC and the CTBTO has a close relationship, it has been interesting to see how Ambassador Toth’s leadership style has transformed the organization. Under Mr Hoffman, who assumed office in March 1997, the organization was very much in a build-up phase. Mr Hoffman arrived to the CTBTO with no staff and no organization.

By the time Mr Toth took over, in 2005, the skeleton of the organization was very much in place. The routines were there, much of the staff had been recruited, and the organization was growing. Despite the house being in relative order, I doubt that Ambassador Toth was expecting a smooth ride when he took over.

Consider the challenges he faced. There was opposition to the treaty in the United States, who declined to pay their full due for many years, leaving the organization with serious cash-flow issues. He had to deal with the CTBTO’s response to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which had left 230,000 people dead. It should be recalled that some in the media accused the organization, which has access to real-time seismic data, for not warning people in the region. As a matter of urgency, it was later decided to give regional tsunami warning centres access to the CTBTO’s data streams. Ambassador Toth was charged with implementing that.

During his tenure, nuclear testing resumed, with two tests by North Korea. Mr Toth formulated a response to that, highlighting the organization’s readiness to perform the tasks entrusted to it. And in 2011, a tsunami struck again, this time crippling the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. CTBTO radionuclide data, and its sophisticated atmospheric modelling capabilities, kicked into play. Journalists flocked to the CTBTO for briefings on the latest releases, while the IAEA was struggling with antiquated communications channels established by the 1986 Convention of Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident. The CTBTO helped out, sharing data with its neighbour, again under Mr Toth’s leadership.

The Toth legacy will require an article of its own, and I hope to be able to write it one day. But it is clear that the organization, under his leadership, has assumed a higher public profile, and that its position in the family of intergovernmental organizations has been elevated. This is not an easy accomplishment, leaving rather large shoes to fill.

So who has been proposed to take over the top-job?

I am keeping my preferences to myself, so presenting the candidates in no particular order. In addition, I have tried to focus on some of the highlights of the respective candidates’ career, leaving other aspects aside. They are all exceptionally qualified, which makes for a difficult, albeit exciting, choice in the coming week.

Candidate 1: Ambassador Jargalsaikhan Enkhsaikhan (Mongolia).

Mr. Enkhasikhan has a very long diplomatic career behind him, starting in 1974 in the Treaty and Legal Affairs Division of the Mongolian Foreign Ministry. He is presently the Ambassador of his country to international organizations in Vienna, but also to Italy and Croatia. He is the chair of Working Group A of the Preparatory Commission, which deals with administrative matters. Highlights of his career include being the president of the IAEA General Conference, as well as the Governor of Mongolia. He is the focal point and coordinator of Mongolia’s nuclear weapon free status, and has served as an advisor to the Mongolian Foreign Minister.

Rather unusually, Mr Enkhasiakhan has also had experience running an NGO: Blue Banner, a non-profit organization founded in 2005 with the objective of, amongst other things, establishing a North-East Asian nuclear-weapon free zone. He has been the editor of numerous books, covering human rights, public international law, and the law of international organizations.

Candidate 2: Ambassador Alfredo Alejandro Labbe Villa (Chile).

This is another diplomat with a distinguished and long career behind him. Mr Labbe’s journey to the nomination started in 1977. His postings have gravitated around international security, disarmament and arms control since the mid-1990s, when he took up post as head of the Disarmament and International Security Department in the Directorate of Special Policy in the Chilean Foreign Ministry. Since then, he has served as Chair of the Universal Conference on Cluster Munitions and Chair of the second Conference of the States, Parties and Signatories to the Treaties establishing Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones.

As Mr Enkhasiakahn, Mr. Labbe is a lawyer. He studied law at the University of Chile as well as in Ecuador and Peru and graduated from the Diplomatic Academy in Santiago.

Candidate 3: Dr Hein Haak (The Netherlands).

Mr Haak presently heads up the Climate and Seismology Department in the Royal Netherlands Metrological Institute. He is the present chair of Working Group B of the Preparatory Commission, which deals with verification. For those in the CTBT field, Mr Haak is very well known. He was a member of the Group of Scientific Experts, which examined the feasibility of the treaty, and also represented his country during the negotiations of the CTBT. In other words, he knows the treaty inside out.

He has impeccable scientific credentials, and the author of several papers and books on the CTBT and its verification regimes.

Candidate 4: Ambassador Libran Cabactulan (The Philippines).

Mr Cabactulan’s diplomatic career started in 1983. Before then he worked at his country’s National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) for nine years as an economist.

He has a Bachelor Degree and Master Degree in Political Science from the University of the Philippines. He also received a Certificate for Development Economics from the School of Economics of the University of the Philippines and a Diploma With Merit on Commercial Policy from the General Agreements on Tariff and Trade (GATT) in Geneva. He has served in various posts throughout his career, and has mostly dealt with trade issues. For instance, he was a member of the Philippine delegation that negotiated the country’s accession to GATT, now known as the World Trade Organization.

Arms controllers will know him as the President of the 2010 NPT Review Conference, where he broke the deadlock lingering since the inconclusive 2005 conference. He is presently serving his country in New York, and remains a frequent writer on arms control and disarmament issues.

Candidate 5: Dr. Lassina Zerbo (Burkina Faso).

Mr Zerbo, like Mr Haak, comes from the technical side of the organization. He is the only candidate of the five that has worked for many years within the organization.

He has degrees in Fundamental and Applied Geology as well as Geophysics from French universitites. He has worked as a geophysicist for various companies in Africa and elsewhere since the late 1980s. His service for the CTBTO has, indeed, been longer that Ambassador Toth’s. He took office as the Director of the International Data Centre Division in the CTBTO in 2004.

As an excellent communicator, he has participated in several events highlighting the operation and effectiveness of the verification system, and the International Data Centre in particular (including at some organized by VERTIC).

The return of the safeguards resolution

2012-09-27T18:14:00.001+01:00

The safeguards resolution of the IAEA General Conference has, for many years, been one of the highlights and great dreads of the conference. Member states anxieties and excessive wrangling over its text tends to ensure that the final day of the conference ends around midnight. While this adds to the excitement of the conference, it is also a very costly undertaking. Sitting in the conference hall in the middle of the night surely raises questions as to whether it is all worth it.

For sure, the resolution is the one that receives a lot of attention from the media, and that may be one of the reasons that member states invest so heavily in it. But all this effort can also be explained by simple economics. The resolution addresses one of the central work areas of the organization, an area worth some 37 per cent of the regular budget. From that perspective, it is natural that member states are keen to have a say in how that money is spent.

Background to the resolution
The safeguards resolution was introduced in 1991. At the time, it represented an important shift in the internal debate on safeguards. Prior to its introduction, resolutions on safeguards tended to focus on the financing of the safeguards system, and not its operation. Since then, however, the IAEA membership has focused not so much on how the system should be financed, but on how it can be improved.

Last year, the conference could not unite on language, breaking a two-decade long string of formulated, reformulated and restated understandings on the safeguards system. But divisions on the resolution started well before that, with the introduction in 2001 of language recognizing the importance of achieving universal application of the safeguards system, and urging states to bring into force comprehensive safeguards agreements. This forced the conference, for many years, to have a separate vote on this paragraph, after which members voted on the resolution as a whole. At first, this was done by hand (hence making it impossible for those scrutinizing the record to see who voted for what).

Since 2007, however, a roll call has been requested on both amendments and the resolution as a whole, making divisions clear to see. Those who have wanted to see the additional paragraph have abstained from the resolution as a whole. The core group of persistent abstainers is rather small: Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria. It is likely supported by Iraq, Qatar, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen, who have abstained on those occasions that they’ve been present in the conference hall. In addition, a group of nations comprising Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Pakistan have abstained most of the time, but voted in favour at one occasion. Interestingly, where Iran and India goes on the vote is difficult to predict. Both have voted for the resolution twice, but abstained three times since 2007.

The list of those consistently voting for the resolution is rather long, but includes the vast majority of industrialized nations with significant nuclear activities. For many states, the resolution serves the purpose of providing at least some guidance on the future direction of safeguards. They do not want to jeopardize this, and this becomes important when analyzing the support for the introduction of new language.

Disarmament language on the roll
The press seem to have focused on the roll-call vote on disarmament language inserted by Iran in the preambular part of the resolution, a relatively harmless addition that safeguards is a fundamental component of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Similar language was proposed in 2010. Egypt had proposed changing the title to refer to ‘nuclear verification’ and argued, in support of its position, that ‘the Agency had an important role to play in verifying nuclear disarmament as well as nuclear non-proliferation, and there were precedents for discussing the Agency’s role in verifying nuclear disarmament—for example, within the framework of the Trilateral Initiative’.

The Egyptians continued to explain that ‘the proposal had been opposed in the working group by a few Member State representatives who clearly feared that discussing nuclear verification would mean dealing with country-specific issues’. No state raised an objection to this characterization. Egypt clarified that ‘it would be possible…to discuss nuclear verification at a thematic...level and so cover the entire range of activities which the Agency was carrying out, had carried out and might be invited to carry out in the near future’ (italics here).

The fact that the language had not been inserted did not significantly alter the 2010 vote on the resolution. Myanmar changed its 2009 yes vote to an abstention. Iraq recorded an abstention as well, but then it had not voted in the previous year. It would have abstained no matter what. The rest of the floor voted in a rather predictable way.

In 2011, Brazil wanted to insert language that ‘notes that, in furthering the establishment of safeguarded worldwide disarmament, non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, including nuclear verification, are mutually reinforcing’. This suggestion got public support by an interesting range of countries: Cuba, Algeria, Venezuela, Ireland, Iran, New Zealand, South Africa, Egypt, Germany, Syria, Singapore, Sweden and Australia. The interesting thing with this line-up is that it includes governments aligned with the Western group, not just the usual suspects.

The nuclear-weapon states did not take a stand on the subject matter as such, instead reverting to procedural arguments. Russia and the United States were in agreement that the conference was ‘running behind schedule’ and that there ‘was no time for debate’ on the amendment. France simply said that the original draft was ‘excellent’ and that it therefore should ‘not be opened up to amendment proposals’. The Russians added that had the ‘wording been available for consideration three months earlier, it could have been considered, but there was now no time for the necessary negotiations’. The United Kingdom said that it ‘would have been willing to consider in isolation’ the Brazilian proposal, but that there was many other concerns - not relating to disarmament - that had been raised. This is a key point. Even if agreement could have been reached on the disarmament language in 2011, its not clear that consensus could have been reached.

This point is emphasized by the outcome this year. Again, disarmament language was introduced. It went to a vote, which has been reported in the media, but the outcome of that vote was never in doubt. Many delegations took the floor expressing the view that they were still firmly supportive of the disarmament agenda, but that the other parts of the resolution were important too. In other words, many would have welcomed the inclusion of disarmament language, but not in this resolution, and not at this time. To say that the vast majority of member states feel as though the Agency should have no part in disarmament verification is therefore either uninformed or, frankly, disingenuous. Especially so as the resolution, as a careful observer will see, actually supports an Agency role in disarmament verification already. The only change on the floor itself was that Cuba, Iran and Venezuela changed their yes votes to abstentions, possibly out of disappointment that the addition did not carry.

Other changes in the voting pattern were more interesting. India changed its long-running abstention into a yes vote. So did Jordan and Kuwait (and even Myanmar bounced back into the yes camp). On the whole, the resolution enjoyed the greatest level of support since 2008, with yes votes outnumbering abstainers by almost five to one.

So what has changed?
This is a difficult question to answer, particularly as the resolution seems to water down important language on safeguards. In particular, references to the IAEA’s state level concept (a technique which, in a nutshell, evaluates the material balance declarations of a state as a whole) had been battered or deleted.

For instance, in 2010 the General Conference welcomed ‘the important work being undertaken by the Agency in the conceptualization and and development of state-level safeguards approaches to safeguards implementation’ and also ‘in the implementation of state-level integrated safeguards approaches which support more effective and efficient safeguards’. This language was weakened this year, with the conference simply ‘taking note’ of this work, with the reference to ‘state-level integrated safeguards approaches’ deleted.

In 2010, the General Conference also urged the Secretariat of the Agency to ensure that the transition to integrated safeguards are given high priority. This reference is gone and so, presumably, the will of the conference to emphasise the need for safeguards reform. A new operative paragraph, later in the resolution, simply ‘encourages the Agency to continue to pursue the implementation of integrated safeguards in those states where both a comprehensive safeguards agreement and additional protocol are in force’.

Before the General Conference, there was talk that Russia had queried the state-level concept both privately and in the Board of Governors. The conference now requests ‘the Secretariat to report to the Board of Governors on the conceptualization and development of the State-level concept for safeguards’. This is significant, as it will force the Secretariat to clearly communicate what the state-level concept means, and how it will impact on safeguards implementation. Some are worried that the concept introduces a level of discrimination in the system. The state-level concept has always been designed with non-discrimination in mind, however, and the Secretariat now has the opportunity to explain this in more detail.

Other changes are more surprising. No longer is the General Conference urging the expansion of analytical capabilities in other countries, a main feature in the 2010 safeguards resolution. Rather, it is content with welcoming Agency efforts to strengthen the capabilities of its Seibersdorf laboratory as well as the Network of Analytical Laboratories. The Agency is encouraged to ‘enhance its technical capabilities and keep abreast of scientific and technological innovations that hold promising potential for safeguards purposes, and to continue building effective partnerships with Member States in this regard’. This language, which replaces older language on cooperation, ought to open up exciting new opportunities for collaboration with the IAEA in developing future generations of safeguards technologies.

Rather interestingly, the General Conference no longer acknowledges the the importance of giving members the opportunity to comment on the Safeguards Implementation Report.

There have also been a few additions. In the preamble, rather weak language has been added to note the conference’s recognition that ‘safeguards must be effective and implemented in an efficient manner, in accordance with relevant safeguards agreements,’ as well as a recognition that ‘the Agency's safeguards implementation is continually reviewed and evaluated by the Agency’. This language will hardly change the way the Agency is implementing safeguards.

More importantly, the resolution now emphasises ‘the obligation of states to cooperate with the Agency in order to facilitate the implementation of safeguards agreements’. The conference also ‘calls on the Agency to continue to exercise fully its authority in accordance with the Statute in the implementation of safeguards agreements’.

What’s in store for 2013?
Last year I argued that ‘it would be wise for those who care deeply about the Agency to use the coming year to rework the resolution into a text that is cleaner and more reflective of state views’. I also said that ‘it would also be sensible by those same delegates to think of ways in which the debate on the Agency’s role in broader verification is allowed to flow freely throughout the corridors of its General Conference’. (See ‘The (temporary) fall of the safeguards resolution’, 28 September 2011).

The resolution still has 30 operative paragraphs and a lot of preambular language. By way of comparison, the first ever safeguards resolution had three preambular and four operative paragraphs. The 2012 text is hardly cleaner, but given increasing support for it, perhaps more reflective of member state views.

Sadly, though, member states did not grasp the opportunity to allow the disarmament verification debate to enter into the conference. It is clear that the safeguards resolution is not the right place for this. It does have a place, however, given that many nuclear-weapon states seemed interested in at least debating the issue in 2011. The coming year should be spent thinking about how, not if, this debate should take place.

Protecting inspectors in the field

2012-08-24T17:01:00.000+01:00

Mark Hibbs’ recent post about the risks facing IAEA inspectors in Iran, should Israel decide to attack the country, gives rise to a number of pertinent questions relating to matters of both law and policy. They are not new by any means, but they are nevertheless important.

Broadly speaking, international inspectors are at risk every day at various hotspots around the world. Peacekeepers often risk their lives monitoring the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions or ceasefire agreements. Protection officers risk their lives recording the implementation of protection levels in respect to refugees. Indeed, since 1948, over 3,000 people have lost their lives in the service of the United Nations. As it happens, one of them was a childhood friend of mine, Tobias Boström Renström, who gave his life in the service of peace in the Former Yugoslavia in 1993. We served together, so I was asked to be the family representative at the ceremony where his coffin was flown home to Sweden. I later had to tell his parents about our mission—and why it was important—in the year that followed. Not an easy task for someone in his early twenties.

Since then, I’ve always been a strong believer in international civil (and military) service. I’ve also felt that those who put their lives on the line in the service of peace deserve the strongest protection that can be afforded them.

It is clear that the international organization itself has responsibility for its staff. It will suffer injury in the case of physical injury or death of an inspector (although they are likely to be insured).

The legality of an Israeli strike on Iran would be in serious doubt, and it is likely that it would be widely condemned by the international community (although it is quite possible that the reaction would be milder than the diplomatic storm following Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor).

Should an IAEA inspector, for instance, be injured, the organization also has the right to bring a claim against the state that caused the injury (if the injury involved a breach of that state’s international obligations toward the organization). This follows from the 1949 Reparations case in the International Court of Justice.

So, when it comes to international inspectors, it has been customary for states to give warning of an impending attack, allowing the United Nations to at least try to get their people out of harm’s way. If Israel should decide to attack, it could issue such a warning. This, though, would mean that it would at the same time warn Iran of the strike. It is unlikely that it would desire to do this.

Now, what about Iran’s responsibilities to keep the inspectors safe? It is the responsibility of the receiving state to ensure that diplomatic agents, and this includes international inspectors, are protected from physical and material harm. The principal document covering the protection of diplomatic agents—which includes agents of international organizations—is the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The convention applies in times of war, but the responsibility to protect is, naturally, not without limitations.

Should Iran find itself attacked, it would still need to take some steps to ensure the protection of diplomatic agents within its territory. It would, for instance, be required to grant facilities enabling these agents to leave the country. If need be, Iran would need to put transportation at their disposal to do so. If it allows inspectors to be harmed in any way, it would be in breach of the convention. This means that Iran would need to ensure that Agency inspectors have access to appropriate shelter, and that they are guarded against any potential public reaction to air strikes. The protection level afforded should be adjusted to reflect the level of threat.

Paradoxically, if Iran were to, say, strongly advise inspectors against conducting activities at its nuclear sites, international concerns over unsafeguarded materials would immediately flare up. If inspectors say ‘thanks for the advice’ and decide to continue to conduct inspectors, Iran cannot stop them. In other words, if Iran takes appropriate steps to protect the inspectors, but they place themselves in harm’s way nevertheless, it will be without blame.

At the end of the day, there is little one can do to guard against a surprise attack. Iran’s responsibility to protect is not unlimited. It stands to reason that if Iran lacks the appropriate means to respond to or prevent an incident it will not be breaching its responsibility to protect the inspection team. In other words, no one will expect Iran to be able to stop bombs or missiles targeting facilities where inspectors are present.

Simulating the CTBTO Executive Council

2012-08-02T14:14:00.001+01:00

On Friday, 20 July 2012, I was appointed Director-General of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Organization (CTBTO). At least I was in the simulated universe of the latest CTBTO Intensive Policy Course: Multilateral Verification, Collective Security: The Contribution of the CTBT. The course, which is part of the organization’s Capacity Development Initiative (or CDI for short), had over 450 participants. A fair number of those took part in the first-ever simulation of the prospective Executive Council in action.

When the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty enters into force, this Council will respond to member state requests, for inspection of another state’s territory, following some kind of detection event, and will decide whether an on-site inspection should go ahead. It will do so on the basis of data supplied by the CTBTO itself, but also by member states. In order for an inspection to be approved, the council needs 30 out of 51 votes in the affirmative.

The scenario played out in our simulation was anything but straightforward. On 18 July 2012 a seismic event was detected in the fictional state of Forestia. Pursuant to Article IV.29 of the Treaty, the fictional state of Equilibria requested clarification on the nature of the alleged event and also requested that the Director General provide additional information to the CTBTO pursuant to Article IV.31. In response to the request, Forestia explained that the event was a shallow natural earthquake and that it had never conducted a nuclear explosive test. That clarification was deemed unsatisfactory by Equilibria. It chose not to seek additional clarification and instead requested an on-site inspection pursuant to Article IV.34.

The underlying assumption was that the event could be one of four possibilities: a seismic event as claimed by Forestia, a low-yield nuclear explosion, a failed nuclear test, or an explosive test without nuclear yield.

The simulation ran on a very compressed timeline. Three plenary meetings, each lasting an hour and a half, were to represent the 96 hours that the Executive Council has to reach an agreement. At the end of this a vote had to be taken, unless Equilibria decided to withdraw its request.

As the deliberations of the council got underway, technical briefings were supplied by the CTBTO secretariat and by a member state. Each briefing gave rise to more questions, and more uncertainty. The briefing from the member state in particular was almost scorned by some council members, as it was based on inconclusive satellite imagery.

Guided by the chair from “Algeria”, state parties presented their arguments. There was no shortage of interventions, and he had to cut the list short in each session. I had to introduce each technical briefing, and give an account of the state of preparations within the CTBTO. The real role of the Director-General, though, was to offer concrete technical advice to the chair. It was essential that both the DG and the chair worked together, attempting to solve the underlying issues, and bring clarity to the discussion unfolding before us. It was clear for us on the bench, by the second session, that the Equilibrians would not get the required 30 votes.

Radionuclide data could only be presented in the final session, and it was largely inconclusive. Xenon-133m, associated with nuclear fission, was detected by the CTBTO sensor-network, but the release could not be back-tracked to Forestria. By that time, “Hungary” had admitted to a release of some radionuclides from its territory, and Forestria had stated that the explosion was, in fact, a very large conventional explosion. In an emotional statement, Forestria explained that a large ammunitions depot had exploded, claiming more than 100 lives.

As the clock ticked on, and the deadline loomed, the situation became complicated. Would the Equilibrians be satisfied with the explanation and withdraw its request, or would we have to go to a vote? An inspection is costly, and ought to be avoided if there are other solutions available. The tension in the room was palpable as the chair, Mr. Stein, called recess after recess for consultations. At first, the Equilibrian government would not budge.

Intensive discussions on how to proceed. Image credit: CTBTO.

In the end, the DG and the chair negotiated a solution under the treaty’s confidence-building measures provisions. According to article IV.68 of the treaty, state parties undertake to cooperate with the CTBTO in resolving compliance concerns arising from the possible misinterpretation of verification data relating to chemical explosions. Mr. Stein suggested that the CTBTO send in a team of specialists to visit the explosion site, and take radiological measurements. Equilibrian personnel would supplement this team. Forestria pledged to cooperate. There was concern, both within the CTBTO and by some state parties, that Forestria could use this opportunity to cover up after an explosion. Given the inconclusive information, however, we judged this risk as small. On balance, Forestria’s explanation made a better fit with the data.

Equilibria agreed to withdraw its OSI request if the Executive Council were to affirm this arrangement by consensus. With 15 minutes to go, Mr. Stein read out the arrangement and asked if the council could decide on this. As there were no objections, the gavel went down. The meeting was closed by thunderous applause and a great noise from those delegations which were not fully involved in the last minute consultations. Our chairman leaned over and whispered that that was the single most stressful experience of his life. I was inclined to agree.

Delegates applaud the outcome of deliberations. Image credit: CTBTO.

Many lessons were learned during this exercise, the vast majority procedural. However, one lesson came out above all others. It is essential that data is explained clearly and unambiguously if state parties are expected to reach a decision. More work can be done here, preferable through more exercises of this kind. One thing is certain, after all: practice makes perfect.

Previewing the NPT PrepCom

2012-05-03T12:07:00.001+01:00

It has been a while since I updated this site. Directorship is, as my readers may suspect, a rather pressing business. I am grateful that so many of you still visit this page despite its continuing recession. I suppose it has become a resource of sorts, which is why I decided to continue to pay the hosting fees to keep it up for another year.

Next Tuesday, 8 May 2012, is an interesting day for our organization. We are flying a rather big team to Vienna to descent like fireflies on the NPT PrepCom. In a matter of hours, we’ll be holding two events. The following day, most of us will be on a flight back to London. In other words, we’re planning the NGO equivalent of a hit and run.

The morning event, organized by David Cliff and David Keir, will look at the issue of disarmament verification by intergovernmental organizations. This is something we’ve been working on for a while together with a small number of partner governments. We’ll also have a representative from the New Agenda Coalition attending, presenting their views on disarmament verification, so it’s set up to be an exciting meeting. I’ve had a look at my own team’s presentations, and they look good. You will have plenty of things to unpack from the technical presentation in particular.

The afternoon event is hosted by the US Department of Energy and will highlight national efforts to promote the effective implementation of the IAEA Additional Protocol. Some of you will recall that we prowled the General Conference last year, talking to some select governments about this, trying to judge support for a charity-based, UK centred, assistance programme. We found that there was demand for a service of this kind. Our kind funder has therefore decided to push some money our way, to move us halfway to full phase. We will release more details on our upcoming project next Tuesday.

VERTIC will also take the opportunity, at that presentation, to launch its expansion of National Implementation into ‘true CBRN’, as we call it internally. For more than a year – almost two years in fact – we have been working on a report on the Illicit Trafficking of Nuclear and Radioactive material. Sadly, we won’t have it ready for hard-copy distribution by Tuesday, but it will be available on the web.

Personally, I am very happy with the cover design. It took some time for us to choose the absolutely right cover picture – and this one, I think, is quite cool.

The choice is quite deliberate. It will be interesting to see if anyone figures it out.

Subsidiary Arrangements

2012-03-29T18:54:00.000+01:00

It is often difficult, even for those that specialize in verification, to get a grip on how the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) safeguards system actually works. Most would know that it involves the state declaring that they have a certain amount of material, with the IAEA checking that the declaration is correct. But how does the inspectors actually go about checking this, and how do states in practice declare their fissile material holdings?

A new set of documents on the Agency website shows just that. A little gem of a page can be found hidden in a crevice deep inside the Agency’s sprawling website. This page contains a collection of documents, aptly named ‘resources for states’, and is designed to help countries implement their safeguards obligations. The collection is by no means easy to read, and only a mad person (or someone terribly committed to safeguards) would attempt to analyse in a web-entry what they all contain.

In a nutshell, however, they give out the how, what, when and why of practical safeguards implementation. They give examples of how to fill out declarations, what forms to use, and how to use them. And they give fantastic tabular examples of how inspections are supposed to be conducted in practice. Previously, this kind of information used to be guarded. When VERTIC, for instance, conducted a study on Iran many years ago, we had to ask member states for subsidiary arrangement language, or detail on what is contained in the Codes. We got access to most of what we needed, but only after a long period of time.

The release of this documentation can only be welcomed. There is considerable confusion in the public debate on what Codes actually say and mean – the debate about Iran’s Code 3.1 springs to mind – and this set of documents will end some of that debate. Of course, the information is still undigested, and most people will not bother to read it. Nevertheless, these new documents will come in handy for those striving for exactitude in their facts, and precision in their arguments. The data is also very useful when comparing with the implementation documents of other arms control regimes – such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty On-Site Inspection Manual or the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Inspection Manual. The IAEA, and its Department of Safeguards, ought to be commended for their decision.

Now, of course, it would be equally good if the IAEA were to convince its member states to also release the unabridged version of the Safeguards Implementation Report to the general public. It does contain exceptionally useful data on how well the system works in practice, and how well the organization hits their timeliness and quantity goals. Recently, also, it has started to feature some really interesting financial data, allowing the member states to see how much (or rather how little) the safeguards system actually costs. Safeguards are done on the cheap, and the IAEA should not really have to beg on its knees to secure necessary budget increases. That’s a discussion to be had in the future, however.

Crossposted from the VERTIC blog.

Iran and the Board of Governors

2011-11-17T10:27:00.001Z

Cross-posted from the VERTIC blog.

By Hugh Chalmers, Andreas Persbo and Sonya Pillay.

When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors meet this week, the 35 member-state representatives will have some important decisions to make. Last Tuesday’s IAEA report on Iran has yet again stirred intense debate over the nature of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and the appropriate policy responses. While certain states may advocate particular responses to the disclosures contained in this document, ultimately the appropriate multilateral response will come through the Board of Governors. In the light cast by the clear and detailed case against Iran contained within the Director General’s report, what could or should the Board of Governors do?

Thankfully, both the IAEA Board of Governors and the UN Security Council are well practiced at responding to revelations concerning Iran’s nuclear programme. Over the last eight years, the Board has adopted ten resolutions in relation to safeguards in Iran. Over the past five, the UN Security Council has similarly adopted six resolutions on Iran, including demands to halt enrichment and reprocessing activities, and extensive economic sanctions. This latest report demonstrates however that the IAEA still has “serious concerns regarding the possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear programme. It is clear that the multilateral approach up to now has neither arrested the development of Iran’s enrichment activities, nor prompted Iran to bridge the daunting gap in confidence between itself and the IAEA.

It is therefore worth considering whether last Tuesday’s report contains new, reliable and compelling information which could form the basis of a new strategy from the IAEA Board of Governors.

Old information in a new box?
For the Board of Governors, some aspects of the new report will make for familiar reading. In particular, the pages which cover the results of recent IAEA safeguards inspection activities at declared facilities in Iran. Physical inventory verification (PIV) and design information questionnaire (DIQ) verification activities, which are the bread-and-butter of Agency verification activities, give no indication of undeclared nuclear activities. This is not surprising, given that the safeguards system is not designed to reveal evidence of covert nuclear weapons programmes. In respect to nuclear materials, however, the system works fine. The Director-General summarises that the Agency “continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material”. From this perspective, Agency safeguards have successfully verified one fundamental aspect of declared Iranian activity; their correctness.

However, it is unable to provide “credible assurance” that these declarations are complete. Again, this makes for familiar reading. Iran has previously omitted important nuclear-related materials and activities from its declarations (see GOV/2003/75). However, the Agency has yet to acquire sufficient information from Iran, through either existing safeguards agreements or ad-hoc arrangements, to allay fears that Iran still hides aspects of its nuclear programme.

While Iran withholds information, the Agency has acquired information from a number of other sources which only heightens their concerns. This information indicates that Iran has indeed been attempting to develop undeclared pathways to nuclear material production and use, and that these activities may even be militarily related. Further information regarding non-nuclear activities such as missile R&D, explosive testing and neutron source development has catalysed international fears that Iran has been, and could still be, pursuing nuclear weapons.

Although these fears are also familiar to the Board of Governors, the manner in which they are communicated in the new report will seem completely unfamiliar. For the first time, the accumulated information on the possible military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear programme has been clearly and systematically laid out in a 15-page Annex to the report.

The majority of the detail contained within this annex has been accumulated by the Agency over a period of time from a number of different sources, and does not necessarily represent new information.

For instance, information relating to the manufacturing of undeclared uranium metals, the testing of high explosive lenses and the re-design of missile re-entry vehicles was provided to the Agency by a member state in 2005. Ten other member states have also provided the Agency with further intelligence regarding suspicious procurement activities. Aspects of this multi-source, shared intelligence have since made their way into open sources.

It is rather ironic that Iran itself has played a part in providing suspicious information to the IAEA. Between 2003 and 2006, Iran was forced to acknowledged that it had had contact with intermediaries of a clandestine nuclear supply network, and that this network had supplied procedures for producing uranium metals and enriched uranium metal hemispheres. Iran subsequently claimed that these procedures were supplied unsolicited. Finally, the Agency itself has collected evidence through open sources, satellite imagery, interviews and importantly through the safeguards activities it conducts in Iran.

Information validation in question?
Having drawn from such a variety of sources, the Agency goes to some length to describe how they concluded that the accumulated information is credible. The report states that the body of evidence has been “carefully and critically examined” and meetings have been held with states who have shared intelligence ascertain the reliability of sources. According to the Agency, despite comprising a large volume of information gleaned from a variety of sources, the evidence is “consistent in terms of technical content, individuals and organisations involved, and time frames”. It is clear that considerable effort has been made to assess not only the reliability of the sources, but also the consistency of the information.

This does not necessarily mean that the information presented is infallible or undisputed. Indeed, although Iran has acknowledged certain elements of the information, and claims to have successfully addressed the Agency’s concerns, Tehran rejects the more incriminating aspects as either forgeries or fabrications. The inclusion of a large amount of information from member states to some extent prevents these accusations from being entirely rebuffed. The IAEA itself has only been able to directly examine small portions of the original sources, and Iran has not been able to examine any. Theoretically, the consistency that seems key to the Agency’s assessment of credibility is simple to achieve if sources are either forged or fabricated.

Unfortunately, while Iran continues to withhold information requested by the Agency, and without the extra verification tools provided by the Additional Protocol, the Agency has few other information sources available. When one considers their nuclear mandate, the Agency’s access to, and use of, information relating to non-nuclear activities also becomes debatable. In particular, activities such as the development of detonators, the testing of explosive initiators, and the design of missile re-entry vehicles are not strictly nuclear-related. Here the Agency points out that although these activities do not relate directly to nuclear materials, there are few plausible explanations which do not ultimately lead to the development of a nuclear weapon.

This leaves the Agency in a bit of a bind. The information that they can collect through safeguards agreements and other Agency activities may be contemporary and simple to assess, but without full Iranian disclosure it can also be innocuous. Information acquired from member states may be potent, but when assessing the source is challenging, drawing conclusions from this information alone is risky. Finally, it is debatable whether or not the Agency has the authority to investigate activities that are not strictly related to nuclear activities.

Given the Agency’s limited ability to collect fresh information, it is not surprising that the report does not draw conclusions as to the present state of Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme. Indeed, as Mark Hibbs has noted in a recent article in Foreign Affairs, the Agency stops short of accusing Tehran of “masterminding” a secret nuclear programme. The Agency is certainly aware that establishing the credibility of their information is highly important, and it has gone to great lengths to achieve this. In fact, they reportedly went as far as calling telephone numbers written on some of the documents. The numbers checked out. While accusations of fraud and fabrication will likely remain, the onus is now more than ever on Tehran to provide more information to defend their case.

Information authenticity in an age of deception
During the Second World War, the Soviet Union successfully deployed, some would say mastered, the operational art of military deception. One of their main conclusions were that successful strategic deception depended entirely on the thoroughness of preparations on the tactical level. Both movement security, but above all communications discipline, had to be stringently enforced. But it was more than that. David Glantz argues in his book ‘Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War’ that the Germans had themselves to blame for falling for the Soviet tricks. The German High Command based their decisions on prejudice about the strength and competence of their enemy, in part due to bad pre-war estimates of Soviet strength.

In this case, however, the body of IAEA evidence points to a number of troubling conclusions. First, that the Iranian government established their nuclear program with a weapons purpose in mind. Second, that most of the weapons work may have stopped because the programme was exposed. And third, that some of the weapons work may be on-going. While all of this has been said before, the technical annex puts it all in a rather uncompromising new light.

The gravity of these conclusions are such that decisions on war and peace may hang in the balance. Such matters should, as the Germans found out during the Second World War, not be decided on prejudice and flawed intelligence. More intelligence is needed, and the Board of Governors has a critically important role to play.

In past resolutions on Iran’s nuclear programme, the Board has urged the Iranian government to comply with its own resolutions on the matter, as well as those issued by the UN Security Council. In addition, the Board has urged Iran to engage with the Agency on the resolution of all outstanding issues concerning Iran’s nuclear programme. To this end, they have asked the government to cooperate fully with the IAEA by providing such access and information that the Agency requests to resolve these issues. The Board has also asked Iran, perhaps too politely, to fully implement its Additional Protocol, and adhere to other technical instruments that would turn up the flow of safeguards information. These calls are important, and should be reiterated.

In addition, however, the role of the IAEA Secretariat needs to be clarified. In our own view, the Board ought to give its secretariat a clear mandate to investigate weaponization issues. This includes looking into how Iranian nuclear research relates to the development of high explosives, as well as the relationship with potential means of delivery. It also includes fully engaging with other organizations, for instance the CTBTO, on matters such as indicators of nuclear test site preparations.

The (temporary) fall of the safeguards resolution

2011-09-28T12:59:00.001+01:00

Cross posted from the VERTIC blog.

As some may have noticed, last week’s IAEA General Conference ended without member states being able to agree on a safeguards resolution. Reuters put the blame on some member states, quoting two Western envoys. This story was picked up by Global Security Newswire on 27 September. While there is some truth to the story, it doesn’t pick up on all the complexities of the debate.

I followed the safeguards discussion for at least three years, during a time when there was no problem for non-governmental delegates to attend. In fact, I remember being pulled into the room by a colleague from an important Western state who said, “all the action is in this room, and the rest of the conference is boring”.

It was a quiet time, not many non-governmental organizations were roaming the hallways, and the only non-IAEA colleague I can remember was Mark Hibbs, who then worked at Platts Nuclear Fuels. For the last two years, however, I have been too busy with bilateral meetings and those other matters that take up a director’s time. Since then, I have lost touch with the people in that room (for they were always the same crowd) and their mission to come up with the perfect formula.

Now, I understand the Secretariat, pushed by a few member states, has become much stricter in controlling access to this room. This is unfortunate, since it allows for subjectively biased information to appear unchallenged in the open domain. In addition, some of our younger colleagues have also been ejected rudely from the rooms in a way that, if these young friends have recollected correctly, has reflected badly on the Secretariat. Indeed, less discontent – not more – is needed in the hallways of the M-building. And while I hope that this is not a continuing trend, my intuition tells me attitudes will become worse before they become better.

But let’s go back to the safeguards resolution. Over the years, the main struggle has principally been between states who wish to reflect and promote the development of a stronger safeguards standard, and those who want to block collective support of this. Indeed, earlier in the week, there was even a tendency by a minority to resist the idea of “information driven safeguards”. There is also resistance against any language that hints that the Additional Protocol may become the new safeguards standard. That intrusiveness is not welcomed, nor thought needed, by all states. This division was reflected in the safeguards resolution.

Indeed, the debate may be at its fiercest in this little room at the General Conference, but the shockwaves can be felt beyond its walls, for instance throughout the NPT Review Conference cycle. Anyone examining the final document of last year’s conference will find scars of this disagreement running throughout. The discussions in Austria are not new, and the outcome, frankly, not that surprising.

So, disarmament language may have been one source of discontent this year, but it is not the main battle ground, and I dare say that it will not be for the foreseeable future. Indeed, the objection to including disarmament language, and I remember such language being suggested more than two years ago, is mostly procedural. The safeguards resolution ought to deal with safeguards matters, the argument goes. Other roles of the IAEA should be dealt with through other means. True, there is a minority of nuclear weapon states that may resist the inclusion on substantial grounds (and I think we know who they are), but their views have never been fully articulated. There are also those that believe that nuclear disarmament indeed falls under the Agency’s safeguards mandate. After all, the IAEA Statute refers to “safeguarded worldwide disarmament”. Also, the mandate in Article III.A.5 does not exclude an Agency role in safeguarding weapons usable material. On the contrary, it seem to foresee it.

Personally, though, I agree with the first view. Over the years, the word safeguards have come to mean instruments deployed mostly in non-nuclear weapon states. Its usage has been strongly associated with non-proliferation. Altering the meaning now is bound to lead to resistance, and perhaps confusion.

In addition, the safeguards resolution is already too clumsy, too long, too vague, and too meaningless to matter that much. After a long preamble, one would expect to find some exciting operative language. Alas, the resolution simply continues with more preamble language, making the entire document one long tiring list of ideals, soft welcoming statements, with one or two twists embedded for show. As the years have passed, revisions have been added to revisions, suggestions interbred with suggestions, and confusion squared with confusion. I stopped reading it some time ago and I’m not surprised that some Agency officials just shrugged at its absence this year.

Some will see this is a great setback. Others, to paraphrase a close colleague in Vienna, will simply see this as an accurate reflection of the state of affairs and the divergence of views in the house. I see this is a great opportunity.

It would be wise for those who care deeply about the Agency to use the coming year to rework the resolution into a text that is cleaner and more reflective of state views. Most delegates in the safeguards resolution working group are passionate supporters of the Agency, and its role. It would also be sensible by those same delegates to think of ways in which the debate on the Agency’s role in broader verification is allowed to flow freely throughout the corridors of its General Conference.

Verification conference

2011-07-19T16:56:00.000+01:00

Richard Burge, the Chief Executive of Wilton Park, has posted a small piece on the verification conference that our respective outfits held back in June. We only convened for three days, but it was a quite intensive experience nevertheless.

I can only agree with Richard’s conclusion below, that ‘If the means of conducting verification are not integral to the construction of a treaty, and if the measurements are not agreed before the treaty is signed, then at worst failure or at best ineffectiveness is the likely end result’.

Verification provisions do not need to be fool-proof. Even relatively modest detection probabilities can serve as a deterrent for states contemplating bending the rules. However, that’s just part of the equation. The verification regime itself provides the treaty with focus and a sense of commonality. Without such regimes, treaty implementation may drift as political attention wanders off.

I am personally looking forward to working with Richard and his very capable team in the years to come.

Below cross-posted from the FCO's Wilton Park Blog.

An absence of trust; the peril of ignoring the verification of treaties

Richard Burge, Chief Executive, writes:

This may come as a bit of a shock, but you simply cannot rely on some nations to do what they agree to in international treaties or what they promise at global conventions. So we need to check. Apart from the fact that nations may feel slighted if their word is not taken on trust, surely this is a simple exercise. As we have found out at Wilton Park, verification is complicated. We have also realised that without effective and scientifically robust verification, confidence in treaties can be compromised or undermined. This is true for obligations that derive from socially-based treaties as much as those from a science-base. It is disarmament, especially that associated with weapons of mass destruction where most experience has been gained in what sort of verification works and how your prepare for it.

At a recent conference, we brought together “verifiers” (a modern profession but you wonder if Chaucer had been able to have written The Verifiers Tale, would we be further along this path) who worked across the range of treaties where verification is essential; biological weapons, whale conservationists, carbon emission specialists, political economists, and auditors. The commonality of their skills, their techniques and their problems were astonishing.

But what struck me most, as an inexpert observer, was a single dominant and common factor. If the means of conducting verification are not integral to the construction of a treaty, and if the measurements are not agreed before the treaty is signed, then at worst failure or at best ineffectiveness is the likely end result. Alas, in the political rush to agree treaties in order to stop an on-coming disaster or to forestall an impending conflict, we often leave the verification process to be resolved at a later date. And when that later date is reached, those who did not want the treaty in the first place or for whom the failure to deliver treaty obligations is a matter of nation convenience, can finally have their way.

The Syria Probe

2011-05-26T14:51:00.001+01:00

Cross-posted from VERTIC's blog.

Director-General Amano has recently given an interview stating that Syria may indeed have built a nuclear reactor. In an interview with Reuters, he has at a minimum said that he has ‘information that indicates that this is the case’. Some speculated that this means the Secretariat is preparing to have the country reported to the UN Security Council. The Agency’s recently released report on the country (GOV/2011/30), however, is ambiguous.

Most in the non-proliferation community know the story by now. Israel bombed a site in September 2007. Suspicions soon arose that the site might have hosted a graphite-moderated natural-uranium fuelled reactor. Eventually, The International Atomic Energy Agency, which at first did not comment on the event, was allowed to look into the matter in June 2008. This was long after the Syrian authorities—in literal cover-up—had demolished the ruins, removed all debris, sent it off or buried it and scraped away some soil to top it all off.

The Agency’s inspectors, strolling around the site in the hot Syrian summer, took samples from an area just outside the cleared site. The results were telling: particles of anthropogenic (processed) natural uranium, graphite, and stainless steel. The presence of this material strongly suggested the vanished site had been a reactor, and possibly that fuel was present. The latter is uncertain, as Syria has no known fuel fabrication plant, but possible. Israeli officials, speaking to VERTIC on condition of anonymity, have all stressed the reactor was close to operational status, and have suggested that fuel was ready to be loaded into the reactor. The Syrians have claimed the natural uranium comes from Israeli munitions.

The IAEA has tried to engage with the Syrian government. Letters have been exchanged but the country’s authorities have not been forthcoming. The government has stonewalled any requests about, among other matters, technical documentation related to the construction of the building.

Syria’s attempt to cover up has complicated on-site inspections. However, the overhead imagery, released several years ago, and supplemented by authenticated ground images of the site, together forms a convincing body of evidence. This body has been convincing enough for many to argue that the burden of proof now lies with the Syrian government.

The latest IAEA report now firmly puts the onus on the Syrians. A careful analysis of overhead imagery, a technical analysis of the water piping arrangement supporting the building as well as an assessment of electrical supplies, all points, in the IAEA’s assessment, to the building being a clandestinely built reactor.

As for the uranium, the IAEA ‘has not been able to determine the origin of the particles’. Many suggestions have been offered, including the supply of fresh fuel from North Korea. But so far, few convincing hypothesises has been brought to the table. The existence of an undeclared fuel manufacturing plant cannot be ruled out.

On balance, the IAEA infers the reactor was ‘very likely’ a nuclear reactor, and so should have been declared to the Agency under articles 42 and 43 of Syria’s safeguards agreement.

The problem with very likely violations
The language in the Director-General’s report puts the Board of Governors in a difficult place. The report does not contain any firm recommendations—it does not even firmly state that the Secretariat finds itself unable to verify that all nuclear material in the country remains in peaceful use. Instead, the secretariat simple notes the ‘very likely’ former presence of a clandestine nuclear facility in one of its member states. Governors wishing to argue for stronger measures against Syria will find them faced with a predictable counter-argument. A violation has not been confirmed, after all, it is simply likely. ‘And by the way’, the opposing side might argue, ‘the report contains nothing on whether nuclear material has been diverted’. Most governors will probably scratch their heads, thinking the report does not add much to the state of knowledge, or rather lack of knowledge, about Syria’s nuclear programme.

It is now up to the Board to assess the Director-General’s report and decide what to do with it. In my mind, there are three choices: call a special inspection, refer the case direct to the UN Security Council, or do nothing.

Calling the inspection…

Some have been calling on the IAEA to call for a special inspection in Syria, which undoubtably would raise the diplomatic stakes (see Special Inspections, 4 March 2011).

For sure, calling a special inspection, or referring Syria to the Security Council in some other manner, would be problematic for the country, which is already facing unilateral sanctions by the United States. However, it is doubtful that the inspection call would be dealt with at once by the ministries in Damascus. The government is in all likelihood focussed on the domestic situation, which has been decaying steadily over the last few months. And even if it were not, it is not likely to play along with the request. It would first try to stall it for as long as it could. It would then either do as North Korea, break off any attempts to enforce the inspection, or engage in a piecemeal fashion, as it has already.

On the other hand, modern on-site inspection techniques (especially so environmental sampling) has yielded impressive detection rates. Syria would need to be convinced that the inspection team will not find any rouge particles, mislaid documentation, or errant memory sticks loaded with North Korean designs anywhere.

…going straight to the Council…

Going straight to the Council is theoretically possible. It may also be the preferred choice for many governments seeking to increase the pressure on Damascus. Syria’s actions against its own people have made most states open to the direct action route. However, it is not without its difficulties. Some would argue that it makes no sense to go to the Council as long as the Secretariat still has authority to continue the probe. They would also reiterate that no violation has been proved, simply a likely one. Others are likely to challenge the Secretariat’s conclusions on technical grounds.

Syria still has regional friends, who would not want to see the country censored in an international forum. The question is how many friends it may have left. As the repression of the Syrian people intensifies, the country is finding itself increasingly isolated, and increasingly vulnerable. For sure, being censured by the United Nations as a country that seeks weapons of mass destruction, on top of one that violates fundamental human rights, will not be in Damascus best interests. As well as piling up the international pressure, and perhaps even fuelling domestic dissent, it will make the task to recover the country’s lost standing difficult. It may be that the Board would want to exploit this window of vulnerability. The threat of stepped up diplomatic censure may force Damascus to play along with the inspection process, at least for a while.

…or doing nothing.

The final alternative would be to decide to be undecided. This is likely if the Board debate becomes exceptionally fractured and divisive. The so-called Vienna spirit has been badly damaged in later years, and attempts to rebuild it have been lackluster at best. Some governors might feel that Syria isn’t worth the row—even if the site was a nuclear reactor, and that is ‘very likely’ after all, it doesn’t pose much of a threat anymore. So why bother?

The problem, however, is not what we know, but what we don’t know. While we know that the Syrian reactor has vanished from the face of the Earth, we do not have any further understanding on what else might hide in the Syrian desert. This might be one compelling reason to act.

Another reason is more diffuse, and relates to the credibility of the non-proliferation regime as a whole. If no action is taken, it would be argued, Syria’s actions will show that it is possible to openly flout the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and to turn its back to the safeguards regime, without reaction. And this, some would argue, is not a good signal to send to other potential seekers of the Bomb.

Centrifuge disclosure illustrates value of Additional Protocol

2011-05-04T19:04:00.001+01:00

Our intern Mikael Shirazi has written an excellent piece on a recently disclosed Iranian centrifuge manufacturing facility and the case for the Additional Protocol which this gives raise to. It very nicely illustrates how the IAEA’s knowledge of the full fuel cycle deteriorates with time.

Copied and pasted from the VERTIC website:

The recently-disclosed existence an Iranian manufacturing facility involved in the production of centrifuge components for uranium enrichment serves as a useful illustration of the verification problems associated with the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme. Whilst not a breach of its duties under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the revelation does not build confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iranian nuclear program and illustrates the value of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol in allaying proliferation concerns.

TABA
At a 7 April press conference in Washington, DC, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) exposed the role of the TABA plant in producing centrifuge parts for Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment programme. According to the NCRI, TABA manufactures ‘casing, magnets, molecular pumps, composite tubes, bellows, and centrifuge bases’ primarily for the current generation of machines—but also for emerging next-generation centrifuges.

The NCRI further claimed that the plant had been operating for almost five years and had already produced parts for over 100,000 centrifuge machines—though a number of analysts appear sceptical of this high figure. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi responded soon afterwards by confirming the existence of the site and its involvement in centrifuge production, but he denied that any attempts had been made to deliberately disguise its use. ‘It is in no way secret’, he said. ‘There are plenty of factories in the country that manufacture equipment needed by the Bushehr power plant and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran’.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Tehran's envoy to the IAEA, also refuted any allegations of concealment, pointing out that no provisions in the NPT’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) requires such manufacturing installations to be monitored and that ‘the NPT merely requires inspection of centrifuge machines.’ Despite these protestations, doubts concerning Iran’s commitment to openness on these issues continue. According to the satellite images provided by the NCRI (as the only evidence for their claims), TABA is located in a nondescript industrial park roughly 80 miles from Tehran and has few distinguishing features. The facility’s generic name—a Farsi abbreviation of ‘Towlid Abzar Boreshi Iran’, meaning ‘Iran Cutting Tools Company’—also gives little away. Such a lack of distinguishing features raises concerns about the ease with which these facilities may be set up covertly, subsequently diverting sensitive equipment to other secret nuclear sites in pursuit of a clandestine weapons program. Which begs the question: how much about Iran’s centrifuge production capabilities is actually known?

Centrifuge manufacturing in Iran
Most information that is publicly available on the uranium enrichment programme was gathered between November 2004 and February 2006, when Iran agreed to implement the IAEA Additional Protocol on a voluntary basis, granting far more intrusive access than was provided by its CSA (to which it has since reverted). This information, in turn, was dated to the period before late 2003, at which point the nuclear programme was suspended for three years after the revelation of its existence internationally. (TABA was reportedly established after February 2006—that is, after Iran turned its back on its Additional Protocol.)

According to a report by proliferation expert David Albright, based on the IAEA investigations, the two central organisations involved were Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), which was primarily in charge of development and testing, and the Defence Industries Organization (DIO), which was primarily in charge of manufacturing and assembly.

The AEOI conducted most of its testing operations before 2002 through a company named Kalaye Electric, originally a clock factory which it acquired in the 1990s. It is believed since 2002 to be producing component parts. Much like TABA, a generic name (which translates as ‘Electric Goods Company’) and nondescript facilities in an industrial park obscured its purpose. Kalaye was the primary tester and developer of the current ‘P-1’ generation of centrifuges, and is now also believed to be working on more advanced designs. Farayand Technique, a subsidiary of Kalaye, conducted quality control activities for centrifuge parts such as rotors, and made and assembled parts of the centrifuge’s bottom bearing. Another subsidiary, Pars Trash (originally an automobile part factory), manufactured the thick aluminium tubes which encase centrifuge machines.

Since 2002, centrifuge development, testing and assembly operations have been directed from the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz, which also houses Iran’s primary uranium enrichment site. The DIO conducted its manufacturing operations mostly via 7th of Tir Industries, a well-guarded complex in Esfahan which was also involved in missile production. Here, around 20 important rotating centrifuge parts were produced, including the bellows critical to the Iranian P-1 design. Another DIO contractor, Khorasan Metallurgy Industries and its subsidiary Kaveh Cutting Tools Complex, made simpler stationary P-1 components such as its scoops and molecular pumps. The DIO-affiliated Sanam Electronic Industry Group was another facility involved in centrifuge production in an unspecified capacity. An unnamed father-and-son workshop in Tehran also made the P-1 motor, a relatively simple part comparable to that of a vacuum cleaner. In addition to Albright’s list, two other institutions have been mentioned in this regard.

In August 2006, after Iran ended its voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol, the NCRI claimed another company had been set up identified by the acronym TSA—or ‘Iran Centrifuge Technology Company’ in English. TSA had apparently absorbed the staff and facilities of Farayand Technique and Pars Trash, and is currently on the British WMD End-Use Control Export List. Another company, Abzar Boresh Kaveh Co., was sanctioned in Annex III of UN Security Council Resolution 1803 (2008) for being ‘involved in the production of centrifuge components’, though in what capacity is not elaborated by the resolution. The Annex likewise included Khorasan Metallurgy and Sanam Electronic. A prior resolution, number 1737 (2006), also included the AEOI, DIO, Kalaye Electric, Farayand Technique, Pars Trash and 7th of Tir in its sanctions regime.

Deteriorating understanding
We can now add to this list the TABA facility as a known production centre—but it is unlikely that this discovery alone will be particularly helpful in understanding Iran’s centrifuge production capacity. The information sketched out above shows how, prior to 2003, this capacity consisted of a network of very small-to-medium sized facilities spread across Tehran and other cities. Such a system allows for the diversification and dispersal of facilities, making detection (and, perhaps not incidentally, destruction) more difficult. It may be that such a network still exists today, with TABA as only one cog in the machine. Furthermore, the above list was out of date even as Albright compiled it in 2008. The interrelationship between these entities is now unclear (as is whether they still function at all), and the possible existence of TSA and other companies exemplifies the difficulty of gathering reliable information on an industry where relatively small workshops in unremarkable buildings can play an important part in the manufacturing process. Names can be changed, and equipment can be transported and set up relatively quickly.

Though it is not publicly known what further information has been gathered by foreign intelligence agencies, it would seem that International Atomic Energy Agency’s understanding of Iran’s centrifuge production complex is relatively poor, and deteriorating as time passes from Iran’s termination of its adherence to the Additional Protocol. This lack of knowledge offers the Iranian authorities the possibility—should they so choose—of secretly sending centrifuges to a hidden enrichment installation to produce weapons grade fissile material. It is a possibility that unsettles many governments, and recent announcements of the development of more efficient centrifuge designs will do nothing whatsoever to assuage their concerns.

The IR-2m and IR-4 centrifuges, which some reports suggest are able to enrich uranium at up to five times the rate of the P-1, appear to have moved to an advanced testing phase at the PFEP. If they enter into mass production, this could mean fewer centrifuges would be needed at a smaller secret site to produce fissile material, or they could shorten the time in which this can be accomplished.

Establishing a sound understanding of the Iranian centrifuge production would help to build international confidence in the ostensibly peaceful nature of its nuclear program, by ensuring that all equipment produced is used appropriately. Iran has correctly indicated that under the current verification regime—a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement signed with the IAEA in 1974—there is no strict obligation to declare centrifuge production facilities. The 1974 agreement largely focuses on nuclear material accountancy, and guarantees IAEA access only to those facilities through which such material passes. This includes reactors, conversion plants, fabrication plants, reprocessing plants, isotope separation plants, separate storage installations, or any location where significant amounts of nuclear material is customarily used—but there are no requirements regarding centrifuge production facilities.

By contrast, the information detailed above was almost entirely gathered via the provisions in the Additional Protocol, which Iran has signed but not ratified and to which it temporarily adhered between November 2004 and February 2006. The Model Additional Protocol specifies in Article 2.a.(iv) that the participating state must provide the IAEA with a description of the scale of operations involved in centrifuge production. According to Annex I, this means the manufacture of centrifuge rotor tubes or the assembly of gas centrifuges. This is further detailed in Annex II, which describes the various components that function with centrifuges: for example, rotor assemblies, rotor tubes, bellows, baffles, top and bottom caps, magnetic suspension bearings, molecular pumps, motor stators, centrifuge housings, and scoops, among others. The Additional Protocol therefore constitutes a much more robust mechanism with regards to those verification difficulties currently experienced in Iran, and its restoration would be the most reliable way to shed light on the issue.

BWC Verification: This is not the time to forget the gap

2011-03-25T12:32:00.000Z

As some may have noticed, VERTIC has submitted a short piece on the the BWPP website. That's an abridged version of a longer article, which I'm reproducing here in full:

Verification and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
Verification remains a missing component for a sturdy international prohibition on the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological weapons. This year, the parties to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) will hold their seventh review conference. In the lead-up to this event, key state parties may want to review their positions on whether and, if so, how this treaty could be verified.

Beyond doubt, it will be challenging to build a fool-proof verification regime. But at least the nature of the challenge is well defined. The two main questions contained in the mandate of the Ad-Hoc Group of Governmental Experts to Identify and Examine Potential Verification Measures from a Scientific and Technical Standpoint (VEREX) remain valid. A verification system should be able to answer:

Whether a State Party is developing, producing, stockpiling, acquiring or retaining microbial or other biological agents or toxins, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or peaceful purposes; and
Whether a State Party is developing, producing, stockpiling, acquiring or retaining weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict. (BWC/CONF.III/VEREX/8).

It is possible to verify some aspects of compliance with a greater degree of assurance than others. For instance, verifying that a state has used a biological agent may be more difficult to verify than that a state is not stockpiling such agents. Several known verification problems persist: how can you attribute the use of a biological agent to a state? How can you ensure that the state has accurately and truthfully declared all its stocks of biological agents? These questions are not unique to biological weapons.

The primary function of a verification system is to detect instances of non-compliance. However, the system also serves other important roles: the risk of detection may deter a state from engaging in non-compliant behaviour. Indeed, experience has shown that even very low detection probabilities (in many cases less than five per cent) may act as a deterrent, if verification activities are carried out regularly. It is also important to keep in mind that the verification regime may help build confidence that the other parties are behaving in a compliant fashion.

The BWC came about after a 1969 initiative of the United Kingdom to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament. Their submission proposed to strengthen the 1925 Geneva Convention by putting in place a comprehensive ban on all microbiological warfare. However, reservations by the Cold War superpowers (about intrusion) resulted in the Convention being brought into force without a formal verification architecture. Article XII established that there would be a single review conference after five years. However, the practice of five-yearly review conferences has endured.

Evolving the BWC through these conferences has provided a novel response to the particular difficulties of trying to realise the objectives of the Convention. The creation of ‘functional substitutes’ to a full system of verification has led to an emphasis on, in particular, voluntary confidence-building measures (CBMs) that aim to increase transparency among state parties about their activities.

However, compliance concerns in the beginning of the 1990s revitalised interest in a robust verification system. As noted above, the 1991 Review Conference set up the Ad Hoc Group of Governmental Experts (VEREX) (see BWC/CONF.III/VEREX/8). The group met five times over two years, during which time they came up with 21 verification measures. These were grouped into two broad categories: on and off-site measures, and broadly addressed the following fields:

Information monitoring. Among other measures, this would include surveying academic literature, as well as involving surveillance on state parties legislation. It would also involve sharing data on outbreaks and outbreak control measures.
Data exchange. Often a key part of any verification regime, the data exchange would involve declarations on agents, facilities, equipment, programmes, transfers, import-export of agents, equipment, know-how, technology, personnel, and manufacturing. Obviously, some of these declarations would be more sensitive than others, and perhaps difficult to carry out in practice (here declarations on personnel and know-how stand out).
Remote sensing. Here, the group examined a whole range of measures including surveillance by satellite, by aircraft, and by equipment on the ground.
Inspections. On the ground visits by inspectors is often another key aspect of any verification regime. Here, the group looked at activities such as sampling and identification, observation and auditing.
Exchange visits. These types of visits are sometimes placed in the broader confidence-building category. It involves having scientists, industry personnel, engineers and equipment experts visiting each others facilities, often informally.
Continuous monitoring. Here, the group examined ideas such as automatic sampling and the use of close-circuit-television. But it also examined ideas such as posting inspectors on the ground, outside relevant facilities.

The final report of VEREX was broadly positive on verification, noting that ‘some of the potential verification measures would contribute to strengthening the effectiveness and improve the implementation of the Convention’. It also remarked that ‘appropriate and effective verification could reinforce the Convention’. However, the group took a broad-brush approach to its study, examining individual components of a verification system, without making any real attempt to put them all together.

Nevertheless, negotiations began to establish a protocol to the BWC which would include language on verification measures. However, these negotiations collapsed in 2001 after the US withdrew from the general process as it stood. The reasons for this decision, as discussed later in this text, continue to provide key pointers for any future attempts to build a verification regime.

The sixth and most recent review conference in 2006 achieved a consensual agreement on a Final Declaration. This was the first such declaration in a decade. It put increased emphasis on national implementation and the comprehensive scope of the BWC. There was also agreement to set up an Implementation Support Unit (ISU) and promote universality of the BWC. Nevertheless, verification was not directly addressed at the conference.

An intersessional work programme for 2007-2010 was adopted to renew the process that had been initiated in 2003. These meetings have moved the BWC discussions away from a traditional diplomatic approach to a more inclusive, multi-stakeholder one. This has encouraged some to view this as an opportunity for renewed focus on the verification issue (McLeish and Feakes, 2008).

However, this may still not be an opportune time to revisit verification discussions. According to most of the literature, getting agreement on verification for the BWC still faces three main hurdles:
Many of the materials and technology concerned are ‘dual use’, which means that they can be used for both civilian and military purposes. For instance, botulinum toxin has both proper medicinal uses but also has potential as a biological weapon.

The availability of suitable materials and equipment for biological weapons production makes verification difficult. Hospitals, universities, and other suitably equipped laboratories may all have the material and equipment to produce banned items.

Attribution of an act of non-compliance with the BWC is complicated by the ease with which unlawful activities can be hidden. There is no need to stockpile weapons. Biological facilities may be ‘cleaned up’ easily or disguised into seemingly peaceful centres of activity. Advances in biological science and technology are fast and often unpredictable making it tough for both law enforcement and policy-making officials to keep pace.

At present, any effort to arrive at a system of verifiable compliance as part of the BWC must be realistic about the current US position on the topic. As Ellen Tauscher announced in 2009: ‘The Obama Administration will not seek to revive negotiations on a verification protocol to the Convention. We have carefully reviewed previous efforts to develop a verification protocol and have determined that a legally binding protocol would not achieve meaningful verification or greater security’ (Tauscher, 2009).

Tauscher’s comment reflects the view that monitoring compliance through a verification protocol may be difficult without excessive intrusion that would risk commercial and national secrets and interests. The US may also feel that a verification regime would undermine defensive programmes in their research against offensive biological weapons. However, a closer investigation of this assumption may be called for---especially against a backdrop of recent research that suggests that existing US regulations already impede research (Dias, 2010).

In addition, some nations may continue to question the range and extent of export controls as part of any system of verification. The VEREX final report pointed out that ‘agreed lists, which are difficult to construct at this stage, are a prerequisite to the implementation of many potential verification measures’ (VEREX, 1993).

The BWC may also be strengthened through recognition in other treaties and texts, and by shoring up already existing mechanisms. For instance:

Negotiations to include biological weapons as a crime under the Rome Statute have been restricted by the many sensitivities surrounding nuclear weapons. A new amendment to the Rome Statute that would clearly outlaw the use of biological weapons and strengthen, although not universalise, the BWC and thereby encourage greater attention to be paid to the continuing absence of a credible verification regime (Allen, 2011).
The UN Secretary General investigatory powers could be strengthened further. The UN Secretary General is the only one with the authority to launch an international investigation in response to claims of biological weapons use. An investigation can be undertaken following a request by a UN member state, the General Assembly, the Security Council or on the Secretary General’s own initiative. There are ways through which this tool can be further developed (Findlay and Woodward, 2004).

Until political issues are resolved, however, a modular approach to strengthening the treaty should be undertaken. This involves addressing distinct areas of weakness within the treaty---including through the continued exploration of verification measures. According to Nicholas Sims, the key priorities for the Seventh Review Conference would be to:

Renew the mandate of the ISU for a further five years;
Enhance ISU funding;
Plan the establishment of a Standing Secretariat;
Formalise a BTWC Annual Meeting;
Create a Scientific Advisory Panel;
Establish a Legal Advisory Panel;
Clearly Identify National Contacts (Sims, 2009).

However, while the convention is shored up in this gradual but steady manner, it would be a disservice to the BWC membership to outright dismiss verification considerations. The debate may have prematurely moved from the technical to the political. The verification debate is not forgotten, but it is often not seen as a suitable, or politically sensible, time to raise the issue anew. Clearly, a verification system can be conceptualized, and discussed. However, despite the work done by VEREX and other groups, the issue does not seem to be well understood. The verification debate today appears to be based on opinion. The word ‘verification’ carries with it an unjustified stigma.

Verification of the BWC has come to be seen by some as something impossible, almost unachievable. Those on that side of the debate argue that compliance cannot be verified with absolute certainty. Therefore, any system put in place only serves to lull the member states into a false sense of security. However, the same can be said about almost every verification regime in place today. Consider the debate in the Conference on Disarmament on whether a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) can be verified. Here, some argue that any verification regime will be too costly and too intrusive to be appetizing. They add seasoning to their argument by remarking that the system, indeed any system, also cannot verify compliance conclusively. Yet, this group of thinkers often also supports the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards system---without reflecting that this system will in all likelihood form the basis for any FMCT verification regime.

Certain aspects of verification may not, in fact, be impossible. Critically examining what the verification requirements would be for development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use would be useful (essentially revisiting the mandate of the VEREX group). The BWC membership may not necessarily need to construct a protocol that adequately addresses all items and activities contained in the main prohibition. Instead, the verification system could rephrase the verification objective in another, functionally subordinate document. Again, inspiration could be drawn from the nuclear safeguards system. It ought to be recalled that no organization is verifying compliance with Article I of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Instead, the International Atomic Energy Organization verifies compliance with their own safeguards agreements. As noted above, few query the usefulness of this---seemingly imperfect---system.

The time to discuss verification may not be here yet. But the issue should not be forgotten. Without a government debate on the matter, it remains with organizations such as the BioWeapons Prevention Project, to keep the discussion alive.

Special Inspections

2011-03-04T21:13:00.001Z

Last week’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Syria was widely anticipated. The country has been under suspicions of non-compliance with the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for some time. The background is well-known. In September 2007, the Israeli Air Force suddenly and without warning bombed a facility in the middle of the Syrian desert. The Syrian and Israeli governments then remained surprisingly tight-lipped about the strike. The Israelis did not want to implicate an ally whose airspace they used for the strike. The Syrians seemingly only wanted to hush up the affair as quickly as possible.

For its part, the IAEA, faced with very little open-source information on the site itself and two member states who didn’t want to talk about it, did nothing to investigate the matter further. Meanwhile, the Syrians got busy clearing up the site. As the IAEA notes in its latest report: ‘by the end of October 2007, large scale clearing and levelling operations had taken place at the site which had removed or obscured the remains of the destroyed building’ (GOV/2011/8). The ‘destroyed building’ in question was widely suspected to be an uncompleted graphite-moderated natural-uranium fuelled reactor---supplied by the North Korean government no less.

It was June 2008 before the IAEA first visited the site and took samples. Later analysis showed ‘particles of anthropogenic natural uranium’ nearby, indicating the processing of uranium. It could have been natural uranium fuel---or it could have been something else. The Syrians themselves said that the Israeli Air Force used the uranium in their munitions. The IAEA is not entirely convinced by this explanation.

Since then, the Agency has repeatedly requested access to information, material, equipment and locations in Syria. Their overtures, however, have been met by silence. And this silence has led some to forcefully call for a ‘special inspection’ to be deployed into Syria. On 26 February 2009, for instance, James Acton, Mark Fitzpatrick and Pierre Goldschmidt wrote that:

‘Syria is the textbook definition of a case in which a special inspection is merited. If the IAEA fails to ask for one, it will hand future states suspected of non-compliance an extraordinarily powerful precedent to use in opposing a special inspection request. IAEA officials regularly complain about their lack of legal authority—and rightly so. But, in this instance, they will have only themselves to blame if they let the authority that they do have atrophy’ (Carnegie Endowment, Proliferation Analysis, February 2009).

Over the past year, there were few references in the media about the the need to invoke this tool. Lately, however, it would seem like diplomatic pressure is increasing on the IAEA. Indeed, in the run-up to next week’s meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors, several observers have speculated that the Director-General would call for a special inspection in the country. This did not happen, as the Director-General’s recently issued report shows, and rumours are now circulating that several IAEA Governors will refrain from pushing the issue at next week’s meeting.

Special inspections
The special inspection tool itself has been around for a while. It features in the facility-specific safeguards agreement (INFCIRC/66) as well as the comprehensive safeguards agreement (INFCIRC/153) obligatory for all non-nuclear-weapon state parties to the NPT.

There are two principal routes to getting a special inspection agreed. First, the state itself can submit a special report, which then will have to be verified by a special inspection. Second, the IAEA may consider that information made available to it by the state (including explanations from the state as well as information gathered through routine inspections) is not adequate for it to fulfill its responsibilities under its comprehensive safeguards agreement. In the latter case, the IAEA should, in other words, have some indication that not all relevant nuclear material, or relevant facilities, in the country has been declared.

Two special inspections have been invoked to date. The first, on the invitation by the Romanian government aimed to clear up misunderstandings surrounding the country’s large nuclear fuel cycle. The second was invoked against North Korea, after information had come to light that indicated that the country had not been entirely forthcoming in its initial declaration. The IAEA so has some experience in invoking special inspections using both of the two principal routes.

Consultation is key
The special inspection tool is subject to any consultations between the IAEA and the inspected state. The Board of Governors, when deciding on the last special inspection in 1992 (North Korea, even though the inspection in question was blocked by the government in Pyongyang), reaffirmed the Agency’s right to carry out these inspections at undeclared locations. However, the agreement itself clearly stipulates that such access should be obtained in agreement with the inspected state party. If the state doesn’t agree with the Agency, paragraph 18 of INFCIRC/153 clearly lays out the procedure:

‘The Agreement should provide that if the Board, upon report of the Director General, decides that an action by the State is essential and urgent in order to ensure verification that nuclear material subject to safeguards under the Agreement is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices the Board shall be able to call upon the State to take the required action without delay, irrespective of whether procedures for the settlement of a dispute have been invoked’. (Paragraph 18).

It is very likely, at that point, that the state will not heed the Board’s call. The Board then has the option to report this fact to the United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly. It would also notify all IAEA member states that it has been unable to verify that there has been no diversion of nuclear materials from peaceful use.

The techniques deployed during a special inspection are similar to those of routine inspections. The IAEA has a right to:

Examine records;
Make independent measurements of all nuclear materials subject to safeguards under the agreement;
Verify the functioning and calibration of equipment;
And use other objective measures which has been demonstrated to be technically feasible.

Calling an inspection: what to gain, what to loose?
The problem with the special inspection is that it is likely to go unheeded unless the state itself requests it (through submitting a special report). There is only one case, of course, to base this conclusion on, and that is North Korea. It still makes sense to assume that this is the likely outcome. If the state is hiding something, it will have little incentive to invite inspectors to view the very secrets it wishes to protect. It could attempt to control the special inspection, by having an elaborate deception strategy in place. If the IAEA, for instance, requests access to installations which are irrelevant, the state could even afford this access. After the fact, it can broadcast to the world that it has done everything that the IAEA have asked for---and that the Agency found nothing. But the risk is, of course, that the IAEA will know what it is looking for. And once the precedence of giving access has been set, it is very difficult to backtrack.

So, in most cases where an inspection is called against the will of the inspected state, it is likely to go straight to the Board of Governors for further action. Unless the state is under intense international pressure, a special inspection request is therefore likely to shut down the inspection effort before it has even started. This, naturally, doesn’t progress the investigation at all. A special inspection should, from that perspective, only be called if there is a reasonable chance that the state will accommodate it.

From another perspective, however, it may be desirable to call the inspection anyway. If the Director-General of the IAEA feels that there is very little room for further progress in inspections whatsoever, he may feel inclined to draw the line under the effort by invoking the inspection tool. This would, after all, signal that the Agency is close to drawing a conclusion that it can no longer certify that all materials remain in peaceful use. The special inspection request represents ‘the final offer’ from the Agency, after which the issue will be raised with the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. This threat could, possibly, act as an incentive for the stalling state to cooperate with inspectors.

IHS Jane's Intelligence Review

2011-01-21T20:31:00.001Z

Those of you who have an account with IHS may log on to their site and get access to my article on the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. I decided to spend some evenings in December, just before Wilton Park, to get some thoughts down on paper. I wouldn’t call it my finest work, but it does highlight the significance of the treaty, and progress made towards its implementation.

There is one part of the article that I’m very pleased with, though. Last summer, David Cliff and Hugh Chalmers wrote a chapter on what happens inside a nuclear weapon at the time of detonation for our report Verified Warhead Dismantlement: Past, Present, Future. It became very controversial and subject to much discussion at the review seminar. Certain reviewers felt that it contained too much information, and that it shouldn’t be released to the public. We were surprised by that, since it contained nothing that cannot be found in the open domain, as most of the rest of the report.

After some internal discussion, we decided that it was probably the forceful language and the colorful description that spooked some of our guests.

I got inspired by that, so I wrote up a description, supported by a range of Excel spreadsheets, that describes what happens deep underground when one of these things goes off. It really shouldn’t have made it past the IHS editorial team (it’s not news after all), but someone involved in the review process told me that they simply liked it too much to cut it.

It is not easy to imagine how incredibly violent and immensely powerful a nuclear explosion is. I did my best.

The article will come out in the February print edition.

Wilton Park 2010

2010-12-17T16:15:00.000Z

Cross posted from the VERTIC Blog.

The annual Wilton Park conference on arms control and disarmament is always well attended. Those arriving late may find themselves without a chair. This happened to me this year, as I missed the first two days due to a series of meetings in London. However, I found the first meeting that I was able to attend very stimulating, despite having to stand up for parts of it. Truth be told, as I was standing close to a radiator on a cold day, I didn’t mind that much.

The meeting discussed how to bring about a conference on the long-proposed weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East. Such a conference was promised by parties to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the eight review conference of the treaty, held earlier this year in New York. Then, the nuclear-weapon states promised to fully engage and support this conference.

One question discussed at Wilton Park was what, if anything, is in it for the Israeli government. ‘Israel’s strategic situation has changed’, one participant argued, ‘and it is more difficult now’ than some 15 years ago. Much of the technical groundwork has already been laid by the International Atomic Energy Agency, another participant argued, and will be transmitted to the United Nations, which is tasked at coordinating the conference, when requested and ‘together with a bill for services rendered’.

The Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) was also intensively discussed, especially together with an idea that has recently been gaining traction: that the treaty should be negotiated outside of the Conference on Disarmament (the ‘CD’). What this treaty should do is subject to considerable debate. Some argue that it should cap the production of fissile material for weapons purposes, but leave accumulated stockpiles aside. Others argue that the treaty is meaningless unless it imposes some quantitative controls on existing stocks. The CD, a diplomatic conference charged with negotiating multilateral arms control and disarmament agreements, has been stalled over this debate for over a decade. This has led to intense frustration, and now calls for moving negotiations to another, smaller forum.

The question at hand is whether or not this would achieve anything, and whose objectives such a move would best serve. If the intention with the proposed treaty is simply to formalize the already existing production moratorium amongst the nuclear-weapon states, this may be a good development. The majority of the P-5, as this grouping of states is sometimes called, shares the view that the treaty should look at future production, and leave the past alone. However, one of the P-5 members is reluctant to accept this as it orients itself not only in relation to the other nuclear-weapon states, but also to the other three states standing outside the NPT. The worst case scenario would be for treaty negotiations to be moved outside the CD, only to have them stall again. This could both wreck the CD, and at the same time destroy prospects for meaningful negotiations on the FMCT.

The meeting also discussed prospects for further strides towards multilateral disarmament. The goodwill generated by the 2010 NPT Review Conference seems to have faded somewhat, as the start of the session illustrated. An attempt by one nuclear-weapon state participant to explain his country’s position backfired, as others began to accuse him of attempting to revise, or downplay, the outcome of the conference. ‘You don’t need to tell me what the conference documents means’, one non-nuclear-weapon state participant forcefully argued. ‘I was there too, remember?’

In a similar way, many participants privately expressed the opinion that the debate on how to verify multilateral arms reductions felt flat and uninspired. I would not agree with that. The presentations by David Chambers and Joe Pilat were considered and thoughtful, as well as cautiously optimistic. Mr Chamber’s call for more states to get involved in multilateral disarmament verification R&D was welcomed. On behalf of VERTIC, I thanked the Atomic Weapons Establishment for our past cooperative research on the UK-Norway Initiative, which has been very fruitful.

Overall, I use Wilton Park as a way of gauging the health of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. And while it is too early to tell for sure, I sense a slight retrenchment of the positions of some of the nuclear-weapon states on disarmament issues. A representative of a prominently-engaged non-nuclear-weapon state once told me over dinner in New York that the successful outcome to the NPT Review Conference had in fact been a ‘failure in disguise’. I believe that it is too early to make pronouncements of that kind. The coming years will show whether the nuclear-weapon states are serious about implementing their ‘serious political commitments’, as one ambassador put it, ‘in an accountable fashion’.

Disarmament Forum: Arms control verification

2010-10-19T14:24:00.000+01:00

This issue of Disarmament Forum takes a look at the verification of arms control agreements. How do states parties to international treaties verify compliance with their obligations? Beginning with an exploration of the crucial role science and technology—as well as scientists—play in ensuring effective verification, articles go on to examine specific regimes, including conventional arms embargoes and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. Our contributors also discuss how potential future agreements on outer space and a nuclear weapons convention could be verified, as well as the growing role of civil society in ensuring compliance with international arms control agreements.

The chapter on civil society verification was written by your's truly.

Download it here (PDF, 76pp).

New VERTIC items (and a CTBTO course)

2010-10-12T17:27:00.000+01:00

We've posted some more news on our website:

We are, of course, very grateful to both organizations for the opportunity to visit. The CTBTO course looks really exciting, and I feel slightly disappointed that I cannot attend in person. Anyone who wants to learn more about the treaty and its verification regime should attend. Course components include:

Lecture 1: Political Significance of the CTBT
Lecture 2: History of Nuclear Testing
Lecture 3: Negotiating History of the CTBT: Understanding the Treaty
Lecture 4: The Contribution of the CTBT to International Peace and Security
Lecture 5: Nexus between NWFZs and the CTBT
Lecture 6: Promotion of Entry into Force & Universality
Lecture 7: Legal and National Implementation Measures
Lecture 8: The Role and Functions of the Preparatory Commission, Program & Budget and ADM Issues
Lecture 9: The Importance of Multilateral Verification for Arms Control and Disarmament
Lecture 10: Overview and Technologies of the International Monitoring System
Lecture 11: Overview of the International Data Centre
Lecture 12: The 2006 and 2009 DPRK Nuclear Tests
Lecture 14: Overview of CTBT On-Site Inspections
Lecture 15: OSI Integrated Field Exercise 2008
Lecture 16: Creating Knowledge through Partnerships, Training, and Information/Communication Technologies

This covers most of would you would want to know. So if you are interested, please apply direct to the CTBTO. Fill out this application form. Forms can be then be faxed and marked to the attention of Kevin Murray (+43 (1) 260 30 5960) or emailed (kevin.murray [at] ctbto.org).

Lasers and gamma-rays

2010-10-11T11:55:00.000+01:00

Relatively recently, Oak Ridge National Laboratory published a conference paper on how to combine measurements from a three-dimensional laser scanning system and a gamma-ray imaging system. The paper bears the unflattering title ‘Combining Measurements with Three-Dimensional Laser Scanning System and Coded-Aperture Gamma-Ray Imaging Systems for International Safeguards Applications’ and was presented to the INMM 51st Annual Meeting in Baltimore earlier this year.

Using lasers to verify design information has been the hot topic in the safeguards community for some time. The Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, has been doing some interesting work on this for many years now (see, for instance, 'Laser Technologies for On-Site Surveillance', IAEA-SM-367/06).

Scene change recognition will allow the inspectors to see whether piping or ducts have been modified or added. This is independently important. However, by adding gamma-ray imaging the inspectors will also be able to see whether nuclear material is or has been present in those pipes.

The results look very promising. It will be interesting to see this work carry forward. The project team now intends to couple images in real time. They also want to make this system, already portable, more efficient. Finally, they intend to conduct measurements in a real facility.

To operationalize it will likely take many years. But it's nevertheless good to see that science and technology already starts to provide the safeguards solutions of tomorrow.

UNODA Yearbook

2010-10-05T10:44:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs released volume 34 of the Disarmament Yearbook. The introduction is positive. "An improved political atmosphere and renewed momentum to achieve progress towards a nuclear-weapon free world prevailed in 2009", it argues, "leading to important advances, though not without some setbacks, on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation issues".

The book goes through diplomatic activities in the General Assembly, and action elsewhere, in support for disarmament in 2009.

Verification gets 74 mentions in the document (counting the table of contents of course) and safeguards 90 mentions. The proposed fissile material cut-off treaty, or fissile material treaty as it is interchangeably referred to in the text, also gets a fair share of attention.

New IAEA handbook on nuclear law

2010-10-04T16:55:00.001+01:00

The IAEA has recently released the second volume of its Handbook on Nuclear Law. This edition looks carefully at implementing legislation, and very usefully provides example language that states may want to use when drafting their laws. The Director-General, in the foreword to the report, writes that “many Member States receiving IAEA legislative assistance have suggested that it would be valuable to develop model texts of legislative provisions covering the key elements needed in a national nuclear law”. Importantly, he also notes that the handbook “provide only a starting point and basic outline of necessary provisions that will need to be shaped to be consistent with each State’s national approach to legislative drafting, cultural and social norms, economic structure, and the nature of its nuclear programme”.

This latter point is very important. Sometimes, states tend to rush for the easy solution, grabbing model language and just pushing it into their laws. This is often the case in resource-strapped countries without many regulated activities. This may work for a while, but may come back to bite the legislator years later, as the country gears up to build, say, a domestic nuclear fuel cycle.

Model legislation is nevertheless very important. It aims to structure thought, and to ensure that all aspects of international law get implemented properly.

The IAEA handbook has been under development for many years. I was very pleased to see it finally come out. As the old Swedish saying goes, “he who waits for something good never waits for too long”.

Trust & Verify No. 130

2010-10-01T20:32:00.001+01:00

It is time for another edition of Trust & Verify and its available here.

Individual articles are uploaded to Trust & Verify Online. These are:

Lead articles:

Hartwig Spitzer, Open Skies review
Justin Alger, Nuclear Revival: taking stock, managing concerns

Verification watch:

David Cliff, US and Russia request IAEA monitoring of plutonium disposition
Yasemin Balci, Alleged chemical weapons use by Turkey
Kara Allen, Russia unable to complete chemical weapons disarmament by 2012 deadline
Kara Allen, BWC MX discusses cooperation in cases of alleged biological weapons use
David Cliff, US nominates OPCW representative
David Cliff, IAEA reports on Iran's nuclear activities
Laurent Rathborn, European Parliament approves legislation on illegal timber

Science and technology scan:

Laurent Rathborn, First CTBT noble gas detector certified
Laurent Rathborn, LiDAR shows increasing usefulness in forest monitoring

News and events: