Disarmament and International Security - World Model United Nations

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uranium, was confiscated. 194 Fuel-Cycle Proposals While growth in nuclear power will take time, and the existing global capacity for uranium enrichment and reprocessing is enough to meet the needs arising from a considerable expansion, 196 some designs are needed to ensure a safe and steady supply of nuclear fuel in the future to match the rising number of reactors. One proposal would be to impose a moratorium of a few years on the construction of new facilities for the enrichment or reprocessing of uranium to ensure that appropriate standards for international control of such facilities are developed. 197 A system could be designed under the supervision of the United Nations and the IAEA under which nuclear facilities of this kind would be built in a compromise-based location, so that all states could buy low-enriched nuclear fuel at market prices. In this internationally-managed project, all states – both producers and consumers – would participate in the marketing process by deciding on prices. A somewhat similar scheme – The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) – was advanced in 2006 by the United States and was discussed with the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, India and Japan. 198 Under this scheme, a limited number of countries would produce nuclear fuel and then ‘lease’ it to other states, accepting it back later on for reprocessing. This would serve the two purposes of both reducing the amount of nuclear waste, which is North Korea’s nuclear programme remains an issue of international controversy. http://neoavatara.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ northkoreaimage1.jpg dangerous for the environment and Key Actors and Positions could be intercepted by terrorists for use in the production of a dirty bomb, and constituting a disincentive for many states from building enrichment plants of their own. North Korea North Korea acceded to the NPT in 1985, and in 1992 its long-delayed safeguards agreement with the IAEA entered into force and IAEA inspections started. In the same year, the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Harvard WorldMUN 2012 Disarmament and International Security 34 34
Korean Peninsula was signed, in which North Korea and its southern neighbor agreed not to develop nuclear weapons and not to possess uranium enrichment facilities. 199 A few years later, however, IAEA’s safeguard inspections revealed that North Korea must have produced more plutonium than it had declared, which prompted North Korea to announce its intent to withdraw from the NPT. 200 In 1994, after USorganized negotiations, North Korea signed an Agreed Framework declaring a freeze to its nuclear program, an acceptance of IAEA’s inspectors and rejoining the NPT. By 2005, however, it became clear that North Korea had been secretly developing its nuclear capabilities, which was confirmed when the country’s government claimed being in possession of nuclear weapons. 201 In 2009 North Korea conducted another nuclear test and it became clear that North Korea has become a ‘fully fledged nuclear power,’ according to several experts, including the IAEA’s director Mohamed ElBaradei. 202 North Korea maintains that its nuclear weapons program is being conducted as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent solely for self-defense, and refuses to abandon its program or to allow IAEA inspectors into its nuclear facilities. Iran Iran has a long-standing tradition of developing its nuclear capability by enriching uranium without reporting this activity to the IAEA. Iran’s government firmly asserts that its efforts are intended only to give the country an indigenous source of low-enriched uranium fuel for its planned nuclear power plants, and rejects any accusations that Iran intends to use these capabilities to produce highly-enriched uranium to develop nuclear weapons. 203 The Iranian government believes that concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation are pretextual, and international calls for suspension of enrichment are simply intended to ultimately deprive Iran of the right to have an independent nuclear technology, and thus maintains that its right to peaceful nuclear technology is inalienable. Iran is likely to object to any attempts to prevent it from possessing enrichment plants of its own, stating that it cannot simply trust the United States or Europe to provide Iran with nuclear energy fuel. United States The United States supports international cooperation among sovereign states, manifested by parallel or joint action towards common goals on a domestic or international level, accompanied by corresponding developments in treaty-based and UN-conceived international law. 204 The United States government spearheaded the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, and supported the adoption of several UN resolutions addressing the issue, including the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. America’s extensive involvement in addressing the issue of safeguarding of nuclear materials is undeniable and is best displayed by its relentless efforts in promoting international systems of prevention from nuclear threats, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative. However, the United States government is highly suspicious of the role of international bureaucracies in achieving objectives of global importance, which is one of the main reasons it dislikes the International Criminal Court, and for this reason it might be reluctant toward any solutions that would emphasize the role of such instruments. 205 The United States is also deeply involved in guaranteeing nuclear nonproliferation, and is one of the strongest critics of the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. At the same time, the American government tends to refrain from taking a strong diplomatic stance against some other countries involved in nuclear proliferation – such as Pakistan – because of their role in the war on terrorism. Russia Since its political transformations after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation has been extensively involved in securing the former-Soviet nuclear arsenals and material to prevent undesirable individuals from getting access to them, for example through its active support of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program from 1992. It was the government of president Yeltsin that proposed a treaty to prevent rogue terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear material from insecure facilities spread across the former Soviet Union, which resulted in the adoption of the Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism by the General Assembly seven years later. The Russian Delegation to the United Nations was also one of main authors of several international agreements on preventing nuclear terrorism, such as the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. In regards to Iran’s nuclear program, Russia has maintained that is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program, 206 and has been reluctant to accept any drastic measures of response. Russia’s attitude to the North Korean nuclear weapons program is significantly different, and the Russian government has taken a stance of strong condemnation of North Korea’s nuclear tests. 207 Harvard WorldMUN 2012 Disarmament and International Security 35 35
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