Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

The future of the nuclear non-proliferation regime: the 2010 NPT review conference
that of placing world production of fissile material under IAEA control,
including uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities. On
29 May 2009, after a deadlock of more than twelve years, the Geneva
Conference on Disarmament (CD) approved a programme of work. The
programme adopted will apply to the 2009 session, and will have to be
approved again when the CD resumes work in January 2010(66). Four
working groups and three special coordinators linked to the agenda of the
annual Conference on Disarmament have been established.
Working group two, known more informally as the fissile materials
working group, will be tasked with negotiating a treaty «banning the production
of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive
devices». The main challenges the working group must address are to
establish existing fissile material stocks or reserves (for accounting purposes,
in the event that the treaty applies to not only those produced in
the future but also those produced in the past and currently stored), the
verification mechanisms to be implemented and, above all, definition of
the nuclear materials to be included. On 4 June 2009 Rose Gottemoeller,
acting under secretary of state for arms control and international security
for the United States, urged all CD delegations to ensure that «until the
FMCT (Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty) is completed [...] the CD not return to
deadlock, to pledge themselves to passing in the beginning of each year
a Program of Work authorising the resumption of focused negotiations on
an FMCT and discussion of related disarmament issues» (67).
The third priority would be to make the IAEA Additional Protocol the
main instrument of non-proliferation to the extent that its implementation
would guarantee not only the non-diversion of nuclear materials
from civilian uses (permitted by the NPT) to a different military purpose
(banned), but also the non-existence in the country of nuclear activities
not declared to the organisation. This would furthermore bolster the
IAEA’s authority to detect and conduct inspections of nuclear facilities
and, ultimately, would also lend legitimacy to the NPT’s legal authority.
As of December 2009, the protocol has been signed by 128 states and
ratified by 93, as well as by the European Atomic Energy Community
(EURATOM) (68).
(66) The current programme is recorded at the Conference on Disarmament under no.
CD/1864.
(67) SNYDER, Susi, «Conference on Disarmament Adopts a Programme of Work Prospects
for NGO Engagement» at http://www.un-ngls.org/spip.php?article1576
(68) Vid., http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sg_protocol.html.
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