The Future Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty: The Verification Issue

In January 1999, the negotiations on the agenda of a future Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) have started at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva. Complex and difficult issues of the future treaty are to be dealt with. Among others, the question has to be answered what kind of materials and what kind of activities should be covered under the FMCT. The central issue will be the verification of the FMCT. There seems to exist general consensus on the role of the IAEA in performing and managing the future verification scheme of the treaty. In principle, three approaches lend themselves and should be discussed for a future verification system. they can be identified as follows: Additional safeguards protocol INFCIRC/540 Trilateral experiences between USA, Russia and IAEA for safeguarding excess material Other verification schemes such as CTBT, CWC, BWC, etc. The paper will discuss these possibilities and evaluate the problems and challenges of such future control systems as well as the aspects of related costs.