Year
1996
Abstract
IAEA proposals for the strengthening of its safeguards regime will require intermittent access to facilities and sites other than those which are part of a state's declared nuclear fuel cycle. Some states believe that such access is not covered by their Safeguards Agreement, and are reluctant to introduce additional legislation. The IAEA has rights under comprehensive safeguards agreements (Paragraph 73: INFCIRC/153 corrected), after consultation with the state, to \"special inspections\" involving access to additional information or sites. There is no reason why relevant procedures cannot be agreed in advance, as sought by the \"Programme 93+2\" proposals for extended access. Although the IAEA does not regard extended access as constituting special inspections, such access is broadly consistent with the provisions for special inspections. If states accepted that the special inspection provisions in existing agreements were sufficiently broad to allow an additional inspection regime of intermittent extended access inspections, this would appear to obviate additional legislation and would be an important contribution which states can make in their quest to strengthen safeguards.