ALTERNATIVE SAFEGUARDS REGIME ENHANCED COOPERATION BETWEEN IAEA AND SSAC

A possible alternative safeguards approach includes, inter alia, enhanced cooperation with a SSAC. Such an alternative approach should include the use of SSAC inspection results in a way that the Agency still can reach independent conclusions about the achievement (or failure) of its objectives to assure compliance with the conditions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Fundamental elements to achieve the objectives are transparency, openness, unpredictability of inspections and protocols allowing the Agency to authenticate SSAC results. Advance declarations and commitment to make materials available for verifications are not as crucial in non-randomized inspections, under the traditional IAEA inspection scheme, as they are under a scheme of increased cooperation with the SSAC and with the randomization principle introduced for IAEA inspections. Under the IAEA inspection scheme outlined in this paper, timing of inspections performed by the IAEA should be unknown to the SSAC and the facility operators. The paper further elaborates the details of an inspection scheme which include enhanced cooperation with the SSAC, and compares the results obtained with the traditional approach for inspections. Section two of the paper describes possible protocols for the authentication of inspections in randomized inspection regimes. The proposed method involves the expansion of the techniques used for authentication of measurements, with increased application of containment, surveillance and encryption technology, to authenticate an entire inspection. Examples of inspections at LEU fabrication facilities are used to illustrate the proposed approach. Section three summarizes the proposed approach with some additional suggestions to further enhance the overall effectiveness of international safeguards. The proposed alternative approach may also be applicable for other possible responsibilities of the Agency, e. g. the production cut-off verification where issues of national security at some facilities may be involved.