Enhancing Consistency In The Development Of State-level Safeguards Approaches

Year
2020
Author(s)
Therese A. Renis - IAEA, Vienna
Massimo Aparo - IAEA, Vienna
Abstract

In 2001, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began developing and implementing individual safeguards approaches for States (State-level Safeguards Approaches, or SLAs) in the context of integrated safeguards for States for which the broader conclusion, that all nuclear material remained in peaceful activities, had been drawn. In 2005, the IAEA reported its intention to expand its implementation of SLAs to all other States with comprehensive safeguards agreements. Since then, the means of developing SLAs has evolved to tailor them more specifically to each State, taking better advantage of State-specific factors. Doing so improves safeguards effectiveness by enabling the IAEA to be more focused on the attainment of technical objectives instead of mechanistically carrying out safeguards activities. This also results in better use of IAEA resources by helping the Agency to avoid conducting more activities than are needed for effective safeguards. In recent years the IAEA has gained experience in developing and implementing SLAs, particularly for States with comprehensive safeguards agreements and additional protocols in force, for which the broader conclusion has been drawn. Based on that experience, the IAEA has identified and conducted activities to further enhance the methodologies and internal standards to be used in the development of SLAs to improve uniformity of the processes and better define the procedures in order to ensure consistency and non-discrimination. This paper highlights those enhancements.