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International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation |
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A cut-off of production of fissile material moved to the top of the international disarmament agenda after the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was concluded. Though the negotiating mandate for a verified agreement on the cut-off of production of nuclear weapon-usable fissile material was agreed at the Conference of Disarmament (CD) in Geneva early in 1995, they were not started for more than 3 years and still suffer from a deadlock at the CD. One of the most difficult issues is the scope of such a possible cut-off agreement and related questions of verification are still under debate. For political reasons, the scope of the cut-off agreement to be negotiated has been reduced to the lowest common denominator:
There also exists a vision of a comprehensive cut-off agreement1 that would cover the production and use of all military and civil nuclear weapon-usable fissile material and tritium in any physical and chemical form, as well as any related production technologies. A step-by-step process may eventually lead to such an agreement. Though this vision is obviously politically unrealistic, it is a benchmark against which all proposals on scope can be judged.
A cut-off agreement will be more proliferation-resistant the more difficult it is to regain weapon-usable materials in a form readily usable in nuclear weapons with the nuclear technology remaining after implementation of the agreement. Accordingly, a comprehensive cut-off would require the following provisions:
1. Reconstruction and documentation of all produced weapon-usable material in the past;
2. Registration of all existing stocks of weapon-usable material;
3. Inventory verification of all existing stocks;
4. Accountancy measures for all storage sites and related nuclear facilities (usable for new production) on a regular basis by international safeguards;
5. Destroying of excess stocks of weapon-usable materials as far as possible;
6. Submitting remaining stocks to international physical control without national access;
7. Ensuring the long-term inaccessibility of non-destroyable materials (dilution or disposal or interim storage);
8. Phasing out, as far as economically and political feasible, civilian and military facilities able to handle or produce weapon-usable material; monitoring their shutdown and dismantlement;
9. Inclusion of all remaining civilian and military facilities able to handle or produce weapon-usable materials under a safeguards regime or under international physical control (including environmental standards);
These requirements cannot be achieved at once. Several step-by-step approaches are possible which cover ever more elements by the cut-off. It is necessary to identify the priorities for immediate action but not to forget to prepare future steps. Each of these elements requires adequate verification.
1. Steps regarding military material:
Secrecy cut-off: accountancy of past production and public register of all existing stocks of weapon-usable nuclear materials.
Military stock cut-off: transfers of excess fissile materials from military stocks to internationally safeguarded facilities; special verification arrangements are necessary in case of retaining agreed strategic reserves of fissile materials.
Military production cut-off: production cut-off for fissile materials for nuclear weapons or any other nuclear explosive purposes (including shut-down and dismantlement of dedicated production facilities).
Integrated production cut-off (ICO): including into the ban the production of the fusionable material tritium for weapon purposes or any other nuclear explosive purposes.
2. Steps regarding nuclear weapon-usable material outside of safeguards:
Secrecy cut-off: accountancy of past production and public register of all existing stocks of weapon-usable nuclear materials.
Unsafeguarded stock cut-off: transfers of weapon-usable fissile materials from unsafeguarded stocks to internationally safeguarded facilities.
Tritium safeguards: introducing safeguards for tritium; a related proposal is the International Tritium Control System (ITCS).
3. Steps regarding nuclear weapon-usable civilian material already under safeguards as well as materials transferred from former military stocks:
Secrecy cut-off: public register of all existing stocks of weapon-usable nuclear materials.
Access cut-off: putting all enrichment capacities, plutonium and tritium handling facilities under multilateral or international control without national access to the materials.
Production cut-off: ban on any deliberate production of weapon-usable nuclear material; the only exemptions would be inadvertent by-production of these materials.
Qualification cut-off: banning all treatments of weapon-usable nuclear material that improve their quality or accessibiliy; exemptions may be made to serve vital prerequisites for peaceful uses of nuclear energy; this would ban e.g. to separate plutonium from spent fuel, to enrich uranium beyond unavoidable civilian requirements, or to extract tritium from heavy water; this could also include a ban on related research and development efforts e.g. into laser isotope separation.
Re-use cut-off: Further use of weapon-usable nuclear material and all related technologies can be prohibited, e.g. a ban on producing MOX fuel.
Readiness cut-off and stock cut-off: demilitarize and dispose of existing stocks (e.g. dilution and burning of HEU, immobilization and final disposal or transmutation of plutonium).
Comprehensive cut-off: banning the acquisition, retention, spread, and any use of all weapon-usable materials (in particular, HEU, plutonium and tritium) in significant amounts.
Implementation of all these elements together could be the content of the Comprehensive Cut-off Convention (CCC). This convention should apply universally but may be started by unilateral steps and bi- or multilateral agreements. Unilateral binding declarations are especially relevant to forgo the civilian production and use of weapon-usable materials. As a precedence, in the late 1970's, the U.S. Carter Administration decided to oppose export of reprocessing facilities even under full-scope safeguards and renounced the commercial use of plutonium in its own country.
For some of these elements, figures 1-3 can help to comprehend the required changes of the mode in which certain amounts of plutonium can be found today.2
Figure 1 presents a breakdown of the global plutonium inventory by country and by mode. Coded by different shadings, the current status of control is indicated.
Figure 1: Breakdown of plutonium stockpiles by country and current state of control.
Figure 2 shows basically the same as Figure 1 on a more aggregate level. It demonstrates that nearly all plutonium falls in one out of three major modes:
In addition, there is a comparatively very small amount of plutonium outside of safeguards in nuclear threshold states. It is this material which is targeted for in most current endeavours towards a Fissile Material Treaty. Figure 2 puts this material into perspective. Plutonium of nuclear threshold states should not be put under control without at the same time addressing the severalfold larger civilian and military stockpiles of recognised nuclear-weapon states.
Figure 2: Control of plutonium under the NPT and IAEA safeguards. NWS: nuclear-weapon states, NNWS: non-nuclear-weapon states, hold out: not Party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
Figure 3 demonstrates the state of control under a proposed Comprehensive Cut-off Convension.
Most modes will be banned, i.e. all plutonium still present in the respective modes and depicted by columns of various hights in the figure at the position of the respective modes has to be transformed and transferred to fit under one of the few modes that will still be permitted. All civilian plutonium will be transformed to fit under the spent fuel standard mode and will be put under a control that goes beyond safeguards and abandons the possibility of national access to the material. All plutonium from outside of safeguards will be shifted to either the civilian area or possibly under very restricted conditions to the excess mode of defined military material. Material under the latter category will be reduced to an agreed limit of a strategic reserve and put under special international safeguards. Plutonium left in nuclear warheads will fall under disarmament verification procedures which are not dealt with in the CCC. Eventually all military plutonium will be eliminated. Military production facilities will be banned.
Most safeguards and verification procedures which would be necessary for the mentioned provisions have already been developed, in particular by the IAEA and national support programmes. Non-intrusive inspection procedures have to be developed that are able to ensure a high confidence in compliance with a cut-off agreement without compromising too greatly perceived national security requirements by releasing sensitive information. New kinds of on-site inspections have to be forseen to verify the shut-down of declared facilities, and challenge inspections are necessary to detect clandestine activities. Experiences of relevance to these tasks have been gathered by the IAEA in South Africa, Iraq, and North Korea. New methods to discover clandestine activities by remote detection (e.g. infra-red measurement from satellites) or environmental sampling are under investigation and require special assessment with regard to verify the mentioned provisions of a Comprehensive Cut-off Convention. Societal verification could contribute to the required verification regime as well.
The international monitoring effort could be carried out by the IAEA (if its financial resources are enlarged and its tasks are reshaped appropriately). Enforcement of the provisions of the comprehensive cut-off could be guaranteed by a (reformed) UN Security Council.
Figure 3: Breakdown of current plutonium quantities in various country groups and physical modes. The different shadings of the columns denotes the degree of permittance and control under the Comprehensive Cut-off Convention. Residual quantities on non-permitted modes have to be transferred to the remaining safeguarded modes (i.e. in general to the spent fuel standard and under safeguards). For more explanations see text. NWS: nuclear-weapon states, NNWS: non-nuclear-weapon states, hold out: not Party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
1.. See W. Liebert, M. Kalinowski: Proposal for a Comprehensive Cut-off including Civil Weapon-usable Material, INESAP Information Bulletin No. 4, Jan. 1995, p.11-14; M. Kalinowski and W. Liebert: Proposal for a Comprehensive Cut-off Convention Workshop, paper presented at the joint workshop of IANUS, UNIDIR and INESAP on `Fissile Materials and Tritium - How to verify a comprehensive production cut-off and safeguard all stocks', 29/30 June 1995, Palais des Nations in Geneva.
2..Most data used in the figures are taken from D. Albright, F. Berkhout, W. Walker, Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996 _ World Inventories, Capabilities and Policies, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Martin Kalinowski is associated researcher with IANUS and member of the INESAP Coordinating Committee.
Address: Severinggasse 1/6, A-1090 Vienna, Austria,
tel +43-1 - 402 4202, email:mbkalinowski@yahoo.com.
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