Institutional arrangements for a multinational reprocessing plant

The paper lists some of the major issues that would have to be faced in negotiating the institutional structure of a multinational nuclear-fuel center. None of the organization problems is inherently insoluble. Difficulties are exacerbated by the large number of questions, their interrelations, and the complexity of the assumed structure. However, the assumptions posed the most difficult case. A reduction in membership and in the ambitious scope of the enterprise, at least at the outset, would greatly reduce the complexity of the organizational structure and the difficulty of negotiations. The analysis suggests that multinational fuel-cycle activities should start out more modestly, perhaps only with joint appraisal by a relatively few countries with existing geographic or economic connections. If operations are contemplated it would seem that the first step should be joint arrangements for spent-fuel storage, with the decision to go forward to more elaborate activities deferred. This approach would not only be simpler and permit the parties to gain experience working together, but it would have the virtue of delaying reprocessing until it was clear that there was a real need for it. Even on this reduced basis, the negotiating task would not be easy. The key, of course, to overcoming difficult technical problems of institutional structure is politial will--the genuine commitment of the participants to the aims and values of the enterprise. This suggests that any effort to cajole--not to say coerce--participation in a multinational fuel-cycle enterprise would be wholly misplaced. A reluctant partner would have available an infinitude of points and issues to create plausible, irritating, and ultimately defeating delay and complication in the negotiating process. Only assent freely given in the perception that the enterprise really serves the interest of the countries involved will be able to surmount the many institutional problems that will inevitably arise