Foundations of the Nuclear Trade Atlas

Building on prior work developing a Strategic Trade Atlas promoting understanding of global trade flows of strategic goods, a Nuclear Trade Atlas was developed based on publicly available trade data. This Nuclear Trade Atlas examines trade patterns and trends for seventeen commodities based on a two-step assessment of the trade's nuclear relevance: first estimating the probability that trade classified under a given Harmonized System (HS) code represents a specific commodity included in the export control lists of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, P(NSG|HS), and second estimating the probability that the listed, often dual-use, commodity would be indicative of nuclear use, P(nuclear|NSG). These estimates combine to provide a measure of the likelihood trade classified under a given HS code may be nuclear relevant, P(nuclear|HS). By exclusively focusing on the HS codes most highly ranked by this measure, the resulting data visualizations comprising the Nuclear Trade Atlas provide those responsible for regulating or monitoring nuclear trade greater understanding of relevant global trading patterns and trends. The Atlas includes both commodity- and country-based views of nuclear trade. It will be published as a book and as an interactive tool. (author)