Expected new role of IAEA in the area of transparency and proliferation resistance in advanced nuclear fuel cycle

International confidence of nuclear nonproliferation in the peaceful nuclear program has been maintained by 'nuclear material control and accountancy' and 'international safeguards' under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) framework. International nuclear non-proliferation efforts have been changing from the early 1990s. United Nation inspections in Iraq after the 1st Gulf War raised doubts about the scope of international safeguards, such as how to deal with undeclared activities. Recent Iran and North Korea issues showed the limitations of international safeguards systems. Incompletely effective non-proliferation regime arouses further proliferation concerns and decreases the confidence of peaceful nuclear program. Especially, a country like Japan, which has full scale nuclear fuel cycle program sometimes could be exposed to criticism. Corresponding to this serious situation, JAEA has conducted studies on 'transparency' and 'proliferation resistance' to build international confidence in its peaceful nuclear programs. Generally 'transparency' has a role to increase confidence in activities and 'proliferation resistance' increases confidence in the capability of the facility. Several efforts to improve the 'transparency' such as 'Guidelines for the Management of Plutonium (INFCIRC/549 of 16 March 1998)' are going on. Joyo Remote Monitoring System has been developed under joint study with Sandia National Laboratory to test the technology to improve transparency. Several discussions on 'proliferation resistance' under international program such as International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) and Generation IV nuclear energy system (GEN-IV) are in progress. As proactive measures in response to the September eleven terrorist attacks, the IAEA Board of Governors approved an action plan designed to upgrade worldwide protection against acts of terrorism involving nuclear and other radioactive materials in March 2002. As part of building nuclear security framework, work on the development of the additional guidelines and recommendations to INFCIRC/225/Rev.4 and process to strengthen the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) are ongoing. In the area of international safeguards, the Additional Protocol (INFCIRC/540) drastically improves the 'transparency' by its expanded declaration and complementary access. Recent discussion on integrated safeguards, which optimize additional protocol and traditional safeguards, enables streamlining of IAEA safeguards. This shows the further possibility of streamlining of safeguards through improvement of 'transparency'. Effort to develop future advanced nuclear fuel cycle systems, such as Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) of United State and Feasibility Studies for the commercialized fast reactor cycle system (FS) of Japan have been promoted. In these programs, 'proliferation resistance' is one of the key elements to be considered in the design of the system. In the future, nuclear nonproliferation regime for the advanced nuclear fuel cycle with low proliferation risk can be as follows; - Maintain nuclear material control and accountancy. - Improve proliferation resistance. - Maintain compliance with international authority and regional transparency. - Small, more efficient verification activity by IAEA to confirm above 'nuclear material control and accountancy', 'proliferation resistance' and 'transparency'. Expected new role of IAEA to confirm and certify 'nuclear material control and accountancy', 'proliferation resistance' and 'transparency' will increase the international confident of nuclear nonproliferation to the nuclear fuel cycle, and could drastically reduce IAEA's inspection effort for future large scale nuclear fuel cycle facilities and allow effective usage of inspection resources to strengthen international nonproliferation regime