Evolution of safeguards and safeguards evaluation

Changes in safeguards techniques and changes in the context in which it has to be applied have led to a continuous evolution of safeguards. Concentration on nuclear material accountancy, declarations, and their verification led to neglecting other safeguards aspects that implicitly and explicitly derive from the IAEA Statute. The necessity to strengthen safeguards required new measures that combine the INFCIRC/153 information with results of other relevant information gathering. The Protocol to the existing safeguards agreements made this legally possible. A new method is required for objective and formalized evaluation of the combined information. One promising technique is proposed in this paper. (author)