Historical review on the studies of multilateral approaches to nuclear fuel cycle facilities

Since Dr. ElBaladei proposed multilateral nuclear approaches (MNA) in 2003, various proposals on MNA have been presented and discussed. Those proposals, however, are not entirely-new and similar proposals had already been discussed in 1970s and 1980s, although they only ended up unsuccessfully. Reasons of such unsuccessful include that the international community could not resolve disagreement on the sovereign state' inalienable right of the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Turning into the 21st century, three MNA proposals on fuel and enrichment service supply assurance were successfully adopted by the IAEA Board by 2011. Those adoptions, however, do not exactly mean that the international community could finally reach consensus this time. It would be rather appropriate to say 1) a current world requirement for solid nuclear nonproliferation regime, 2) an unique cooperative structure on an IAEA fuel bank among the US, EU, Russia as supplier states and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Jordan in the Middle East as recipient states, and 3) an ease of eligibility criteria in the MNA mechanism, made those adoptions possible. However, this is a good first step and the world is expected to move forward for nonproliferation-oriented MNAs with global acceptability. (author)