The IAEA and State-declared safeguards information: Progress, plans and issues

Full text: The provision of information by States constitutes a key element for the implementation of IAEA safeguards. Reports on the changes, inventories and balances of safeguarded nuclear material have been received since the 1960s, beginning with INFCIRC/66 and followed by INFCIRC/153 type safeguards agreements. The primary information provided by States is with respect to nuclear material accounting and the additional protocol. Nuclear material accountancy, while remaining a cornerstone of international safeguards, is now being interleaved with additional protocol information to provide a more complete and thorough view of a State's declared overall nuclear programme. As a result of the evaluation of State-declared information and all other safeguards-relevant information available (including the results of in-field verification activities and open source information), the IAEA is able to draw conclusions regarding the non-diversion of nuclear material as well as the absence of undeclared nuclear activities. The needs of strengthened safeguards mandate accurate, complete and timely reporting, necessitating maximum use of the different types of State declared information. To these ends, the IAEA is in continuous contact on reporting matters with States. Furthermore, the IAEA trains State personnel on the associated reporting mechanisms, provides software to increase the quality of nuclear material accounting reports as well as a system to assist States in the preparation of additional protocol declarations. As the IAEA looks to the future, a major project is currently in progress for the complete re-engineering of all safeguards IT applications, including the nuclear material accounting system. The gains expected by updating the hardware and software are increased information utilization and correlation by implementing state-of-the-art systems. This paper will describe the progress, plans and issues associated with State Declared Information. It will explain that, although processing of such information is commonly referred to as 'nuclear material accounting', this involves far more than just 'balancing the books'. It will demonstrate that processing a large diversity and volume of State declared information under strict requirements requires special skills, deep knowledge and vast experience in the application of safeguards. The paper will also argue that the nature of State declared information is such that the skills mentioned above are essential not only for meeting the day-to-day needs of safeguards, but also for more in-depth analysis including extracting and analysing information needed for drawing conclusions in State Evaluations and the Safeguards Implementation Report. Looking ahead, it is critical to maintain the necessary high levels of expertise for ensuring the optimum utilization of State declared information. (author)