Drawing safeguards conclusions for the state as a whole: The role of safeguards technology

Full text: Events in the early 1990s, including the discovery of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme, highlighted the importance of strengthening safeguards, including the IAEA's ability to detect indications of undeclared nuclear material and activities in States with comprehensive safeguards agreements. Since that time, the Agency has introduced a number of measures to strengthen the effectiveness and improve the efficiency of safeguards. In the strengthened safeguards system, the focus has shifted from safeguards implementation at the facility level to consideration of safeguards implementation for each State as a whole. The State evaluation process is the key mechanism for drawing safeguards conclusions for each State as a whole. The safeguards-relevant information about a State is obtained from a variety of sources; from States themselves, pursuant to the reporting requirements in their respective safeguards agreements and on a voluntary basis; by Agency safeguards inspectors in the course of their in-field inspection and other verification activities; from open sources such as professional journals, commercial satellite imagery and the media; and from other sources. The Secretariat's safeguards conclusions, the bedrock of the types of assurance that it can provide, derive from ongoing activities based on information collection, processing, analysis, evaluation and storage. These activities pose technological challenges from two aspects: implementing safeguards verification technology to conduct activities under comprehensive safeguards agreements and additional protocols effectively and efficiently; and having a robust information technology infrastructure to store, process and analyze the wider variety of information in a reliable and secure manner. The presentation will address those technological challenges, in particular the requirements, capabilities and limitations of safeguards technology. (author)