Chapter 10. Multinational and international controls. Paper 16. A nuclear fuel supply cooperative: a way out of the non-proliferation debacle

The prospect of a rapid spread of nationally controlled enrichment and fuel reprocessing plants has heightened concern over the adequacy of existing arrangements to restrain nuclear weapon proliferation, particularly in situations where safeguards agreements might be abrogated. Attempts to reduce the proliferation risk by the attachment of additional export controls are likely to exacerbate existing political polarizations and weaken the non-proliferation regime. While multinational control of enrichment and reprocessing plants might serve as an effective means of containing the proliferation risk, it would raise problems of surrender of national sovereignty and delay in implementation. This paper advances the concept of a nuclear fuel supply cooperative as a possible means of reducing the risk of nuclear weapon proliferation without raising these problems of national sovereignty and implementation. The purposes of the cooperative would be to ensure member states access to adequate and reliable supplies of uranium and nuclear services, and to promote confidence that nuclear supplies and facilities will not be misused. Enrichment and reprocessing would remain under national control, but nuclear weapon proliferation would be restrained through the undertaking by members (a) to deny themselves access to the services of enrichment and reprocessing facilities, whether indigenous or foreign, beyond that necessitated by their power programmes and (b) to accept International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards to verify their observance of that undertaking. Foremost among the several attractive features of the concept is its reliance on mutual benefit as a basis of the non-proliferation regime it seeks to establish. The charter of the cooperative could be expeditiously established by a small group of founding states, further states joining the cooperative as they judged it to be in their interest. (author)