Notes from the Wilton Park Non-Proliferation Conference in This

VERTIC News Archive 2012

20 December 2012 New blog post: Notes from the Wilton Park non-proliferation conference In this week's blog post, VERTIC Researcher David Cliff looks back to discussions at the recent Wilton Park non-proliferation conference—which he, along with VERTIC Executive Director Andreas Persbo, attended last week. Read the full post here. ------

20 December 2012 Notes from the Wilton Park non-proliferation conference David Cliff, London Last week, VERTIC's Andreas Persbo and David Cliff attended the annual December conference on nuclear non-proliferation at Wilton Park in West Sussex. The meeting, which brought together more than 70 diplomats, commentators, academics and think-tankers to discuss a broad range of current issues in the world of nuclear arms control—from the state of progress under the ‘action plan' agreed at the 2010 NPT review conference, to nuclear security, ‘latent' proliferation, the prospect of a WMD-free zone in the Middle East, US nuclear policy in the run-up to the 2015 conference, and many other topics besides. Some of the most interesting and lively discussions—all of which were held under Chatham House rules—centred on the recent decision to postpone a conference that was due to be held this month in Helsinki on the establishment of the aforementioned Middle East WMD-free zone. The decision to hold such a conference formed a key part of the 2010 review conference final document and its postponement (which one closely involved participant noted at Wilton Park as being a simple ‘readjustment of timelines'; and certainly not a cancellation) is seen by some as representing a blow to the robustness of the NPT regime as a whole. While at Wilton Park, we heard Arab frustration at not just the postponement of the conference but also the manner in which the postponement was handled by the co-convenors of the conference (the US, UK and Russia), the United Nations (under whose auspices it was being held) and Finland (the conference facilitator)—each of whom presented different, varying statements explaining the reasons for putting the meeting off. The situation may cause the Arab world to turn away from regional cooperation and towards focusing more on their own security, it was argued. Were that to happen, of course, it could entail serious consequences for the long-term integrity of the NPT in the Middle Eastern region as well as beyond it. More positively, we also heard commitments from those involved in what has become known as the ‘Helsinki process' that this process remained very much ongoing—hence the stressing that postponement does not amount to cancellation—and hopes, bordering on optimism, that continued diplomatic efforts would lead to the conference being held in the early part of 2013. Making this conference a reality has never been closer, a representative of one of the co-convenors noted, and to give up or ease off now in efforts to ensure that it goes ahead soon would be a huge mistake. Predictably enough, Iran and its nuclear programme was also a key talking point among participants, as was North Korea, which last week successfully launched a long-range rocket that perhaps one day might be able to carry one of the country's nuclear explosive devices. On ‘red lines', of which there has been much talk in recent months with regard to Iran, it was noted by one participant that for all the talk of using such lines—whatever they may be—to set limits on Iran, North Korea has been getting away with, benefitting from, and forcing the constant readjustment of, the red lines and dire warnings of the international community for years. In terms of verification and monitoring, getting a better look at North Korea's nuclear programme remains off the table, for now at least, but in Iran there remains hope that the country's rulers will ratify and begin implementation of the IAEA's Additional Protocol. If that Protocol was in force in Iran, IAEA inspectors would have a far greater ability to verify Iranian claims that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful in nature and intention—with the Protocol therefore standing as one of the best ways for Iran to address international concerns over its nuclear activities (fissile material production in particular). The conference heard, though, that an Additional Protocol wouldn't represent a cure-all to suspicions over Iran and that verification measures going beyond those contained in the Protocol would probably be necessary to satisfy international concerns—a kind of ‘Additional Protocol plus' specifically tailored to the Iranian case. This post, of course, merely offers a brief flavour of the arguments, concerns and opinions expressed at Wilton Park last week. If it is possible to provide a general overview in just a few words, it would be to say that what was

Page 1 said was for the most part forward-looking towards what might come, and what might be done, in 2013 and beyond. The preparatory process for the 2015 NPT review conference is now underway—the first of three annual ‘PrepCom' meetings was held earlier this year in Vienna—and there seems to be a sense among the nuclear arms control community that time is passing quicker now and that the next review conference, which has a high bar to meet after the widely-considered success of 2010, will be here in next to no time at all.

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20 December 2012 Larry MacFaul presents on verification in Vienna On 13 December 2012 VERTIC Senior Researcher Larry MacFaul presented to diplomats from a range of countries in Vienna on the subject of ‘Verification: how we can use it and what it can do'. The presentation was delivered at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP), as part of a VCDNP-run course on nuclear disarmament. In his presentation, available for download here, Mr MacFaul discussed the fundamental tenets of verification, before addressing various examples of verification in practice—specifically as it has been applied to states' nuclear activities and nuclear disarmament. The presentation looks at the UK-Norway Initiative on disarmament verification and options for the verification of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, discussing the key elements and main complications of both.

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16 December 2012 New blog post: Existential risks and the technological singularity In this week's blog post, David Keir looks at the possibility of existential threats to humanity arising from runaway progress in artificial intelligence. Read the full post here. ------

14 December 2012 Existential risks and the technological singularity David Keir, London At VERTIC we are concerned with threats to society such as nuclear, biological, chemical and cyber security. An article in the Sunday Times (25th Nov.) described a new project set up at Cambridge University, for the study of the proposition that super-intelligent computers could become a threat to humanity. It says that: ‘The center for the study of existential risk — where “existential” implies a threat to humanity's existence — is being co-launched by Lord Rees, the astronomer royal who is one of the world's leading cosmologists. Its purpose is to study the “four greatest threats” to the human species: artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology. Rees's 2003 book, ‘Our Final Century', had warned that the destructiveness of humanity meant our species could wipe itself out by 2100. He is launching the centre with Huw Price, the Bertrand Russell professor of philosophy at Cambridge, and Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype. The opening paragraph on the centre's website says: ‘Many scientists are concerned that developments in human technology may soon pose new, extinction-level risks to our species as a whole. Such dangers have been suggested from progress in artificial intelligence, from developments in biotechnology and artificial life, from nanotechnology, and from possible extreme effects of anthropogenic climate change. The seriousness of these risks is difficult to assess, but that in itself seems a cause for concern, given how much is at stake.' Interestingly, the Sunday Times article adds to that the still-present threat of a nuclear war. For the consideration of one of these, the artificial intelligence tipping point, this new Cambridge project seems to use as one of its main jumping-off points the writings of Ray Kurzweil. In ‘The Singularity is Near', Kurzweil predicts the 'technological singularity' occurring around the year 2040. What is envisaged is that at this point humans will build a system so powerful that it can then design and produce systems of its own, which then make the continued existence of humanity a matter of indifference to a newly-dominant machine species. Historical Perspective In 1951, Alan Turing spoke of the theoretical possibility that computing machines could become even smarter than humans, saying that: '…once the machine thinking method has started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. ... At some stage

Page 2 therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control…' This idea has been reiterated and developed in the decades since then. In 1965, I. J. Good first wrote of an "intelligence explosion", suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unforeseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment themselves into far greater intelligences. The use of the term 'singularity' as a description for a tipping point in technological advance at which the outcome in society is indeterminable, was originated by the mathematician John von Neumann, in the 1950s, in his book ‘The Computer and the Brain'. Here he discussed a point in future history beyond which human can no longer be predicted to continue as the dominant and controlling species on earth. He spoke of the 'ever-accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.' Moore's law (the doubling of the number of functional units in computers every two years), if it continues to hold, suggests the arrival this century (by our own efforts) of a complexity and power in computational ability which would theoretically surpass human intelligence. Later, the mathematician and science fiction author Vernor Vinge predicted four ways the singularity could occur: • The development of computers that are 'awake' and superhumanly intelligent. • Large computer networks (and their associated users) may 'wake up' as a superhumanly intelligent entity. • Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent. • Biological science may find ways to improve upon the natural human intellect.' It is not clear to this blogger how much of this is true and how much is dramatisation. However, assuming for now that a technological singularity is feasible, what are the real implications? Friendly or hostile? - existential risk Berglas, in 2008 noted that: '…there is no direct evolutionary motivation for an artificial intelligence to be friendly to humans. Evolution has no inherent tendency to produce outcomes valued by humans, and there is little reason to expect an arbitrary optimisation process to promote an outcome desired by mankind, rather than inadvertently leading to an artificial intelligence behaving in a way not intended by its creators…' Another obvious issue is that human-indifferent future intelligences are likely to be less resource-costly than friendly ones. This is because of the extra burden of 'friendliness' as an additional attribute. Is there really a threat - is there really a singularity? Some would see a future where robots do almost everything we humans require as a future paradise, where work of all kinds becomes a thing of the past. However, just as many see the threat that superhumanly-intelligent systems of the futures would regard humans and their behaviour as a nuisance and as competitors for resources or, at best, become indifferent to their needs. I think all readers will have encountered versions of both these futures in science fiction stories or films. Still other commentators have repudiated the artificial intelligence-driven singularity itself, and thus do not believe the threat exists. As well as the factors of societal and technological collapse due to resource exhaustion, and the related argument of 'technology paradox', discussions about computer 'clock-rates' and circuit density and the limits of heat dissipation from chips, versus paradigmic changes in processor design, are beyond the capabilities of the present author to make a judgement on. Suffice it to say, that the arguments are currently unresolved as to whether the predicted technological singularity will occur in this century, or at all. But if there exists even the possibility - what can, or should, done about it? What safeguards have been discussed? Asimov' Laws of Robotics were a fictional construct, and when examined carefully do not represent any safeguard against this threat. Eliezer Yudkowsky, who founded the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence in 2000, proposed that research be undertaken to produce friendly artificial intelligence in order to address the dangers. He noted that the first real artificial intelligence would have a head start on self-improvement and, if friendly, could prevent unfriendly artificial intelligences from developing, as well as providing enormous benefits to mankind. Conclusion So what do we make of this? Is this just a field with no utility in the real world, or is it a serious issue which humanity needs to study now and (rather like the subject of climate change in the 1980s) collect evidence of its reality, discuss and reach a consensus. Eventually, if the data proved conclusive, steps might need to be taken early to constrain the risks. History has some lessons for us, but ultimately it will depend upon those passionate enough and knowledgeable enough to pursue these ideas, to determine whether or not studying existential risk and in particular the putative 'singularity', is achieved on a large enough scale and early enough, to avoid a disaster of our own making. ------

13 December 2012

Page 3 Canada and Denmark legislation, Uganda policy paper added to the BWC Legislation Database ------

10 December 2012 VERTIC gives statement to 2012 Meeting of the States Parties to the BWC Yasemin Balci, Legal Officer, gave VERTIC's statement to the 2012 Meeting of the States Parties to the BWC today. VERTIC's statement addressed the H5N1 case study, which it provided as a Guest of the Chair during the Meeting of Experts to the BWC in July and highlighted some reasons for the slowdown of national implementation of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions. VERTIC also gave a brief overview of the expansion of the National Implementation Measures or NIM Programme, including the development and publication of a 'Guide to National Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1540'. Yasemin concluded our statement by drawing attention to the upcoming conference on civil society and UNSCR 1540, which will be held in Vienna during 8 to 10 January 2013. VERTIC's statement can be found here. It is also available in French and Spanish and includes a representative sample of VERTIC's statistics on national implementation of the BWC. ------

06 December 2012 New blog post: Regional trends in the adoption of implementing legislation for the CWC In this week's blog post, Lasha Tvaliashvili looks at regional trends in the adoption of implementing legislation for the CWC. Read the full post here. ------

06 December 2012 Regional trends in the adoption of implementing legislation for the CWC Lasha Tvaliashvili with Yasemin Balci, London During the Conference of States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) over a week ago, States Parties took note of the latest figures compiled by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on national implementation of the Convention. Under Article VII of the CWC, States Parties are required to adopt national implementation measures to fulfill their obligations under the Convention in accordance with their constitutional processes (paragraph 1). States Parties are also required to inform the OPCW of the legislative measures they have taken (paragraph 5). In this way, the OPCW is able to gather data on the number of States Parties that have adopted national implementation measures and assess the comprehensiveness of the measures they have taken. In its report (Overview of the Status of Implementation of Article VII of the Chemical Weapons Convention as at 27 July 2012, EC-70/DG.5, C-17/DG.8, 28 August 2012), the OPCW states that 115 of the CWC's 188 States Parties have adopted legislative measures, 88 of which have adopted legislative measures that cover all key areas of the Convention (47% of all States Parties). The OPCW analyzes States Parties' reported legislative measures to assess whether these are sufficiently comprehensive. Key areas consist of multiple areas of law, such as criminal and export control law. In its report, the OPCW gives an overview of the status of implementation in each of its five regional groups: Africa Of the 50 States Parties of the Africa Group, 23 have adopted implementing measures, 12 of which have legislation that covers all key areas (24%). Of the 27 States Parties that have not adopted any implementing measures yet, four have draft legislation before parliament and 16 have draft legislation pending government approval, but seven have not started work on draft legislation. Asia Of the 51 States Parties of the Asia Group, 30 have adopted implementing measures, 20 of which have legislation that covers all key areas (39%). Of the 21 States Parties that have not adopted any implementing measures yet, three have draft legislation before parliament and ten have draft legislation pending government approval, but eight have not started work on draft legislation. Eastern Europe Of the 25 States Parties of the Eastern Europe Group, 23 have adopted implementing measures, 22 of which have legislation that covers all key areas (88%). The two States Parties that have not adopted any implementing measures yet have informed the OPCW that draft legislation is pending government approval. Latin America and the Caribbean Of the 33 States Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean Group, 12 have adopted implementing measures, 9 of which have legislation that covers all key areas (27%). Of the 21 States Parties that have not adopted any implementing measures yet, five have draft legislation before parliament and 12 have draft legislation pending government approval, but four have not started work on

Page 4 draft legislation. Western Europe and Other States Group Of the 29 States Parties of Western Europe and Other States Group, 27 have implementing measures in place, 25 of which have legislation that covers all key areas (86%). Of the two States Parties that have not adopted any implementing measures yet, one has draft legislation before parliament and one has draft legislation pending government approval. This overview shows that fifteen years since entry into force of the Convention, national implementation is still lagging behind in most regions. When States Parties convene in four months' time to hold the Third Review Conference of the CWC in The Hague, national implementation and approaches to increase the number of States Parties with comprehensive legislation will therefore constitute an important agenda item. ------

29 November 2012 VERTIC wishes to congratulate the Marshall Islands for its accession to the BWC The Marshall Islands deposited its instrument of accession in Washington DC on 15 November 2012, becoming a State Party to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and bringing the membership of the BWC to 166. ------

29 November 2012 New blog post: Civil society contributions to the operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention In this week's blog post, Scott Spence provides his thoughts on how civil society actors, such as VERTIC, can contribute to the operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Read the full post here. ------

29 November 2012 Civil society contributions to the operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention Scott Spence, The Hague On 29 November, a number of civil society actors participated in an invitation-only meeting with States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and with staff from the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), including the Director-General. We discussed how civil society actors such as VERTIC can contribute to the Organization's efforts to strengthen the Convention and its operation. I took the opportunity to share some thoughts on how, in particular, we can work with the OPCW to promote universality and national implementation of the CWC. I noted that, to date, VERTIC's National Implementation Measures (NIM) Programme has worked with 29 States on universality and implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and with six States on universality and implementation of the CWC (including Chile, Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines). To keep my comments concrete, I briefly gave an example of such activities in the BWC context, involving Burundi who publicly acknowledged our co-operation with them at the BWC Review Conference last December:

We worked with Burundi, in French, in March 2011 on national implementation and ratification of the BWC. We organized a five-day workshop in co-operation with the EU Joint Action for the BWC and the BWC Implementation Support Unit (ISU). The workshop included experts from several of Burundi's ministries, the European Union and VERTIC. The EU experts and VERTIC staff members gave presentations on: an overview and history of biological warfare and the Convention BWC meeting processes Scientific developments Confidence-building measures National implementation measures and national authority structure, and Ratification of the BWC, including depositary information. I noted that we then worked directly with several Burundi officials, including their CWC National Focal Point, on their BWC implementing legislation. This legislation is now undergoing inter-ministerial review before going to their National Assembly for adoption. In addition, Burundi deposited its instrument of ratification to the BWC on 18 October 2011, becoming the 165th State Party. I concluded by noting that we will continue to offer similar co-operation with interested States on their adherence to

Page 5 and implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, in co-ordination with the OPCW. Our work demonstrates the expertise and practical support that civil society actors are contributing towards the goal of strengthening the CBRN conventions, and it is warmly welcomed by the States we work with. Scott Spence is the Senior Legal Officer at VERTIC, where he co-ordinates the strategic vision and technical delivery of the National Implementation Measures (NIM) Programme.

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23 November 2012 New blog post: Disarmament education and the CTBTO In this week's blog post, Andreas Persbo discusses disarmament education, in particular the CTBTO's 'Capacity Development Initiative', which VERTIC has been proudly involved with over the last few years. Read the full post here. ------

23 November 2012 Disarmament education and the CTBTO Andreas Persbo, Vienna and London In September, Angela Woodward wrote about the UN Secretary-General's report on Disarmament Education (see UN document A/57/124). She also highlighted the subsequent updated reports of the Secretary-General, and in particular the July 2012 report (see UN document A/67/138). This report makes for an interesting read. The Austrian government, for instance, highlights the establishment of the Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, which is now running intensive policy courses on disarmament. Several other governments are mentioned, although the absence of a Norwegian contribution is striking, as it funds and supports a large portfolio of educational initiatives. I strongly suspect that this will be rectified in the updated 2014 document. Amongst the intergovernmental organizations, the International Atomic Energy Agency reports on its fellowship programme and its sponsorship of various institutes and schools. These are worthwhile and important initiatives. However, the real gem in disarmament education is hidden in paragraph 54 and 55 in the report, namely the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization's Capacity Development Initiative. I remember clearly how the CDI started, and even had a very small part in its beginnings. I was invited into the room of a CTBTO staffer who had received directives from the Executive Secretary to make it happen. On his wall was a gigantic map full of boxes and arrows, ideas and topics, technologies and solutions. I gave only one piece of advice, to go for simplicity and to ‘think about scalability' (a term I had borrowed from a good friend at the UK Ministry of Defence). I told him to implement one module at a time. The staffer reminds me of this advice every time I now meet him, and points to the massive gains that the organization has made in the time since. It is a remarkable accomplishment, and it has gained momentum as it has moved along. There is plenty that the CTBTO can be proud of. I call the CDI a gem because the initiative wholly embraces the age of information that we live in. It is also somehow an embodiment of the forward-leaning and cutting-edge thinking that permeates the work of the organization. Hence, the initiative is fully networked, has an e-learning platform, and even publishes all lectures and modules on iTunes. There is even a live streaming feature (in high definition, of course) on the website when the course is running. One particular aspect of the CDI is the high level of interactivity that the course offers those who participate. Back in August 2012, I wrote about the first ever simulation of the Executive Council, the body that eventually will decide on whether an ambiguous event constitutes non-compliance with the treaty. This was a learning experience not only for the students participating, but for me personally, and for the professionals that deal with on-site inspection issues within the organization. It turned out that there are many issues that need further consideration: how you present highly technical and scientific community to a diplomatic community, for instance. Less fundamental but nevertheless important issues centered on how much information the Director-General should include in his updates to the Council. After this simulation, someone remarked that state parties would bring their own technical experts to such a meeting. Perhaps this may be the case, but that means that those governments with very little or no scientific expertise would need to rely on the technical pronouncements of those more endowed, or on the explanations of the CTBTO Technical Secretariat. In other words, education matters, as it allows for the free and accurate exchange of scientific views—and for greater understanding by all. This model of high interactivity, simulations and the skillful use of modern

Page 6 communications technology, is, ultimately, an exceptionally refreshing experience in a field otherwise characterized by a rather dogmatic and old fashioned view of science. It certainly got me thinking about how to revitalize disarmament education, and how to bring it up-to-date with the world we presently live in. It would be a great shame if the Secretary-General's report in 2014 notes that the Capacity Development Initiative has been shut down. It would be a cause for deep satisfaction, though, if the report notes that this model of teaching has helped transform the field of disarmament education, and that there is a legion of young scholars from all walks of scientific life emerging, ready to take up a challenge where past generations failed.

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20 November 2012 VERTIC Executive Director discusses nuclear weapon free world On 19-20 November 2012, Andreas Persbo travelled to Vienna, Austria, to participate in a two-day discussion of a nuclear weapon free world. Today, he participated in a panel with Professor Thomas Schelling, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus and Sverre Loodgard. The full agenda and participants CV are available on the website of the Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. Mr. Persbo's presentation covered the conditions for a nuclear weapon free world, and touched on verification and compliance aspects, especially the role of the IAEA in future disarmament verification. It is available for download here. ------

16 November 2012 VERTIC Executive Director moderates CDI panel Today, Andreas Persbo moderated a panel on the Nexus between Science and Verification at the CTBTO Advance Science Course ‘Around the Globe and Around the Clock: The Science and Technology of the CTBT.' The panel featured CTBT veterans Paul Richards and Svein Mykkelveit and heard contributions from Randy Bell, the Director of the Office of Nuclear Detonation Detection at the US Department of Energy. Andreas Persbo delivered some opening remarks. The Advance Science Course, running in Vienna at the moment, takes an in-depth look at the CTBT verification technologies. It involves lectures from internationally renowned guests as well as CTBTO staff, interactive sessions and site visits. More information on the course can be found by following this link, which takes you to the CTBTO website. The site contains more information on the course itself, the global partnership that supports it, and has links to the CTBTO's iTunes U site and E-learning platform. ------

15 November 2012 New blog post: Centralizing radioactive waste storage 96 Normal 0 false false false ES-TRAD JA X-NONE

15 November 2012 Centralizing radioactive waste storage 96 Normal 0 false false false ES-TRAD JA X-NONE

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/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Cambria;} Rocío Escauriaza Leal, Madrid What to do with radioactive waste? Many countries around the world, developed countries in particular, rely heavily on nuclear power, and all face the dilemma of what to do with all the radioactive waste generated. While there is no final solution to permanently eliminate this highly dangerous type of waste, some short- and long-term solutions have been developed. There are three different types of radioactive waste: low-level waste, such as industrial or medical radioactive wastes; intermediate-level waste, which contains a higher level of radioactivity and comes mostly from ion exchange resins and contaminated materials from reactor decommissioning (these need shielding); and, finally, high-level waste such as spent fuel (these need shielding and isolation). Radioactivity levels in high-level waste last hundreds of years, so it requires safe and secure storage over long periods of time. There are different approaches to storing radioactive wastes, including above-ground wet and dry storage (which are short-term solutions) and geological disposal as a final disposal solution. Many countries have adopted a ‘wait and see' approach and store their radioactive waste in short-term interim facilities. By not committing to final disposition, countries can modify their storage policies as technical developments in the field are achieved. Moreover, the idea of having international repositories is being considered; and European countries are currently exploring the idea of having a European repository. This is the case for Spain, currently counting with eight nuclear reactors producing 20 per cent of the country's energy supply. The government took the decision to centralize all radioactive waste generated in an interim storage facility. Commonly known as the ATC (Almacén Temporal Centralizado), the storage facility will be built in Villar de Cuellar, Cuenca, and will be storing intermediate-level and high-level radioactive waste for 60 years. Indeed many other countries also count with central interim storage facilities, with different approaches: some are being used for dry storage (Habog in the Netherlands or ZZL-Zwilag in Switzerland); others have centralized pools (Clab, Sweden); and some countries have chosen to create a national centralized geological repository as a final solution to their radioactive waste storage (such as is the case for the United Kingdom at Sellafield). Like other countries, Spain was obliged to take a decision over the storage of radioactive waste, as the on-site storage pools are getting full and France is currently charging 65,000 Euros a day to store 68 capsules of vitrified high-level waste and 664 cubic metres of intermediate level waste in La Hague (Normandy). Once the first module of the ATC becomes operational in 2015 the waste and the money will be returned to Spain (the money being a deposit to cover the cost and ensure the return). Centralizing radioactive waste in one interim storage facility can be highly advantageous as it is an economical and secure option. It is cheaper than building several small storage facilities around the country and physical security can be better guaranteed through isolation of the waste, control over any release and monitoring the confined material with regular inspections. However, an important issue that needs to be taken into account is the fact that the radioactive waste has to be transported to the centralized storage facility. Large shipments traveling long distances to reach the centralized facilities create a security and proliferation risk. It is equally important to ensure safety and security over the radioactive waste at the centralized storage facilities and during transport. ------

08 November 2012 New blog post: BWC implementing legislation – let’s look at the statistics The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Meeting of States Parties will convene in Geneva in one month's time. Amongst other items the meeting will discuss “Strengthening national implementation”, which is a standing item for each meeting in the 2012-15 intersessional period. What is the current status of BWC States Parties' national implementation, at least in terms of their national regulatory frameworks? Angela Woodward takes you through some interesting statistics drawn from VERTIC's BW legislation surveys. Read more here. ------

08 November 2012 BWC implementing legislation – let’s look at the statistics

Page 8 Angela Woodward, Christchurch The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Meeting of States Parties will convene in Geneva in one month's time. Amongst other items the meeting will discuss “Strengthening national implementation”, which is a standing item for each meeting in the 2012-15 intersessional period. What is the current status of BWC States Parties' national implementation, at least in terms of their national regulatory frameworks? Let me take you through some interesting statistics drawn from VERTIC's BW legislation surveys. VERTIC's National Implementation Measures (NIM) Programme has so far completed surveys of BWC implementing legislation in 115 of the 165 BWC States Parties. We've also completed biological weapons- (BW) related legislation surveys for a further 26 States, addressing obligations derived from the BWC and UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 (2004). The breakdown of completed surveys for BWC States Parties by UN geographic group is: • African States - 31 (of 37 BWC States Parties); • Asian States - 33 (of 46 BWC States Parties); • Eastern European States - 15 (of 23 BWC States Parties); • Latin America and Caribbean States - 29 (of 31 BWC States Parties); and • Western Europe and Other States - 7 (of 27 BWC States Parties). Given that we prepare BW-related surveys of BWC States Parties and non-States Parties alike, we depict our analysis by UN geographic group rather than by the BWC regional groups in Geneva (Eastern European Group, Group of the Non-Aligned Movement and Other States, and the Western Group). We prepared the legislation surveys using a template addressing 96 criteria derived from the BWC as well as UNSCR 1540 (2004), as the latter international legal instrument also contains obligations requiring national regulation concerning biological weapons and is binding on all States. When we locate primary or secondary legislation that addresses a criterion in the survey, we copy the text into the survey template. The presence and absence of such text helps to inform States' own reviews of their BWC implementing measures and, depending on their respective national circumstances and legal and constitutional requirements, to highlight which areas require strengthening through additional measures. We only provide these surveys to officials of the respective State. The surveys are divided into eight sections: • A: Definitions; • B: Offences and penalties • C: Preparations to commit offences specified in section B/alternate criminal liability; • D: Jurisdiction over offences specified in sections B and C; • E: Preventative measures: control lists; • F: Preventive measures to account for, secure and physically protect dangerous biological agents and toxins; • G: Preventative measures to control transfers of dangerous biological agents and toxins; and • H: Enforcement (investigations, prosecutions etc.). And now for the statistics. Let's take survey section B, on offences and penalties. In this category, we look for legislation which prohibits and penalizes the development, manufacture, production, acquisition, stockpiling, possession, transfer, transport and use (etc.) of biological weapons, all of which are mandated by Article I of the BWC and Operative Paragraph 2 of UNSCR 1540. Of the 31 African BWC States Parties surveyed, 18 had some measures addressing the core prohibitions. Of these 18 States, four had measures prohibiting BW development; five on manufacture/production; three on transfer or transport; and four on BW use. Of the 15 criteria in this section, seven States had measures addressing at least four of them. Of the 33 Asian BWC States Parties surveyed, 27 had some measures addressing the core prohibitions. Of these 27 States, five had measures prohibiting BW development; 11 on manufacture/production; 12 on transfer or transport; and nine on BW use. Of the 15 criteria in this section, 16 States had measures addressing at least four of them. Of the 15 Eastern European States Parties surveyed, all had some measures addressing the core prohibitions. Of these 15 States, nine had measures prohibiting BW development; 14 on manufacture/production; 15 transfer or transport; and 12 on BW use. Of the 15 criteria in this section, all 15 States had measures addressing at least four of them. Of the 29 Latin America and Caribbean States surveyed, 27 had some measures addressing the core prohibitions. Of these 27 States, six had measures prohibiting BW development; 11 on manufacture/production; 12 on transfer or transport; and 12 on BW use. Of the 15 criteria in this section, 20 States had measures addressing at least four of them. Of the 7 Western Europe and Other States surveyed, all had some measures addressing the core prohibitions. Of these seven States, six had measures prohibiting BW development; six on manufacture/production; five on transfer or transport; and three on BW use.

Page 9 Of the 15 criteria in this section, all seven States had measures addressing at least four of them. By simply indicating the presence or absence of legislation in each of these survey cells, these statistics merely show the quantitative status of BWC implementing legislation. A qualitative analysis of VERTIC's surveys (including review of the legislative texts) would provide a more nuanced analysis of the effectiveness of existing measures, where these even exist, although we only hold that discussion with the respective State. VERTIC will provide a full breakdown of statistics across all sections in our legislation survey, anonymized by geographic grouping, at the BWC Meeting of States Parties. What this analysis of a mere sample of our statistics shows, is that States Parties have a lot to discuss under the “Strengthening national implementation” agenda item in the 2012-15 intersessional process. VERTIC's NIM Programme will continue preparing and updating BW-related legislation surveys to assist States to review their measures and identify which areas of their national implementation require strengthening and, on request, will provide drafting assistance for the development of national action plans and new legal measures. VERTIC NIM Programme staff will be available to discuss legislative development at the BWC Meeting of States Parties, being held 10-14 December 2012 in Geneva. ------

07 November 2012 VERTIC partners in hosting cyber-security conference Between 8-9 November 2012, UNIDIR is partnering with VERTIC and Chatham House to host a timely conference focusing on the role of confidence-building measures in cyber-security. The meeting, to be held in Geneva, will hear observations from a range of diplomats and technical experts, as well as from the private sector. It will discuss how countries and the international community can address the challenges and opportunities associated with the growing reliance on cyber-related technologies throughout many sectors. The discussions will examine issues concerning international law, verification, attribution, multilateral initiatives, business and civil society. The meeting agenda is available here. VERTIC Senior Researcher Larry MacFaul is representing VERTIC at the meeting. ------

05 November 2012 VERTIC Executive Director on IAEA legal standards Today, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has published the first round of an exchange of views on the legality of IAEA inspections in Iran. The exchange is between Dan Joyner, Professor of Law at the University of Alabama, Christopher Ford, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and Andreas Persbo, VERTIC's Executive Director. Follow the debate on ‘Iran and the bomb: The legal standards of the IAEA' on the Bulletin website. ------

02 November 2012 New blog post: Cyber-security, foreign goods and the role of verification There are plenty of threats in cyberspace currently worrying governments around the world: espionage, damage to critical infrastructure, the theft of intellectual property, and others besides. The range of potential adversaries is equally as diverse: states or state-sponsored actors, terrorists, ‘hacktivists', foreign companies and criminal organisations. The types of attack are numerous and they can be very fast, easily concealable and able to bypass conventional defences at national boundaries. Read the full post here. ------

02 November 2012 Cyber-security, foreign goods and the role of verification Katherine Tajer and Larry MacFaul, London There are plenty of threats in cyberspace currently worrying governments around the world: espionage, damage to critical infrastructure, the theft of intellectual property, and others besides. The range of potential adversaries is equally as diverse: states or state-sponsored actors, terrorists, ‘hacktivists', foreign companies and criminal organisations. The types of attack are numerous and they can be very fast, easily concealable and able to bypass conventional defences at national boundaries. The increasing reliance on cyber-related technologies throughout the public and private sector, combined with the

Page 10 speed of development in this area, is leading governments to think hard about how to effectively regulate and establish robust prevention and response measures in this area. While many discussions focus on the difficulty of attribution of cyber-attacks once they have taken place, a matter of growing concern is the vulnerability of electronic product supply chains to interference. Governments are now wondering whether their adversaries might introduce harmful elements into the hardware, firmware and software that they buy to support important national services. Some techniques, such as post-production evaluation, are already used to check the security characteristics of software-intensive systems. But the acceptability to governments of using these types of evaluation seems heavily dependent on the context in which they are being applied. A US House of Representatives report released last month cautions against their usefulness, at least when applied to the involvement of Chinese companies - in particular Huawei and ZTE - in the development of large telecommunication systems in North America. The report argues that these evaluations are more likely to favour the interests of the seller than the buyer. It states that ‘such processes are not necessarily designed to uncover malicious code' and adds that one ‘key issue not addressed by standardized third-party security evaluations is product and deployment diversity,' noting that: ‘The behavior of a device or system can vary wildly depending on how and where it is configured, installed, and maintained.' Huawei has established independent evaluation centres in the UK and most recently Australia to carry out post production evaluations on products to be used by government agencies. The House of Representatives report notes that the UK addresses potential security issues in its business with Huawei by vetting the evaluators of the products, but it argues that ‘it is not clear yet, however, that such steps would readily transfer to the US market.' The report argues that it is almost impossible to locate and eliminate every significant vulnerability from a complex product, especially if these include ‘flaws intentionally inserted by a determined and clever insider'. It accepts that there is ‘a large body of literature describing techniques for finding latent vulnerabilities in hardware and software systems' but points out that ‘no such technique claims the ability to find all such vulnerabilities in a pre-existing system.' It also notes that techniques do exist that can ‘prove a system implementation matches a design which has been formally verified to be free of certain types of flaws. However, such formal techniques must be incorporated throughout the design and development process to be effective. They cannot currently be applied to a finished product of significant size or complexity.' The report is also concerned that post-product evaluation does not address threats of malware infiltration once the product is in use. The ongoing security of a network will be determined, the report argues, by how a network operator oversees its patch management, its trouble-shooting and maintenance, upgrades, and managed-service elements, as well as the vendors it chooses for such services'. The report concludes that significant security ‘is available only through a thoughtful design and engineering process that addresses a complete system-of-systems across its full lifecycle, from design to retirement and includes aspects such as discrete technology components, their interactions, the human environment, and threats from the full spectrum of adversaries.' But why was the US House of Representatives so interested in these two companies' involvement in the country's telecommunications systems in the first place? The concern lay mainly in the level of the companies' ties with the Chinese government and the opportunities this might give it to infiltrate critical US systems. Equally, for its part, the Chinese government has raised fears about its own reliance on American manufactured software . Not only did the report examine post-product evaluation methods, it also described how the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence reviewed financial information about the companies and interviewed specialists in the field. The committee determined that these companies were not forthcoming about the investigation, and therefore that the US should regard them with suspicion. In this case, as in many other areas, the degree of assurance desired by a country from a verification system is largely determined by its perception of the level of risk. When the perceived or potential adversary in question is powerful, has the capability to carry out an attack, and the impact from such an attack would be high, the level of assurance required from a verification system is also high. National or third party licensing and verification systems have been applied to international trade in other commodities. International inspectorates are used to peer into sensitive facilities such as nuclear power plants to check material is not being diverted. These examples indicate that the international community can sometimes generate the level of ambition needed to try to address problems at the multilateral scale - especially when countries' national security is concerned. Discussions exploring what instruments might be acceptable and workable for cyberspace are ongoing in a variety of international conferences and forums. The debate has focused on tools such as confidence building measures, treaties, international bodies and enhanced transparency and cooperation

Page 11 between and within countries. Part of that discussion will likely continue to focus on verification and assurance. Could a sufficiently effective and inexpensive verification system be developed to meet whatever level of assurance is required? What level of intrusiveness would the seller accept, And what form would such systems need to take? Moreover, can they remain as largely industry and national level arrangements, or will they need to be addressed at an international level by an international standards-setting organization? ------

31 October 2012 Rocío Escauriaza Leal co-authors a publication on the BWC Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA AR-SA

31 October 2012 Appointments at VERTIC Dr. David Keir was appointed Programme Director - Verification and Monitoring. He will be in charge of the strategic pursuit of the organization's verification and monitoring objectives, taking over the organization's diverse and thriving arms control and disarmament portfolio. VERTIC's Arms Control and Disarmament Programme and its Environment Programme will be merged under the Verification and Monitoring Programme. Andreas Persbo, VERTIC's Executive Director, said, “in September 2012, our trustees agreed to a change in our strategic direction. Our mandate, unchanged since 1986, calls for us to pursuit the effective verification, monitoring and implementation of international agreements. We are now taking steps to realize the vision of our founders. David's been a friend of the organization for many years, and we were very fortunate to recruit him only a year ago. He brings a wealth of expertise to VERTIC, and takes over a dynamic group of experts on a strong financial footing. I'm very much looking forward to helping him grow the programme further”. Mr. Larry MacFaul was appointed Editor-in-Chief of VERTIC publications, a part time position reporting to the Executive Director. Andreas Persbo said, “this appointment was long overdue. Larry has already informally been doing this job for some time. I am very pleased to have this reflected in his contract. We have big plans for our publications, soon to be announced, and I can think of no better person than Larry to help us realize our aspirations”. ------

30 October 2012 Niue legislation added to the BWC Legislation Database ------

25 October 2012 New blog post: Nunn-Lugar: A retrospective? With the recent anniversary of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, an election looming, and the historic Nunn-Lugar

Page 12 Cooperative Threat Reduction programme (CTR) coming to its finish, it seems only fitting to turn the conversation over to US-Russian affairs. As Nunn-Lugar expires in June 2013 and has not been renewed, we should consider what we are losing in the retirement of this landmark initiative. Read the full post here. ------

25 October 2012 Nunn-Lugar: A Retrospective? Katherine Tajer, London With the recent anniversary of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, an election looming, and the historic Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programme (CTR) coming to its finish, it seems only fitting to turn the conversation over to US-Russian affairs. As Nunn-Lugar expires in June 2013 and has not been renewed, we should consider what we are losing in the retirement of this landmark initiative. To appreciate the impact of the Nunn-Lugar programme, it may be helpful to think back to the circumstances under which the treaty was born. The fall of the Soviet Union left many political challenges in its wake, and how to handle the USSR's massive and dispersed arsenal of nuclear weapons was perhaps the most dangerous and delicate of all. What resulted was one of the most successful US-Russian foreign policy initiatives ever witnessed. Working tirelessly to uncover all of the nuclear weapons storage, manufacturing and assembly points across the vast Soviet empire, Nunn-Lugar can take credit for deactivating some 7,527 nuclear warheads, destroying 498 silos, and rendering three former Soviet states free of nuclear weapons. When work began on the CTR, verification was considered a baseline requirement of any disarmament activities involving Russia. Given the size of America's investment, a robust verification regime was implemented to ensure that measures were carried out effectively. A standing ‘Audit and Examination' team had access to approximately 95 per cent of Russian equipment. The beginning of the ‘New START' treaty in 2011 has also changed the U.S-Russian verification landscape. Considering that New START was drafted while the CTR was still solidly in play, doubled-up programs could probably afford to be cut—especially if this presented a more attractive treaty to the Russians. In many respects, New START offers a more streamlined and in-depth picture of each arsenal, but the thorough and pedantic methods of START I and the CTR may have allowed more assurance. The main reductions include the removal of continuous monitoring at the Votkinsk plant, and telemetry exchange has been reduced to a formalized and largely symbolic measure. The reduction of the CTR's robust, American-led verification regime may have been Russia's main objective in blocking the previously successful treaty. Russia's official stance is that the program is not ‘modern' enough, and is at odds with their current ideas. Although Russia may ideally like to carry out some of the main tasks of the CTR independently, evidence suggests that this will be nearly impossible with their current budget. Certainly the issue is more complicated than one of modernity. Despite Obama's determination for a ‘reset' on relations with Russia, Russia's refusal to carry-on this historic treaty highlights cracks in this renewed relationship. The New York Times characterizes Russian resistance to Nunn-Lugar as just another in a long line of Putin-blocked American initiatives. Longstanding issues between the United States and Russia first came to the fore during the heated debate surrounding the New START's ratification. As Jeffrey Lewis asserts, it was the verification aspect of New START that gave the Russian parliament trouble. More recently, Russia dismissed all USAID workers, stating that they had an unseen influence on election practices. Given Putin's efforts to push out international monitoring bodies, it would make sense that he would seek to eliminate the in-depth American supervision required by the CTR. More immediately, Moscow's refusal to continue the CTR represents a potential threat to President Obama's campaign for a second term. Romney's advisors have jumped on the opportunity to label Obama's ‘reset' policy a failure, accusing the administration of lacking the strength to ensure Nunn-Lugar was kept going. The Republicans have also used this as a moment to dig up their list of grievances regarding New START, stating that Obama should have been more aggressive with Moscow and requested more concessions from them. Where we move on from here is critical. As New START's timetable calls for lower numbers through to 2018, the United States will have to negotiate what the next phase holds carefully. If Russia is holding back on Nunn-Lugar because of the possibility that the United States will gain more knowledge about their strategic arms then it seems unlikely that forward motion will be made on tactical weapons. Additionally, Russia is building new missiles, a process that the United States will want to monitor. All hope may not be lost though. Senator Lugar has stated that Russian officials seemed eager to amend the treaty, but not abandon it entirely. This suggests that perhaps a new form of the CTR would allow both sides to continue the aspects of the treaty they found beneficial. Diplomatic efforts may also make the difference. The answer may

Page 13 lie in concessions to Russia on the planned NATO missile defence expansion into Europe, which the Russian deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, recently deemed ‘threatening'. Even if we argue that disarmament measures have made the world a safer place and that the CTR has completed the bulk of its leviathan task, the issue of insecure material, weapons and facilities are just as relevant today as they were 20 years ago—especially if Russia is still unable to fund these programs independently. American political polarization and Putin's quest for isolation make uneasy ground for negotiation, but if nuclear terrorism is truly at the top of their security rosters, an Obama or Romney administration should prioritize how to move on from this failed discussion.

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18 October 2012 New blog post: introducing the candidates The plenary body of the Preparatory Commission of the CTBTO will meet next week, on 22-24 October 2012, to consider, amongst other things, the bids to take over after Ambassador Tibor Toth. Who might be elected? Read the full post here. ------

18 October 2012 Introducing the candidates The plenary body of the Preparatory Commission of the CTBTO will meet next week, on 22-24 October 2012, to consider, amongst other things, the bids to take over after Ambassador Tibor Toth. Who might be elected? I have had the pleasure of cooperating with the organization under two Executive Secretaries: Wolfgang Hoffman and Tibor Toth. And since VERTIC and the CTBTO has a close relationship, it has been interesting to see how Ambassador Toth's leadership style has transformed the organization. Under Mr Hoffman, who assumed office in March 1997, the organization was very much in a build-up phase. Mr Hoffman arrived to the CTBTO with no staff and no organization. By the time Mr Toth took over, in 2005, the skeleton of the organization was very much in place. The routines were there, much of the staff had been recruited, and the organization was growing. Despite the house being in relative order, I doubt that Ambassador Toth was expecting a smooth ride when he took over. Consider the challenges he faced. There was opposition to the treaty in the United States, who declined to pay their full due for many years, leaving the organization with serious cash-flow issues. He had to deal with the CTBTO's response to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which had left 230,000 people dead. It should be recalled that some in the media accused the organization, which has access to real-time seismic data, for not warning people in the region. As a matter of urgency, it was later decided to give regional tsunami warning centres access to the CTBTO's data streams. Ambassador Toth was charged with implementing that. During his tenure, nuclear testing resumed, with two tests by North Korea. Mr Toth formulated a response to that, highlighting the organization's readiness to perform the tasks entrusted to it. And in 2011, a tsunami struck again, this time crippling the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. CTBTO radionuclide data, and its sophisticated atmospheric modelling capabilities, kicked into play. Journalists flocked to the CTBTO for briefings on the latest releases, while the IAEA was struggling with antiquated communications channels established by the 1986 Convention of Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident. The CTBTO helped out, sharing data with its neighbour, again under Mr Toth's leadership. The Toth legacy will require an article of its own, and I hope to be able to write it one day. But it is clear that the organization, under his leadership, has assumed a higher public profile, and that its position in the family of intergovernmental organizations has been elevated. This is not an easy accomplishment, leaving rather large shoes to fill. So who has been proposed to take over the top-job? I am keeping my preferences to myself, so presenting the candidates in no particular order. In addition, I have tried to focus on some of the highlights of the respective candidates' career, leaving other aspects aside. They are all exceptionally qualified, which makes for a difficult, albeit exciting, choice in the coming week. Candidate 1: Ambassador Jargalsaikhan Enkhsaikhan (Mongolia). Mr. Enkhasikhan has a very long diplomatic career behind him, starting in 1974 in the Treaty and Legal Affairs Division of the Mongolian Foreign Ministry. He is presently the Ambassador of his country to international organizations in Vienna, but also to Italy and Croatia. He is the chair of Working Group A of the Preparatory Commission, which deals with administrative matters. Highlights of his career include being the

Page 14 president of the IAEA General Conference, as well as the Governor of Mongolia. He is the focal point and coordinator of Mongolia's nuclear weapon free status, and has served as an advisor to the Mongolian Foreign Minister. Rather unusually, Mr Enkhasiakhan has also had experience running an NGO: Blue Banner, a non-profit organization founded in 2005 with the objective of, amongst other things, establishing a North-East Asian nuclear-weapon free zone. He has been the editor of numerous books, covering human rights, public international law, and the law of international organizations. Candidate 2: Ambassador Alfredo Alejandro Labbe Villa (Chile). This is another diplomat with a distinguished and long career behind him. Mr Labbe's journey to the nomination started in 1977. His postings have gravitated around international security, disarmament and arms control since the mid-1990s, when he took up post as head of the Disarmament and International Security Department in the Directorate of Special Policy in the Chilean Foreign Ministry. Since then, he has served as Chair of the Universal Conference on Cluster Munitions and Chair of the second Conference of the States, Parties and Signatories to the Treaties establishing Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones. As Mr Enkhasiakahn, Mr. Labbe is a lawyer. He studied law at the University of Chile as well as in Ecuador and Peru and graduated from the Diplomatic Academy in Santiago. Candidate 3: Dr Hein Haak (The Netherlands). Mr Haak presently heads up the Climate and Seismology Department in the Royal Netherlands Metrological Institute. He is the present chair of Working Group B of the Preparatory Commission, which deals with verification. For those in the CTBT field, Mr Haak is very well known. He was a member of the Group of Scientific Experts, which examined the feasibility of the treaty, and also represented his country during the negotiations of the CTBT. In other words, he knows the treaty inside out. He has impeccable scientific credentials, and the author of several papers and books on the CTBT and its verification regimes. Candidate 4: Ambassador Libran Cabactulan (The Philippines). Mr Cabactulan's diplomatic career started in 1983. Before then he worked at his country's National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) for nine years as an economist. He has a Bachelor Degree and Master Degree in Political Science from the University of the Philippines. He also received a Certificate for Development Economics from the School of Economics of the University of the Philippines and a Diploma With Merit on Commercial Policy from the General Agreements on Tariff and Trade (GATT) in Geneva. He has served in various posts throughout his career, and has mostly dealt with trade issues. For instance, he was a member of the Philippine delegation that negotiated the country's accession to GATT, now known as the World Trade Organization. Arms controllers will know him as the President of the 2010 NPT Review Conference, where he broke the deadlock lingering since the inconclusive 2005 conference. He is presently serving his country in New York, and remains a frequent writer on arms control and disarmament issues. Candidate 5: Dr. Lassina Zerbo (Burkina Faso). Mr Zerbo, like Mr Haak, comes from the technical side of the organization. He is the only candidate of the five that has worked for many years within the organization. He has degrees in Fundamental and Applied Geology as well as Geophysics from French universitites. He has worked as a geophysicist for various companies in Africa and elsewhere since the late 1980s. His service for the CTBTO has, indeed, been longer that Ambassador Toth's. He took office as the Director of the International Data Centre Division in the CTBTO in 2004. As an excellent communicator, he has participated in several events highlighting the operation and effectiveness of the verification system, and the International Data Centre in particular (including at some organized by VERTIC). ------

11 October 2012 Man convicted of illegal possession of pufferfish toxin sentenced Yasemin Balci, London Two weeks ago, Mr E.B. from Illinois, United States, was sentenced to over seven and a half years in prison for possession of a toxin with intent to use it as a weapon. In Trust & Verify No. 136, we reported that he had been charged with acting in contravention of the 1989 Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act by ordering and receiving Tetrodotoxin (TTX), a highly deadly toxin, without a peaceful purpose. By posing as a doctor and stating ‘marine antitoxic research' as his purpose, Mr E.B. ordered 98 milligrams of TTX, which has no known antidote and is found naturally in pufferfish. The chemical distribution company where he placed his order became suspicious with the high amount of his order and notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Officers specifically trained for investigating offences relating to weapons of mass destruction examined his case and organized a special delivery of TTX by undercover agents who took him into custody after he had taken possession of the box. TTX is a legally-controlled substance that appears on the US ‘Select Agents and Toxins List', which

Page 15 requires persons who possess, use or transfer biological agents and toxins mentioned on the list to be registered with the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). An exemption from such registration applies if the amount of TTX is less than 100 milligrams. This exemption, however, applies to amounts under the control of a principal investigator, treating physician or veterinarian, or commercial manufacturer or distributor. Since most purchases of TTX consist of only two milligrams and Mr E.B.'s exceeded the company's single purchase maximum too, his order raised suspicion. Control lists such as the US Select Agents and Toxins List are useful in preventing dangerous biological agents and toxins such as TTX from falling in the wrong hands. By adopting such lists in their legislation, states can control who can work with certain biological agents and toxins in their territory, what training they should have undertaken, and ensure that facilities housing these materials meet specific safety and security standards. This helps prevent both intentional and accidental release of biological agents and toxins and protect human, animal and plant health. For such lists to be effective over time, it can also be required by law to establish a review mechanism. In the United States, the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 regulates activities with certain dangerous biological agents and toxins. Sections 201 and 212(a)(2) of this Act require a biennial review and republication of the Select Agents and Toxins list. The US list dated back to October 2008, but following the third review process during which comments were invited from the public, new lists were published last Friday (See here for the list on animal and plant health and here for the list on public health). A few viruses were added to the list (Chapare virus, Lujo virus, and SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV)) while some other agents were removed from it. Moreover, following President Obama's Executive Order 13546 ‘Optimizing the Security of Biological Select Agents and Toxins in the United States', those select agents and toxins that were considered to pose “the greatest risk of deliberate misuse with the most significant potential for mass casualties or devastating effects to the economy, critical infrastructure or public confidence” were designated as ‘Tier 1'agents. The risk analysis to establish Tier 1 agents was carried out by the Federal Experts Security Advisory Panel (FESAP) based on 20 criteria. Facilities housing Tier 1 agents will have to put new security measures in place, such as on-going personnel suitability assessments, security training for personnel, and a three-barrier physical protection system whereby one barrier must be continuously monitored to detect any circumventions of the access rules and the final one must limit access to authorized personnel only. The new Select Agents and Toxins List will be effective on 4 December 2012 while the new security requirements will become effective on 13 April 2013 to allow entities time to adopt the necessary measures.

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11 October 2012 New blog post: Man convicted of illegal possession of pufferfish toxin sentenced In this week's blog post, Yasemin Balci discusses the biological weapons case of US v Bachner and highlights the recent review of the US control list for certain biological agents and toxins. Please read the full blog post here. ------

11 October 2012 VERTIC's Senior Legal Officer attends INLA Congress VERTIC's Senior Legal Officer, Scott Spence, attended the International Nuclear Law Association Inter Jura Congress in Manchester, UK during 8-10 October. Scott was also an invited speaker and gave a presentation on VERTIC's CBRN-UNSCR 1540 Legislative Assistance, including an overview of the Additional Protocol project being carried out by the Arms Control & Disarmament Programme and the work of the National Implementation Measures Programme. The presentation is available here. ------

05 October 2012 Syria revisited - international law and the use of biological weapons Scott Spence, Geneva On 8 August, I blogged on the topic of Syria's declared chemical weapons stockpiles and

Page 16 the questions they raise under international law. I'd now like to turn to their biological weapons stockpiles and the related but different questions under international law. As Syria continues to boil over with internal armed conflict, the international community has continued to apply pressure on the Government to refrain from using chemical weapons against rebel forces and civilians. As I noted in my earlier blog post, the alarm bells about suspected chemical and biological weapons programmes started ringing more loudly when Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi officially acknowledged their existence by announcing to the international community, on 23 July, that these weapons would not be used against civilians, but would be used in the event of ‘external aggression'. More recently, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking at the High-Level Meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on 1 October, reiterated that he had “… expressed grave concerns with statements made by representatives of the Syrian Government regarding the existence of chemical weapons and their possible use. I have also personally conveyed these concerns directly to President Assad in writing many weeks ago”. The Secretary-General also emphasized “…the fundamental responsibility of the Syrian Government to ensure the safety and security of any such stockpiles” and warned the Government that “[t]he use of such weapons would be an outrageous crime with dire consequences”. Indeed, and this is precisely the point that I made in my earlier blog: any use of chemical weapons would be a violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (1925 Geneva Protocol), to which Syria is a State Party; a violation of customary international law; and a war crime under the Rome Statute, which could be referred to the International Criminal Court by the UN Security Council. What still appears to be getting less attention, however, is the other part of the statement by the Foreign Ministry, namely, that Syria also possesses biological weapons which they would use in the event of ‘external aggression'. The use of biological weapons is very clearly prohibited in international law under a number of different legal instruments, including the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC). In 1968, Syria acceded to the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which unequivocally prohibits the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of bacteriological methods of warfare. Moreover, though Syria is not a State Party to the BWC, it signed it in 1972 and therefore has certain obligations under the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, in particular under Article 18(a): “A State is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when: (a) it has signed the treaty or has exchanged instruments constituting the treaty subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, until it shall have made its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty…” On the basis of Syria's international legal position, the Government may have thought twice about using biological (or chemical) weapons against its own citizens even though the 1925 Geneva Protocol and BWC were originally concerned with their use in international conflicts. And as with chemical weapons, the ICRC concluded in 2005 that customary international humanitarian law includes a ban on the use of biological weapons in internal as well as in international conflicts. It also seems clear to me that Syria has no international legal basis for any use of biological weapons against ‘external aggression'. Again, as a State Party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol and signatory to the BWC, Syria is bound to refrain from any use of biological weapons in international armed conflict. Their use in the event of ‘external aggression' would therefore be a violation of both treaties and a violation of customary international humanitarian law. Such use could also trigger an investigation under the UN Secretary-General's Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons. However, since there is no organisation comparable to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for biological weapons with which he could co-operate, the Secretary-General would be limited to launching an investigation and sending a fact-finding team to the site of the alleged incident. I am more concerned, however, about the applicability of the Rome Statute in the event Syria did launch a biological weapons attack internally or in the event of ‘external aggression'. It's one thing for ‘the State' to have violated treaties or international customary law, it's quite another for individuals - including the highest officials - to be prosecuted in The Hague for war crimes involving these weapons. As I pointed out in my earlier blog post, the UN Security Council can refer Syria - a non-State Party to the Rome Statute - to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for chemical weapons use because ‘employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices' - language which is drawn from the 1925 Geneva Protocol - is a war crime under Article 8(2)(b)(xviii). Yet one of the purposes of the 1925 Geneva Protocol - to extend these prohibitions to ‘the use of bacteriological methods of warfare' - was not included in the Rome Statute for reasons which are explained at

Page 17 length in VERTIC Brief No. 14 ‘Chemical and biological weapons use in the Rome Statute: a case for change'. Regretfully, the consequence of this is that the ICC would face a very difficult hurdle in establishing jurisdiction over war crimes committed by individuals using biological weapons in Syria. Hopefully we will not have to test this proposition. Scott Spence is VERTIC's Senior Legal Officer. He is responsible for the strategic vision and technical delivery of the National Implementation Measures Programme.

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05 October 2012 New blog post: Syria revisited - international law and the use of biological weapons On 8 August, Scott Spence, VERTIC's Senior Legal Officer, blogged on the topic of Syria's declared chemical weapons stockpiles and the questions they raise under international law. He now turns to their biological weapons stockpiles and the related but different questions under international law. Read the full post here. ------

02 October 2012 Jozef 'Joe' Goldblat (1923-2012) It is with much sadness that VERTIC has today learned of the passing of the long-time arms control practitioner and former VERTIC consultant Dr Jozef Goldblat.

Dr Goldblat was born in Poland in 1923 and began studying arms control in the 1950s. During his life, he was involved in disarmament negotiations in a number of capacities, including as the head of the Polish delegation to the Committee on Disarmament in Geneva. He wrote a number of books on the subject of arms control—including the highly respected Arms Control: A Guide to Negotiations and Agreements.

From 1969 to 1989 Dr Goldblat directed the Arms Control and Disarmament Research Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and in 1980 he assisted the UN Secretary-General in the preparation of a report on a then still-far-off comprehensive nuclear test ban. Dr Goldblat was a member of the VERTIC International Verification Consultants Network from 2000 to 2009, and made great contributions to the work of the organization.

Andreas Persbo, VERTIC's Executive Director said, ‘Joe Goldblat's work and good company has been a great inspiration for me over my comparably brief career. I last remember talking to him at the NPT PrepCom in Geneva. He then spoke slowly and in whispers, but for those who cared to take time to listen, his insights were as elegant and thoughtful as ever. I will greatly miss talking to him again.' ------

28 September 2012 Trust & Verify No.138 In this issue, the NIM team discusses legislative measures related to proliferation concerns surrounding H5N1 research. Plus, as usual: Verification Watch, Science & Technology Scan, Verification Quotes, Programme News, and reflections by the director. Plus: Verification Watch, Science & Technology Scan, Verification Quotes, Programme News, and reflections by the director. Download the full edition here. ------

27 September 2012 New blog post: The return of the safeguards resolution The safeguards resolution of the IAEA General Conference has, for many years, been one of the highlights and great dreads of the conference. Member states anxieties and excessive wrangling over its text tends to ensure that the final day of the conference ends around midnight. While this adds to the excitement of the conference, it is also a very costly undertaking. Sitting in the conference hall in the middle of the night surely raises questions as

Page 18 to whether it is all worth it. Read the full post here. ------

27 September 2012 The return of the safeguards resolution The safeguards resolution of the IAEA General Conference has, for many years, been one of the highlights and great dreads of the conference. Member states anxieties and excessive wrangling over its text tends to ensure that the final day of the conference ends around midnight. While this adds to the excitement of the conference, it is also a very costly undertaking. Sitting in the conference hall in the middle of the night surely raises questions as to whether it is all worth it. For sure, the resolution is the one that receives a lot of attention from the media, and that may be one of the reasons that member states invest so heavily in it. But all this effort can also be explained by simple economics. The resolution addresses one of the central work areas of the organization, an area worth some 37 per cent of the regular budget. From that perspective, it is natural that member states are keen to have a say in how that money is spent. Background to the resolution The safeguards resolution was introduced in 1991. At the time, it represented an important shift in the internal debate on safeguards. Prior to its introduction, resolutions on safeguards tended to focus on the financing of the safeguards system, and not its operation. Since then, however, the IAEA membership has focused not so much on how the system should be financed, but on how it can be improved. Last year, the conference could not unite on language, breaking a two-decade long string of formulated, reformulated and restated understandings on the safeguards system. But divisions on the resolution started well before that, with the introduction in 2001 of language recognizing the importance of achieving universal application of the safeguards system, and urging states to bring into force comprehensive safeguards agreements. This forced the conference, for many years, to have a separate vote on this paragraph, after which members voted on the resolution as a whole. At first, this was done by hand (hence making it impossible for those scrutinizing the record to see who voted for what). Since 2007, however, a roll call has been requested on both amendments and the resolution as a whole, making divisions clear to see. Those who have wanted to see the additional paragraph have abstained from the resolution as a whole. The core group of persistent abstainers is rather small: Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria. It is likely supported by Iraq, Qatar, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen, who have abstained on those occasions that they've been present in the conference hall. In addition, a group of nations comprising Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Pakistan have abstained most of the time, but voted in favour at one occasion. Interestingly, where Iran and India goes on the vote is difficult to predict. Both have voted for the resolution twice, but abstained three times since 2007. The list of those consistently voting for the resolution is rather long, but includes the vast majority of industrialized nations with significant nuclear activities. For many states, the resolution serves the purpose of providing at least some guidance on the future direction of safeguards. They do not want to jeopardize this, and this becomes important when analyzing the support for the introduction of new language.

Disarmament language on the roll The press seem to have focused on the roll-call vote on disarmament language inserted by Iran in the preambular part of the resolution, a relatively harmless addition that safeguards is a fundamental component of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Similar language was proposed in 2010. Egypt had proposed changing the title to refer to ‘nuclear verification' and argued, in support of its position, that ‘the Agency had an important role to play in verifying nuclear disarmament as well as nuclear non-proliferation, and there were precedents for discussing the Agency's role in verifying nuclear disarmament—for example, within the framework of the Trilateral Initiative'. The Egyptians continued to explain that ‘the proposal had been opposed in the working group by a few Member State representatives who clearly feared that discussing nuclear verification would mean dealing with country-specific issues'. No state raised an objection to this characterization. Egypt clarified that ‘it would be possible…to discuss nuclear verification at a thematic...level and so cover the entire range of activities which the Agency was carrying out, had carried out and might be invited to carry out in the near future' (italics here). The fact that the language had not been inserted did not significantly alter the 2010 vote on the resolution. Myanmar changed its 2009 yes vote to an abstention. Iraq recorded an abstention as well, but then it had not voted in the previous year. It would have abstained no matter what. The rest of the floor voted in a rather predictable way. In 2011, Brazil wanted to insert language that

Page 19 ‘notes that, in furthering the establishment of safeguarded worldwide disarmament, non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, including nuclear verification, are mutually reinforcing'. This suggestion got public support by an interesting range of countries: Cuba, Algeria, Venezuela, Ireland, Iran, New Zealand, South Africa, Egypt, Germany, Syria, Singapore, Sweden and Australia. The interesting thing with this line-up is that it includes governments aligned with the Western group, not just the usual suspects. The nuclear-weapon states did not take a stand on the subject matter as such, instead reverting to procedural arguments. Russia and the United States were in agreement that the conference was ‘running behind schedule' and that there ‘was no time for debate' on the amendment. France simply said that the original draft was ‘excellent' and that it therefore should ‘not be opened up to amendment proposals'. The Russians added that had the ‘wording been available for consideration three months earlier, it could have been considered, but there was now no time for the necessary negotiations'. The United Kingdom said that it ‘would have been willing to consider in isolation' the Brazilian proposal, but that there was many other concerns - not relating to disarmament - that had been raised. This is a key point. Even if agreement could have been reached on the disarmament language in 2011, its not clear that consensus could have been reached. This point is emphasized by the outcome this year. Again, disarmament language was introduced. It went to a vote, which has been reported in the media, but the outcome of that vote was never in doubt. Many delegations took the floor expressing the view that they were still firmly supportive of the disarmament agenda, but that the other parts of the resolution were important too. In other words, many would have welcomed the inclusion of disarmament language, but not in this resolution, and not at this time. To say that the vast majority of member states feel as though the Agency should have no part in disarmament verification is therefore either uninformed or, frankly, disingenuous. Especially so as the resolution, as a careful observer will see, actually supports an Agency role in disarmament verification already. The only change on the floor itself was that Cuba, Iran and Venezuela changed their yes votes to abstentions, possibly out of disappointment that the addition did not carry. Other changes in the voting pattern were more interesting. India changed its long-running abstention into a yes vote. So did Jordan and Kuwait (and even Myanmar bounced back into the yes camp). On the whole, the resolution enjoyed the greatest level of support since 2008, with yes votes outnumbering abstainers by almost five to one. So what has changed? This is a difficult question to answer, particularly as the resolution seems to water down important language on safeguards. In particular, references to the IAEA's state level concept (a technique which, in a nutshell, evaluates the material balance declarations of a state as a whole) had been battered or deleted. For instance, in 2010 the General Conference welcomed ‘the important work being undertaken by the Agency in the conceptualization and and development of state-level safeguards approaches to safeguards implementation' and also ‘in the implementation of state-level integrated safeguards approaches which support more effective and efficient safeguards'. This language was weakened this year, with the conference simply ‘taking note' of this work, with the reference to ‘state-level integrated safeguards approaches' deleted. In 2010, the General Conference also urged the Secretariat of the Agency to ensure that the transition to integrated safeguards are given high priority. This reference is gone and so, presumably, the will of the conference to emphasise the need for safeguards reform. A new operative paragraph, later in the resolution, simply ‘encourages the Agency to continue to pursue the implementation of integrated safeguards in those states where both a comprehensive safeguards agreement and additional protocol are in force'. Before the General Conference, there was talk that Russia had queried the state-level concept both privately and in the Board of Governors. The conference now requests ‘the Secretariat to report to the Board of Governors on the conceptualization and development of the State-level concept for safeguards'. This is significant, as it will force the Secretariat to clearly communicate what the state-level concept means, and how it will impact on safeguards implementation. Some are worried that the concept introduces a level of discrimination in the system. The state-level concept has always been designed with non-discrimination in mind, however, and the Secretariat now has the opportunity to explain this in more detail. Other changes are more surprising. No longer is the General Conference urging the expansion of analytical capabilities in other countries, a main feature in the 2010 safeguards resolution. Rather, it is content with welcoming Agency efforts to strengthen the capabilities of its Seibersdorf laboratory as well as the Network of Analytical Laboratories. The Agency is encouraged to ‘enhance its technical capabilities and keep abreast of scientific and technological innovations that hold promising potential for safeguards purposes, and to continue building effective partnerships with Member States in this regard'. This language, which replaces older language on cooperation, ought to open up exciting new

Page 20 opportunities for collaboration with the IAEA in developing future generations of safeguards technologies. Rather interestingly, the General Conference no longer acknowledges the the importance of giving members the opportunity to comment on the Safeguards Implementation Report. There have also been a few additions. In the preamble, rather weak language has been added to note the conference's recognition that ‘safeguards must be effective and implemented in an efficient manner, in accordance with relevant safeguards agreements,' as well as a recognition that ‘the Agency's safeguards implementation is continually reviewed and evaluated by the Agency'. This language will hardly change the way the Agency is implementing safeguards. More importantly, the resolution now emphasises ‘the obligation of states to cooperate with the Agency in order to facilitate the implementation of safeguards agreements'. The conference also ‘calls on the Agency to continue to exercise fully its authority in accordance with the Statute in the implementation of safeguards agreements'. What's in store for 2013? Last year I argued that ‘it would be wise for those who care deeply about the Agency to use the coming year to rework the resolution into a text that is cleaner and more reflective of state views'. I also said that ‘it would also be sensible by those same delegates to think of ways in which the debate on the Agency's role in broader verification is allowed to flow freely throughout the corridors of its General Conference'. (See ‘The (temporary) fall of the safeguards resolution', 28 September 2011). The resolution still has 30 operative paragraphs and a lot of preambular language. By way of comparison, the first ever safeguards resolution had three preambular and four operative paragraphs. The 2012 text is hardly cleaner, but given increasing support for it, perhaps more reflective of member state views. Sadly, though, member states did not grasp the opportunity to allow the disarmament verification debate to enter into the conference. It is clear that the safeguards resolution is not the right place for this. It does have a place, however, given that many nuclear-weapon states seemed interested in at least debating the issue in 2011. The coming year should be spent thinking about how, not if, this debate should take place. ------

20 September 2012 New blog post: Accusations from Iran at the IAEA General Conference The 56th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is taking place this week in Vienna, and VERTIC - which holds observer status at the Agency - has a number of staff present to follow proceedings as the IAEA's 155-strong membership comes together to discuss the organisation's activities and budget for the coming year. Read the full post here. ------

20 September 2012 Accusations from Iran at the IAEA General Conference David Cliff, Vienna The 56th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is taking place this week in Vienna, and VERTIC - which holds observer status at the Agency - has a number of staff present to follow proceedings as the IAEA's 155-strong membership comes together to discuss the organisation's activities and budget for the coming year. The main business of the week got underway following the election of Uruguay's Ambassador Barros Orerio as president of the conference, and the delivery of a UN goodwill message (by the UN's top disarmament official, Angela Kane, on behalf of the UN secretary-general), in its opening session on Monday morning. Statements from the IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano, the United States, Iran and others followed. In his statement, Mr Amano stressed that the full implementation of all safeguards agreements between the Agency and its member states was the ‘guiding principle' of the IAEA in the field of nuclear verification. The Agency, of course, does far more than just verification - including ‘technical cooperation' with developing countries looking to make use of the peaceful applications of nuclear technology, and the promotion of nuclear safety and security around the world. Nuclear verification, to ensure that countries' nuclear energy programmes are purely peaceful in nature is, however, one of the Agency's key roles - and undoubtedly its most visible. Mr Amano argued that although the three current cases of particular proliferation concern - namely Iran, North Korea and Syria - are different, they are united by the common thread that each is failing to fulfil their obligations to the Agency. On Iran, he noted that the Agency remains able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material there but that the country is failing to provide ‘the necessary cooperation to enable [the

Page 21 IAEA] to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities.' Furthermore, Amano noted that the Agency has not been able to make any concrete progress in dialogue with Iran since last November, when the IAEA published an extensive compilation of information relating to possible Iranian nuclear weapons research. Iran's statement - delivered by its vice-president and nuclear chief, Fereyoun Abbasi - was uncompromising and provocative in equal measure. Addressing a packed plenary hall, Dr Abbasi accused the IAEA Secretariat of having its impartiality corrupted by the ‘mismanagement and influence of certain states' and suggested that the organisation might be infiltrated by ‘terrorists and saboteurs', citing an incident last month in which explosives were used to cut power lines to Iran's Fordow enrichment facility - an act, Abbasi said (hinting at IAEA complicity), that took place just hours before the Agency asked to conduct an unannounced inspection at the site. Power lines to Iran's enrichment facility at Natanz had been cut in a similar fashion earlier this year, Dr Abbasi also noted. In his statement, Dr Abbasi (who survived an assassination attempt in Tehran in 2010, one of a string of attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years) was at pains to stress that Iran ‘has always opposed and will always denounce the manufacture and use of weapons of mass destruction' - an opposition he noted as being rooted in the country's Islamic character - and that the country does ‘not regard nuclear weapons as instruments that can create might and power'. The fact remains, though, that the Iranian nuclear programme operates under a cloud of suspicion. What's more, the country refuses to implement the IAEA's Additional Protocol - which, by requiring more information from Iran and enhancing verification rights, would go a long way toward enabling Agency inspectors to reach assurance that, as stated time and again by Iranian officials, the country's nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes and nothing more. Elsewhere around the IAEA this week, resolutions on nuclear security, technical cooperation, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the safeguards system, and the application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East - among others - are being debated by the member states of the Agency. Last year, after lengthy discussions, no safeguards resolution was adopted after it proved impossible to bridge divisions among the Agency's membership, so the conference is watching closely to see whether this year will see the same result or, as in 2010, member states will be able to reach agreement. IAEA General Conferences tend to go on long into the night of the fifth day (i.e. tomorrow) so it will be some time yet before a clearer picture is likely to emerge. Postscript (Tuesday 25 September 2012). The 2012 IAEA General Conference finished at 0200hrs in the morning of Saturday 22 September. In its final hours, a resolution on IAEA safeguards was adopted by a vote of 89 for and none against. Sixteen abstained. Prior to the whole resolution being put to the vote, countries voted against an Iranian-proposed insertion of language on nuclear disarmament in the resolution's preambular section and for a paragraph calling on all countries to conclude Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements with the Agency (which some interpret as a call for all states to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty). On the previous evening, a resolution on IAEA safeguards in the Middle East was approved by a vote of 111 for and none against (eight countries abstained). This resolution included a separately-approved paragraph calling for all states in the region to join the NPT - language opposed by Israel, which remains the one Middle Eastern state not currently a member of that treaty. ------

13 September 2012 New blog post: Nuclear reactor safety in the post-Fukushima world Since the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011, there have been calls for increasing safety levels in nuclear plants worldwide. The incident in Japan was the fourth significant accident in the 55-year history of nuclear reactor operation. The first occurred in 1957 at the Windscale reactor in the UK. Two decades later, in 1979, a reactor at Three Mile Island in the USA was severely damaged, though radioactive material releases were slight. The third incident is well-known: the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl, Ukraine, where the destruction of a reactor by steam explosion, fire and core disruption had significant health and environmental consequences, mainly due to fission product release and dispersion, as well as a human death toll at the site itself. Read the full post here. ------

13 September 2012 Nuclear reactor safety in the post-Fukushima world David Keir with Larry MacFaul, London Since the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011, there

Page 22 have been calls for increasing safety levels in nuclear plants worldwide. The incident in Japan was the fourth significant accident in the 55-year history of nuclear reactor operation. The first occurred in 1957 at the Windscale reactor in the UK. Two decades later, in 1979, a reactor at Three Mile Island in the USA was severely damaged, though radioactive material releases were slight. The third incident is well-known: the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl, Ukraine, where the destruction of a reactor by steam explosion, fire and core disruption had significant health and environmental consequences, mainly due to fission product release and dispersion, as well as a human death toll at the site itself. But throughout the nuclear age, countries and international bodies have, of course, been developing a variety of approaches and systems to promote safety and minimize the risk of accidents. In the UK and US, for example, nuclear reactor safety has, since the latter part of the twentieth century, been based on a comprehensive risk assessment approach in which experts, at the design stage, identify what could go wrong—based on a detailed knowledge of the components, materials, energy flows and core neutronics. The experts then identify the various paths that an accident might follow, taking into account the plant design and its safety features such as emergency shutdown control rods, emergency core cooling and pressure vessel strength. They also calculate probabilities for each scenario (how often in ten thousand years a given accident might happen). For each hypothetical accident, they calculate the likely release of radioactive materials and model what the consequences would be for human life, health and the environment. Once all the above is complete, the so-called ‘envelope of risks' for the planned reactor can be examined. If any part of this represents a risk above that which is judged to be tolerable, improvements can be made. A landmark event in the UK was the Public Enquiry into the construction of a pressurised water reactor at the existing nuclear site at Sizewell. This enquiry revealed that neither the operators nor the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate had a numerical basis for comparing the tolerability of risks from nuclear reactors to such things as deaths from earthquakes, aircraft crashes and lightning strikes. The Sizewell enquiry was adjourned until these things were developed and approved. The result was two seminal documents: ‘The Tolerability of Risk from Nuclear Power Stations HSE, London 1988 (revised 1992)'; and ‘Safety Assessment Principles for Nuclear Facilities (revised as 2006 Edition, Revision 1, HSE, Bootle, UK). The US has also engaged in studying these issues. The latest document is the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses, which analyzed the potential consequences of severe accidents at the Surry Power Station, Virginia, and the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania as real examples of nuclear reactors. The project combined up-to-date information about the plants' layout and operations with local population data and emergency preparedness plans. This information was then analyzed using computer codes that incorporate decades of research into reactor accidents. But to what extent do these efforts, and the identified best practices enforced by national oversight legislation, translate to an international set of safety standards for reactors throughout the world? And what is the role of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in these issues? In 2003, the IAEA produced the ‘Periodic Safety Review of Nuclear Power Plants' in its IAEA Safety Standards Series. It has also released several other safety-related report series. The Agency's work provides a rich source of guidance, recommendations and best practice literature, but they are not an obligatory framework for IAEA member states to operate within. The shock of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident prompted the IAEA and its member states to develop a new Action Plan on Nuclear Safety (following a mission of international experts sent by the IAEA Director General to the site of the incident). An IAEA press release says that 'The Agency's and Member States' work focuses on reviewing, improving and strengthening IAEA peer reviews and emergency preparedness and response; the effectiveness of national regulatory bodies and operating organizations; the IAEA Safety Standards and their implementation; the international legal framework's effectiveness; capacity building; transparency and effectiveness in communication and information dissemination; and nuclear safety research and development.' Given the potential impacts that nuclear accidents can cause, and the regional, and even global, reach of their consequences, what more could be done? One possible additional step to take now might be to systematically review how the various international frameworks and legislation can be applied and improved to strengthen and normalize safety assessments and design safety standards for nuclear reactors and associated hazardous plants (such as reprocessing facilities) across the world—a review similar in kind to VERTIC's 2012 study of legislation on preventing the illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive material. ------

Page 23 06 September 2012 New blog post: Disarmament and non-proliferation education Ten years ago the United Nations Secretary-General released the “United Nations Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education” (A/57/124, 30 August 2002). The study was prepared over two years by an eminent group of experts drawn from Egypt, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland and Sweden and informed by wide-ranging consultations with civil society. Its findings highlighted the importance of empowering individuals, through such education, to contribute to achieving disarmament and non-proliferation measures and, ultimately, general and complete disarmament under effective international control. Read the full post here. ------

06 September 2012 Disarmament and non-proliferation education Angela Woodward, Christchurch Ten years ago the United Nations Secretary-General released the “United Nations Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education” (A/57/124, 30 August 2002). The study was prepared over two years by an eminent group of experts drawn from Egypt, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland and Sweden and informed by wide-ranging consultations with civil society. Its findings highlighted the importance of empowering individuals, through such education, to contribute to achieving disarmament and non-proliferation measures and, ultimately, general and complete disarmament under effective international control. The study encouraged the use of audience-appropriate teaching and learning methodology (for children, government officials, soldiers etc.) and the dissemination of teaching materials in a range of languages, while noting the ‘unprecedented opportunities' for such education using newly available information and communication technologies. Critically, the study set out 34 practical recommendations for promoting disarmament and non-proliferation training. Ten years on, how widely are the study's recommendations being implemented? It is difficult to gauge the availability of such education and training programmes around the world, although States, international, regional and non-governmental organizations are invited to contribute information on relevant activities to the Secretary-General's report every two years: the fifth biennial report was released in July 2012. Only 24 States have contributed information to these reports, including six which provided information in more than one year (Italy, Japan, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand and Spain). Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the numerous reporting obligations on States and the non-binding nature of the study, the level of detail in States' reports is varied, with some simply proffering political endorsement of the study's aims. Meanwhile, certain other States which are known to routinely support such educational activities have not provided information for the biennial reports, which perhaps evidences their desire to just get on and do it, rather than prepare reports about it. Submissions from various relevant UN and international organizations, as well as non-governmental organizations across the spectrum from advocacy to tertiary institutions, are instructive and underscore the important role they play in informing, educating and training a wide range of actors in disarmament and non-proliferation issues. The importance of disarmament and non-proliferation education has not diminished since 2002, yet it still does not appear to be widely available. States might usefully consider ways to encourage, promote and, where possible, financially support education and training in this important field. New Zealand's approach to supporting the study's implementation is a useful example, in this regard. New Zealand was an early advocate for the study's preparation, nominating a well-known non-governmental expert, Dr Kate Dewes, to be its representative in the group of experts responsible for drafting it. In 2004 the New Zealand Government established the Disarmament Education United Nations Implementation Fund (DEUNIF) with the specific aim of helping New Zealand non-governmental organizations to implement the study's recommendations. DEUNIF receives an annual appropriation of NZ$150,000 (approximately £76,000) with funding requests regularly totalling twice that amount. In addition, the Peace and Disarmament Education Trust (PADET), which was established in 1988, provides funding for tertiary scholarships and projects relating to peace, disarmament and arms control, including educational activities up to around NZ$150,000 per annum. The Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), comprising civil society disarmament and non-proliferation experts, is tasked with reviewing and making funding recommendations on applications to DEUNIF and PADET, and advising the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade on disarmament and arms control matters. Both DEUNIF and PADET support a wide range of civil society organizations and individuals in New

Page 24 Zealand to realize their goals of education and training in the field of disarmament and non-proliferation. In New Zealand, at least, the UN Secretary-General's Study is alive and well. Note: Angela Woodward currently serves on the New Zealand Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control. She received a PADET Masters scholarship in 2001 for her law thesis on the UN Secretary-General's role in investigating alleged biological weapons use, and a project grant to support her travel costs as the non-governmental expert on the New Zealand delegation to the Biological Weapons Convention Sixth Review Conference in 2006. ------

05 September 2012 VERTIC researcher presents on 'Trust and nuclear warhead dismantlement verification' On Thursday 4 September, VERTIC Researcher David Cliff presented on ‘Trust and nuclear warhead dismantlement verification' at a conference on trust and cooperation in nuclear issues organised by the universities of Birmingham and Leicester—and held at the University of Birmingham. Download the full presentation here.

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31 August 2012 VERTIC publishes two new fact sheets on national implementation measures related to nuclear security VERTIC's NIM Programme has published two new fact sheets on national implementation measures for the international instruments to control and secure nuclear and other radioactive material. These are Fact sheet 11 on the 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT) and Fact sheet 12 on the IAEA Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources. These facts sheets are the latest in a series that began in 2006. The series is intended to raise States' awareness of the importance of national implementing measures for the major CBRN treaties and related legal instruments. The first highlights why national implementation of international agreements is important. The other fact sheets provide basic facts about, and guides to the national implementation measures that may be required, for specific treaties and related legal instruments. Fact sheets 11 and 12 join Fact sheet 4 (National implementation measures for the 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM)) and Fact sheet 5 (National implementation measures for the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)) to form a complete set as part of the National Implementation Measures Programme's awareness-raising documentation for the international instruments to control and secure nuclear and other radioactive material. Fact sheets 11 and 12 are being translated into Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish. For more information about the NIM Programme, please contact Yasemin Balci, Associate Legal Officer. ------

30 August 2012 New blog post: UN observer mission in Syria ended amidst ongoing violence Aside from the mounting casualty figures and daily reports of violence in the streets of Aleppo and Damascus and elsewhere, media coverage of the ongoing Syrian conflict has directed a lot of attention in recent weeks to the potential use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime against his own people - and to what kind of response that might provoke from the West. A quieter development has been the decision to end the United Nations observer mission in the country, set up in April as part of a six-point peace plan brokered by the ex-UN Secretary-General and soon-to-be-ex-envoy of the UN and Arab League to Syria, Kofi Annan. Read the full post here. ------

30 August 2012 UN observer mission in Syria ended amidst ongoing violence David Cliff, London Aside from the mounting casualty figures and daily reports of violence in the streets of Aleppo and Damascus and elsewhere, media coverage of the ongoing Syrian conflict has directed a lot of attention in recent weeks to the potential use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime against his own

Page 25 people—and to what kind of response that might provoke from the West. A quieter development has been the decision to end the United Nations observer mission in the country, set up in April as part of a six-point peace plan brokered by the ex-UN Secretary-General and soon-to-be-ex-envoy of the UN and Arab League to Syria, Kofi Annan. Nearly a year and a half after the emergence of the ‘Arab Spring' in Syria in March 2011, the security situation in the country today is worse than ever. What's more, the flames of the fighting between the predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels of the ‘Free Syrian Army', the main opposition movement, and those remaining loyal to the Syrian president—most of whom, like Assad, belong to the Alawite sect of Shia Islam—seem now to be sparking sectarian clashes in the neighbouring tinderbox of Lebanon. Back in April, however, there was some cautious optimism that the rising tide of violence between Syrian rebels and government forces would abate if the UN-supervised cessation of hostilities called for in Mr Annan's plan—as annexed to UN Security Council Resolution 2042 of 14 April 2012—took hold. Resolution 2042 authorised the deployment of ‘an advance team of up to 30 unarmed military observers', who were to liaise with the parties to the conflict and who would ‘begin to report on the implementation of a full cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties', pending the deployment of a larger UN mission in Syria. That mission, known as the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) was established a week later—on 21 April 2012—as part of UN Security Council Resolution 2043. It was to be made up of 300 unarmed military observers, ‘as well as an appropriate civilian component', and was to be deployed to Syria for an initial period of 90 days. Resolution 2043 gave UNSMIS broad-ranging rights of movement and other freedoms within Syria. The Syrian government was called upon to facilitate the ‘expeditious and unhindered deployment' of UNSMIS personnel, as well as to ensure its ‘full, unimpeded, and immediate freedom of movement and access as necessary to fulfil its mandate' and to allow ‘unobstructed communications' by observers. Additionally, the regime was called upon to allow UN personnel ‘to freely and privately communicate with individuals throughout Syria without retaliation against any person as a result of interaction with UNSMIS.' Far from overseeing a mutual ceasefire, however, after an initial lull in hostilities following the arrival of UNSMIS, fighting by both sides picked up once again and the observer mission in Syria soon found itself bearing witness to the appalling aftermath of mass killings by Syrian government forces and state-supported paramilitaries. In late May, most prominently of all perhaps, UN observers counted 108 bodies—including 34 women and 49 children—after a massacre near the town of Houla in Syria's western Homs province. Most of the dead, UN observers reported, appeared to have been deliberately executed at close range. Amid the scores of atrocities to scar the Syrian conflict, the Houla massacre stood out as Syria's ‘hallmark bloodbath—its before-and-after moment,' Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker remarked, just as there was Mai Lai in Vietnam, Srebrenica in Bosnia and Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon. ‘In this gruesome reality show that we all now inhabit,' Anderson wrote of Houla, ‘the UN men arrived afterwards, in time to film the bodies left behind by their killers, with the merit of at least having confirmed that an atrocity took place.' But not able to do more than that. On 7 June, two weeks after the Houla killings and one day after violence in the town of Mazraat al-Qubair in Hama province left nearly 80 people dead, Mr Annan declared that unless the situation in Syria was to change, the future looked ‘likely to be one of brutal repression, massacres, sectarian violence, and even all-out civil war.' More precisely, one might have argued, the future looked likely to be one of continuing repression, massacres and violence—and not a slide to civil war but rather the increasingly unavoidable recognition that civil war was precisely the state to which Syria had by then already deteriorated. A subsequent report by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) released in mid-August accused Syrian government forces and the thuggish pro-Assad militia known as the Shabiha of committing ‘the crimes against humanity of murder and of torture' as well as perpetrating ‘war crimes and gross violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including unlawful killing, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, sexual violence, indiscriminate attack, pillaging and destruction of property.' (The report, which presented the latest findings of the HRC's independent international commission of inquiry into human rights violations in Syria, noted that UN investigations had found government forces and members of the Shabiha to be responsible for the Houla killings, as widely suspected.) On 16 June, escalating hostilities saw the UN suspend the operations of UNSMIS to protect its personnel. Its mandate was, nonetheless, extended on 20 July 2012 for a 30-day period on the authorisation of the UN Security Council. By then, though, as the UN Under-Secretary for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous told the press on 25 July, the mission was working on the basis of a ‘reduced format' with around half of its military observers already having been

Page 26 sent back to their own countries. On 16 August, three days before the mandate extension was due to elapse, the Security Council pulled the plug on the mission entirely, with just a small UN office in Damascus to be left behind. Mr Annan, for his part, announced his resignation as the joint UN-Arab League envoy to Syria in early August, citing the ‘continuing refusal' of the Syrian government to implement the six-point plan and the ‘escalating military campaign of the opposition'—all of which was being ‘compounded by the disunity of the international community,' he added, in a reference to divisions over Syria among the P5 members of the UN Security Council. Mr Annan's resignation is due to take effect from the end of this month, with Lakhdar Brahimi, a former UN special envoy to both Iraq and Afghanistan (among other global trouble-spots), set to take over from September onwards. Mr Brahimi, as experienced and capable as he undoubtedly is, faces an enormous challenge in trying to bring peace to Syria, in a conflict that seems to be worsening and becoming ever more savage by the day. Meanwhile, with the country largely a no-go area for foreign media personnel, the (understandable) withdrawal of the UN supervision mission further complicates both efforts to understand the complexities of the evolving situation and attempts to gain independent verification of reports by opposition activists of atrocities and other developments. Some journalists do remain, and some (including Anderson, a veteran reporter of conflicts around the world) sneak in and out as and when they can to provide independent accounts of the fighting and the bloodshed. It can only be hoped that mediation efforts—by the United Nations and, perhaps, by other outside powers—are able to quieten the violence in a way that hasn't proved possible so far, before it gets much worse, and to enough of an extent that any future re-engaged presence by a UN supervision mission will actually have some measure of peace to supervise.

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29 August 2012 VERTIC's Senior Legal Officer participates in workshop on nuclear security VERTIC's Senior Legal Officer, Scott Spence, participated in a workshop on 'Implementation of Nuclear Security Legal Instruments' during 28-29 August in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The workshop was organised by the Atomic Energy Licensing Board of Malaysia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia, the National University of Malaysia (UKM) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada. There were participants from across Southeast Asia. Scott presented on national implementation of UN Security Council 1540 and making the criminal acts in the Convention for the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (and 2005 Amendment) and International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism punishable offences under national law. He also addressed the challenges in adhering to and implementing these conventions, and the benefits and available assistance for doing so. Scott also gave a brief overview of VERTIC's new publication ' Guide to National Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1540'. ------

24 August 2012 New blog post: protecting inspectors in the field In this week's blog post, Andreas Persbo examines the responsibility to protect inspectors deployed in nuclear facilities from physical harm. Read the full post here. ------

24 August 2012 Protecting inspectors in the field Mark Hibbs' recent post about the risks facing IAEA inspectors in Iran, should Israel decide to attack the country, gives rise to a number of pertinent questions relating to matters of both law and policy. They are not new by any means, but they are nevertheless important. Broadly speaking, international inspectors are at risk every day at various hotspots around the world. Peacekeepers often risk their lives monitoring the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions or ceasefire agreements. Protection officers risk their lives recording the implementation of protection levels in respect to refugees. Indeed, since 1948, over 3,000 people have lost their lives in the service of the United Nations. As it happens, one of them was a childhood friend of mine, Tobias Boström Renström, who gave his life in the service of peace in the Former Yugoslavia in 1993. We

Page 27 served together, so I was asked to be the family representative at the ceremony where his coffin was flown home to Sweden. I later had to tell his parents about our mission—and why it was important—in the year that followed. Not an easy task for someone in his early twenties. Since then, I've always been a strong believer in international civil (and military) service. I've also felt that those who put their lives on the line in the service of peace deserve the strongest protection that can be afforded them. It is clear that the international organization itself has responsibility for its staff. It will suffer injury in the case of physical injury or death of an inspector (although they are likely to be insured). The legality of an Israeli strike on Iran would be in serious doubt, and it is likely that it would be widely condemned by the international community (although it is quite possible that the reaction would be milder than the diplomatic storm following Israel's 1981 strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor). Should an IAEA inspector, for instance, be injured, the organization also has the right to bring a claim against the state that caused the injury (if the injury involved a breach of that state's international obligations toward the organization). This follows from the 1949 Reparations case in the International Court of Justice. So, when it comes to international inspectors, it has been customary for states to give warning of an impending attack, allowing the United Nations to at least try to get their people out of harm's way. If Israel should decide to attack, it could issue such a warning. This, though, would mean that it would at the same time warn Iran of the strike. It is unlikely that it would desire to do this. Now, what about Iran's responsibilities to keep the inspectors safe? It is the responsibility of the receiving state to ensure that diplomatic agents, and this includes international inspectors, are protected from physical and material harm. The principal document covering the protection of diplomatic agents—which includes agents of international organizations—is the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The convention applies in times of war, but the responsibility to protect is, naturally, not without limitations. Should Iran find itself attacked, it would still need to take some steps to ensure the protection of diplomatic agents within its territory. It would, for instance, be required to grant facilities enabling these agents to leave the country. If need be, Iran would need to put transportation at their disposal to do so. If it allows inspectors to be harmed in any way, it would be in breach of the convention. This means that Iran would need to ensure that Agency inspectors have access to appropriate shelter, and that they are guarded against any potential public reaction to air strikes. The protection level afforded should be adjusted to reflect the level of threat. Paradoxically, if Iran were to, say, strongly advise inspectors against conducting activities at its nuclear sites, international concerns over unsafeguarded materials would immediately flare up. If inspectors say ‘thanks for the advice' and decide to continue to conduct inspectors, Iran cannot stop them. In other words, if Iran takes appropriate steps to protect the inspectors, but they place themselves in harm's way nevertheless, it will be without blame. At the end of the day, there is little one can do to guard against a surprise attack. Iran's responsibility to protect is not unlimited. It stands to reason that if Iran lacks the appropriate means to respond to or prevent an incident it will not be breaching its responsibility to protect the inspection team. In other words, no one will expect Iran to be able to stop bombs or missiles targeting facilities where inspectors are present. ------

23 August 2012 Timor-Leste legislation added to the BWC Legislation Database ------

20 August 2012 VERTIC publishes 'Guide to National Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1540' VERTIC has published a 'Guide to National Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1540'. VERTIC developed this Guide as guidance for States when they are engaged in the process of implementing UNSCR 1540. It identifies and organizes in one document the model laws, implementation kits and handbooks that have already been developed by VERTIC, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to assist States in implementing the legal instruments to prohibit and prevent the proliferation of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and related materials.

This Guide is divided into four parts: Part I covers biological weapons and materials; Part II covers chemical weapons and materials; Part III covers nuclear weapons / nuclear and other radioactive material; Part IV covers other obligations relevant to UNSCR 1540 national implementation relating to the suppression of unlawful

Page 28 activities involving civil aviation, maritime navigation and fixed platforms. A ‘Quick Reference' at the end of each Part sets forth a list of the materials discussed in that Part and web links where available. VERTIC developed this guide toward the objective in Security Council Resolution 1977 (20 April 2011), Operative Paragraph 12, in which the Security Council, inter alia, requested the 1540 Committee, with its group of experts, to:

'…identify effective practices, templates and guidance, with a view to develop a compilation, as well as to consider preparing a technical reference guide about resolution 1540 (2004), to be used by States on a voluntary basis in implementing resolution 1540 (2004), and in that regard, encourages the 1540 Committee, at its discretion, to draw also on relevant expertise, including, civil society and the private sector…' VERTIC can now provide assistance to governments, at no cost, in the development of laws and regulations for national implementation of: UNSCR 1540 (2004); 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC); 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC); certain international instruments to secure nuclear and other radioactive material, including: 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) (and 2005 amendment); 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT); and 2003 Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources (Code of Conduct); and certain other relevant international instruments, including: 2010 Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Relating to International Civil Aviation (Beijing Convention); 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (as amended by the 2005 Protocol); and 1988 Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf (as amended by the 2005 Protocol). For further details, please contact: Angela Woodward (Programme Director) (angela.woodward [at] vertic.org) Scott Spence (Senior Legal Officer) (scott.spence [at] vertic.org) (speaks French and Spanish) Rocío Escauriaza Leal (Legal Officer) (rocio.escauriaza [at] vertic.org) (speaks French and Spanish) Yasemin Balci (Associate Legal Officer) (yasemin.balci [at] vertic.org) (speaks Dutch, French, and Turkish)

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16 August 2012 New blog post: National measures effective in curtailing Ebola outbreak in Uganda In this week's blog post, Edward Perello examines the recent outbreak of Ebola in Uganda and the national measures taken to stop its spread. Read the full post here. ------

16 August 2012 National measures effective in curtailing Ebola outbreak in Uganda Edward Perello, London On 28 July 2012 the Ugandan government and the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the Ebola virus was the culprit behind a spate of deaths in Kibaale district, Western Uganda. To date, 16 people have died with a further 185 remaining under observation for signs of infection. Nonetheless, with the last confirmation of a new case being on 4 August, the Ugandan Health Ministry has said that the outbreak is under control, though not necessarily over. It is now prudent to examine the manner in which the Ugandan government and its regional partners have dealt with this deadly disease. There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola. It kills 50 and 90 per cent of patients and can do so within four days to a week. It is easily transmitted through contact with body fluids and the maximum 21-day incubation period gives the virus ample time to spread throughout a population. Infection typically manifests itself as a haemorrhagic fever characterised by high fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, extensive internal and external bleeding and multiple systems failure. In Uganda, the disease is highly feared as it killed 224 people in 2000 and 37 in 2007. Its characteristics along with the lack of an effective treatment all contribute to its label as a WHO Risk Group 4 pathogen, highlighting the need for states to implement the most stringent measures to protect public health. In June, an infant was found dead in Nyansigwa village, Kibaale district, shortly after it was momentarily left alone. The infant's left palm had the sign of an animal

Page 29 bite and about 300 meters from the family's house lies a forest, from which an Ebola-infected animal could have emerged to attack the infant. A 15-year-old girl who later touched the baby's wound became sick two days later, and died on 21 June. Nine members of the family followed suit. According to the national Ebola task force, the 15-year-old girl was the first patient. Locals, however, insisted that she got the disease from the baby. While Ebola is not fully understood, current medical theory indicates that its natural reservoir is in forest primate and bat populations. The rapid progression to illness in both the girl and family, which is incongruous with the 21-day incubation period, indicates that there was likely an earlier infection event and that the baby's death was unrelated. Additionally, there were some unusual symptoms among the infected, namely a lack of bleeding until well after death, which is not normally observed. These confusing findings, along with no ability to rapidly deploy advanced diagnostic equipment to the rural village, meant that it took 37 days before the Health Ministry was confident in the aetiology of the disease and the implementation of specific containment measures. While some have criticized this delay, the joint actions of Ugandan and international public health authorities are to be applauded. Active epidemic controls were enacted in accordance with the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), a legally binding international instrument on public health, which requires all WHO member states to notify the WHO of events that may lead to a public health emergency of international concern. The Ugandan government took successful measures such as the closure of schools throughout the country, the stoppage of prison visits, quarantine and surveillance of all those in contact with suspected patients, and public awareness efforts to discourage large meetings, handshakes and sexual contact. It also worked closely together with organizations such as the Uganda Red Cross Society and Médecins Sans Frontières. These actions have not only helped to prevent further spread of the disease, but have also assured smooth international traffic. Indeed, the WHO has not recommended any travel or trade restrictions to be applied to Uganda. Unfortunately, as of 12 August there are now five suspected cases of Ebola in the town of Isiro in the district of Haut Uele, Orientale (Eastern) Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), along with one death in Dungu, also in Haut Uele. The potential outbreaks could be related given the proximity between the Orientale Province and Kibaale District, along with the intense traffic between the two countries. However, confirmation and identification of the virus responsible for the DRC cases are awaited. ------

08 August 2012 New blog post: Syria - international law and the use of chemical weapons This week, Scott Spence and Meghan Brown highlight the international law implications of Syria's recent confirmation of its chemical weapons stockpiles.

Read the full post here. ------

08 August 2012 Syria: international law and the use of chemical weapons Scott Spence and Meghan Brown, Geneva and London The ongoing unrest in Syria has continued to dominate the headlines as concerns have mounted about the country's chemical weapons stockpiles. At the same time, these stockpiles raise interesting questions of international law. The isolated state has long been understood to have a well-developed chemical weapons programme and large stockpiles of usable agents and warheads. Concerns about suspected chemical weapons, however, recently reached a fever pitch when a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdissi - in a move from Syria's historical position of neither confirming nor denying a chemical, or biological, weapons programme - officially acknowledged their existence by announcing to the international community, on 23 July, that these weapons would not be used against civilians, but would be used in the event of ‘external aggression'. The regime subsequently qualified its statement, in an attempt to retain a perception of ambiguity over their actual existence. While there is uncertainty about whether Makdissi's statement was meant as reassurance that the Assad government will maintain some restraint against its own civilians, or as a threat against the international community, Syria's acknowledgment of its chemical weapons brings renewed focus to the status of chemical weapons use under international law. The use of chemical weapons is very clearly prohibited in international law under a number of different legal instruments. Syria is not a

Page 30 party to the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which unequivocally prohibits chemical weapons use (and other activities) under any circumstances. However, in 1968, Syria acceded to the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which prohibits the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of bacteriological methods of warfare. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has continued to support the Assad regime, publicly reminded Syria of its obligations under the Geneva Protocol after their acknowledgement of chemical weapons stockpiles. Syria's adherence to the Geneva Protocol may have led the Assad regime to think twice about using chemical weapons against Syrian civilians - in what has now been declared a ‘non-international armed conflict' by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) - even if the treaty was originally intended to cover international conflicts. The ICRC concluded in 2005 that customary international humanitarian law includes a ban on the use of chemical weapons in internal as well as international conflicts, and an appellate chamber in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) noted in 1995, in Prosecutor v. Tadic, that ‘there had undisputedly emerged a general consensus in the international community on the principle that the use of chemical weapons is also prohibited in internal armed conflicts'. Yet what are we to make of Syria's threat to use chemical weapons in the event of ‘external aggression'? Again, as a state party to the Geneva Protocol, Syria is bound to refrain from any use of chemical weapons in international armed conflict. Their use in the event of ‘external aggression' would therefore be a treaty violation and a violation of customary international humanitarian law. Such use could also trigger co-operation between the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons under the UN Secretary-General's Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons and Part XI, Paragraph 27 of the Verification Annex to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Such use could also be an international criminal law violation under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court because ‘employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices' - language which is drawn from the Geneva Protocol - is a war crime under Article 8(2)(b)(xviii). Though Syria is not a state party to the Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over war crimes committed in non-states parties if they are referred to it by the UN Security Council. Accordingly, those who order chemical weapons use in Syria, whether against civilians or against ‘external aggression', could find themselves in The Hague facing war crimes charges. Scott Spence is VERTIC's Senior Legal Officer. Meghan Brown is an intern in the Arms Control and Disarmament Programme. ------

02 August 2012 New blog post: Exercising the CTBTO Executive Council A new blog post by Andreas Persbo describes the first-ever full simulation of the CTBTO Executive Council. He writes about his part in the exercise, and outlines some of the lessons learned. Read the full post here. ------

02 August 2012 Exercising the CTBTO Executive Council Andreas Persbo, London and Vienna On Friday, 20 July 2012, I was appointed Director-General of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Organization (CTBTO). At least I was in the simulated universe of the latest CTBTO Intensive Policy Course: Multilateral Verification, Collective Security: The Contribution of the CTBT. The course, which is part of the organization's Capacity Development Initiative (or CDI for short), had over 450 participants. A fair number of those took part in the first-ever simulation of the prospective Executive Council in action. When the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty enters into force, this Council will respond to member state requests, for inspection of another state's territory, following some kind of detection event, and will decide whether an on-site inspection should go ahead. It will do so on the basis of data supplied by the CTBTO itself, but also by member states. In order for an inspection to be approved, the council needs 30 out of 51 votes in the affirmative. The scenario played out in our simulation was anything but straightforward. On 18 July 2012 a seismic event was detected in the fictional state of Forestia. Pursuant to Article IV.29 of the Treaty, the fictional state of Equilibria requested clarification on the nature of the alleged event and also requested that the Director General provide additional information to the CTBTO pursuant to Article IV.31. In response to the request, Forestia explained that the event was a shallow natural earthquake and that it had never conducted a nuclear explosive test. That clarification was deemed unsatisfactory by Equilibria. It chose not to seek additional

Page 31 clarification and instead requested an on-site inspection pursuant to Article IV.34. The underlying assumption was that the event could be one of four possibilities: a seismic event as claimed by Forestia, a low-yield nuclear explosion, a failed nuclear test, or an explosive test without nuclear yield. The simulation ran on a very compressed timeline. Three plenary meetings, each lasting an hour and a half, were to represent the 96 hours that the Executive Council has to reach an agreement. At the end of this a vote had to be taken, unless Equilibria decided to withdraw its request. As the deliberations of the council got underway, technical briefings were supplied by the CTBTO secretariat and by a member state. Each briefing gave rise to more questions, and more uncertainty. The briefing from the member state in particular was almost scorned by some council members, as it was based on inconclusive satellite imagery. Guided by the chair from “Algeria”, state parties presented their arguments. There was no shortage of interventions, and he had to cut the list short in each session. I had to introduce each technical briefing, and give an account of the state of preparations within the CTBTO. The real role of the Director-General, though, was to offer concrete technical advice to the chair. It was essential that both the DG and the chair worked together, attempting to solve the underlying issues, and bring clarity to the discussion unfolding before us. It was clear for us on the bench, by the second session, that the Equilibrians would not get the required 30 votes. Radionuclide data could only be presented in the final session, and it was largely inconclusive. Xenon-133m, associated with nuclear fission, was detected by the CTBTO sensor-network, but the release could not be back-tracked to Forestria. By that time, “Hungary” had admitted to a release of some radionuclides from its territory, and Forestria had stated that the explosion was, in fact, a very large conventional explosion. In an emotional statement, Forestria explained that a large ammunitions depot had exploded, claiming more than 100 lives. As the clock ticked on, and the deadline loomed, the situation became complicated. Would the Equilibrians be satisfied with the explanation and withdraw its request, or would we have to go to a vote? An inspection is costly, and ought to be avoided if there are other solutions available. The tension in the room was palpable as the chair, Mr. Stein, called recess after recess for consultations. At first, the Equilibrian government would not budge. In the end, the DG and the chair negotiated a solution under the treaty's confidence-building measures provisions. According to article IV.68 of the treaty, state parties undertake to cooperate with the CTBTO in resolving compliance concerns arising from the possible misinterpretation of verification data relating to chemical explosions. Mr. Stein suggested that the CTBTO send in a team of specialists to visit the explosion site, and take radiological measurements. Equilibrian personnel would supplement this team. Forestria pledged to cooperate. There was concern, both within the CTBTO and by some state parties, that Forestria could use this opportunity to cover up after an explosion. Given the inconclusive information, however, we judged this risk as small. On balance, Forestria's explanation made a better fit with the data. Equilibria agreed to withdraw its OSI request if the Executive Council were to affirm this arrangement by consensus. With 15 minutes to go, Mr. Stein read out the arrangement and asked if the council could decide on this. As there were no objections, the gavel went down. The meeting was closed by thunderous applause and a great noise from those delegations which were not fully involved in the last minute consultations. Our chairman leaned over and whispered that that was the single most stressful experience of his life. I was inclined to agree. Many lessons were learned during this exercise, the vast majority procedural. However, one lesson came out above all others. It is essential that data is explained clearly and unambiguously if state parties are expected to reach a decision. More work can be done here, preferable through more exercises of this kind. One thing is certain, after all: practice makes perfect. ------

27 July 2012 New blog post: A new inter-sessional period begins for the BWC The Meeting of Experts (MX) for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) took place in Geneva from 16 to 20 July. Ambassador Boujemâa Delmi of Algeria chaired the meeting, which focused on the topics Agreed upon at the Seventh BWC Review Conference in December 2011: recent advances in the life sciences and mechanisms to address the emerging threats they pose, effective ways to further the goals of the BWC through greater cooperation and assistance, enhanced national implementation, and renewed confidence-building measures (CBMs). Experts from states parties, international organisations, observer entities and non-governmental organizations gathered in Geneva to participate in the MX. Read the full post here. ------

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/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Calibri;} Edward Perello, London A new inter-sessional period begins for the BWC The Meeting of Experts (MX) for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) took place in Geneva from 16 to 20 July. Ambassador Boujemâa Delmi of Algeria chaired the meeting, which focused on the topics Agreed upon at the Seventh BWC Review Conference in December 2011: recent advances in the life sciences and mechanisms to address the emerging threats they pose, effective ways to further the goals of the BWC through greater cooperation and assistance, enhanced national implementation, and renewed confidence-building measures (CBMs). Experts from states parties, international organisations, observer entities and non-governmental organizations gathered in Geneva to participate in the MX. Cooperation and assistance States shared information on their international assistance programmes and on their experiences in receiving assistance. It was noted that global international security and the promotion of peaceful research could benefit from the enhancement of cooperation and assistance in several areas including the exchange of materials and technologies and on ensuring biosafety and biosecurity. The Implementation Support Unit (ISU) announced the launch of a database system aimed to facilitate requests for, and offers of, the exchange of assistance and cooperation among states parties. The ISU encourages states to submit offers and requests and ensured that requests do not have to be tied to a specific offer. Advances in science and technology It was noted that advances in life sciences have had both positive and negative implications for health and security. Rapid genetic sequencing and enhanced medical diagnostic and treatment capabilities were juxtaposed with more concerning developments like a possible militarisation of converging chemical and biological technologies. Some states parties suggested that sequencing capacities ought to be more fairly distributed across the world as opposed to current concentrations of this capacity, which is something that could be addressed through direct assistance. States recognized the risks of emerging technologies, but questions remain over how well they and the BWC regime are prepared to deal with them. A desire to improve risk management and mitigation procedures was voiced alongside a need to foster risk awareness in states without formalised biosecurity institutions. Policies of active risk monitoring were regarded as favourable to reactive policies that could impede peaceful and beneficial research. National implementation and CBMs Many states drew attention to recent efforts on measures adopted to nationally implement the BWC, for instance Morocco and Malaysia announced draft laws on the handling of biological agents, France's proposal to implement a peer review system or Guatemala's engagement with the Central American Integration System (SICA) to ensure the effective regional implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540. Guest speaker Scott Spence of VERTIC challenged contemporary views with a scenario designed to encourage governments to consider the utility of different national implementation measures with regard to further H5N1 research, which prompted lively debate and comments from several states parties. Concern was expressed at the low participation of states in Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) in accordance with the framework of the BWC; only 62 returns have been received this year. There was a divergence of opinion on whether the production of CBMs is in fact an obligation of state parties and some states suggested a debate on the value of CBMs in actually building confidence. Extraordinary session on procedure On the fourth day, Ambassador Delmi suspended the formal session and convened an informal one, which allowed delegates to have open discussions and express individual viewpoints on matters relevant to the proceedings of the MX and the BWC in general. A departure from decorum, the conversations elicited suggestions of introducing several innovative policies in the hope of enhancing the productivity of future MX's. These included the clustering of sub-topics in order to keep running themes between presentations as well as the use of panel discussions to prompt more focused debate. Side events In conjunction with the informal session, the MX also featured several side events. One jointly convened by the

Page 33 Netherlands and the US paid significant attention to the H5N1 controversy, while another by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) looked at governance procedures on emerging dual-use technologies. The side events are a welcome opportunity for delegates to expand the knowledge of relevant subjects and debate informally in a forward-looking manner. Conclusion On the final day, it was noted by the Chair, Ambassador Delmi of Algeria, that the meeting had been ‘very fruitful'. A final draft report was deemed acceptable by consensus, and will be submitted and discussed at the next BWC Inter-sessional Meeting of States Parties.

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26 July 2012 Samoa legislation added to the BWC Legislation Database ------

24 July 2012 VERTIC Legal Officer Rocío Escauriaza Leal writes for the 1540 Compass Normal 0 false false false ES-TRAD JA X-NONE

19 July 2012 New blog post: The state of ATT negotiations The Arms Trade Treaty is being negotiated this month under the auspices of the United Nations in New York. The first of their kind, they mark a culmination of multilateral efforts to develop a legally binding instrument of common international standards for the transfer of conventional weapons. What has happened so far, and with only 6 days of negotiation left, can any real progress be made? Read the full post here. ------

19 July 2012 The state of Arms Trade Treaty negotiations Edward Perello, London The Arms Trade Treaty is being negotiated this month under the auspices of the United Nations in New York. The first of their kind, they mark a culmination of multilateral efforts to develop a legally binding instrument of common international standards for the transfer of conventional weapons. What has happened so far, and with only 6 days of negotiation left, can any real progress be made? A characteristically scorching July in New York has seen the start of historic international negotiations on an even

Page 34 hotter commodity. Kicking off on July 2nd and set to wrap up on the 27th, the negotiations to establish an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) are the first of their kind and mark a culmination of multilateral efforts to develop a legally binding instrument of common international standards for the transfer of conventional weapons. According to Oxfam International, inadequate and loophole-ridden national regulations on international transfers of conventional weapons - including (but not limited to) small arms, artillery, missiles, tanks, aircraft and naval vessels - result in the violent deaths of around a third of a million people (with hundreds of thousands more maimed) every year. Every minute, one person is killed by armed violence while 15 new arms are manufactured. Such poor regulation is a problem that needs solutions and in December 2006, 153 governments voted in favour of coming together to develop those solutions in 2012. Although many NGOs continue to emphasise the urgency of an ATT within the timeframe of present negotiations, there is much to discuss and the proceedings have not yet yielded ideal results. Threatening to collapse the negotiations on day one, US-Israeli-Arab disputes over Palestine's status in the negotiations saw the cancellation of Ban Ki-moon's opening speech and subsequent postulations by each that the issue was a stalling tactic by the other. Even though this issue continued to heavily mar the proceedings, the UN Secretary General noted on day two that the international community has not kept pace with conventional arms issues in the same way as it has with WMD issues. The first week saw the principles of transparency, inclusivity and NAUEA (nothing's agreed until everything's agreed) which were suggested by President of the negotiations—Ambassador Moritán of Argentina—going down well, albeit with significant opposition against the establishment of two Principal Committees by Iran, Algeria and others. Passing a vote, the first Committee is to address goals and objectives of the ATT, while the second focuses on its scope, implementation and final provisions. Nonetheless, the very existence of the talks is promising, particularly with the Obama administration's reversal of American opposition to participation. However, states' positions vary significantly and complicate efforts to arrive at a decision. The UK, Germany, France, Sweden and Norway call for a comprehensive treaty that includes munitions, small arms, light weapons, related technology and parts. The U.S., China, Syria and Egypt push to exclude ammunition on the basis that adequate monitoring would be difficult. China also wants to exclude small arms, while some Middle Eastern states oppose using human rights records as a criterion for arms trade authorizations; something vehemently disagreed with by Switzerland and participating NGOs. Japan argued for flexibility on transit and brokering weapons deals, while Russia argued that national implementation of the specifics of the treaty should be left to each state to decide, an approach echoed by a P5 statement from the UK. China further commented that the treaty should help states to implement their obligations without interfering with the legitimacy of the state to acquire arms. Intriguingly, Pakistan has emphasised the need to address supply and demand issues, specifically manufacturing; a valid point considering the potential for covert trafficking to occur under the auspices of a limited ATT. Additionally, in an attempt to minimise creative interpretation of the treaty, some have called for a ban on transfers to non-state actors or the provision of “know-how” assistance to states. Overall, it is fair to say that the noble aspirations of the ATT and its delegates are to be lauded by all, but some positions appear so far apart that negotiators face a challenging few days ahead if they are to secure an agreement by the end of the meeting. ------

19 July 2012 Scott Spence presents avian influenza virus case study to BWC Meeting of Experts Scott Spence, VERTIC's Senior Legal Officer, went through an avian influenza virus (H5N1) case study today as a Guest of the Meeting to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Meeting of Experts. The Meeting is being held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva (16-20 July).

Scott used recent developments in H5N1 research to emphasize the importance of effective legislation for national implementation of the BWC.

The scenario, including questions and answers, is available here. ------

Page 35 19 July 2012 Andreas Persbo presents on CTBT verification in Vienna On Wednesday 18 July 2012, VERTIC's Executive Director, Andreas Persbo, delivered a presentation on the verification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in Vienna. In his address, Mr Persbo stated that there shouldn't be much debate over the verifiability of the CTBT, given the technical capabilities of its International Monitoring System. 'The treaty regime is strong right now, and will become even stronger in the future,' he argued. Once the treaty is in force, Mr Persbo said, 'we're entering into a new era: a world where nuclear test explosions are banned in all environments, for all time.' This, he noted, will be good for the environment, good for international security and good for arms control and disarmament. 'Let us look forward to that day, and prepare for it in the meantime.' Read the full presentation here. ------

13 July 2012 Nepal legislation added to the BWC Legislation Database ------

12 July 2012 New blog post: Kiwifruit vine disease, biosecurity and the BWC The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Meeting of Experts will convene next week in Geneva. National implementation is on the agenda, as a standing item for this inter-sessional process, and VERTIC will give a presentation on this topic as an invited Guest of the meeting. As a recent outbreak of kiwifruit vine disease in New Zealand has shown, national implementation of biosecurity measures is an ongoing task, which is worthy of such regular consideration by the BWC regime. Read the full post here. ------

12 July 2012 Kiwifruit vine disease, biosecurity and the BWC Angela Woodward, Christchurch The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Meeting of Experts will convene next week in Geneva. The discussion will focus on improving participation in the Confidence-Building Measure data exchange system, as well as on three standing agenda items for this inter-Review Conference meeting process: cooperation and assistance; a review of science and technology developments; and strengthening national implementation. This is the first time that the BWC community will consider specified topics in successive years, which highlights how challenging these issues are to the regime and how much work remains to effectively address them. In terms of national implementation, for example, VERTIC's legislative survey statistics show that a significant proportion of States Parties are yet to incorporate all of their BWC obligations into domestic legislation 37 years after the Convention entered into force. But the challenge of national implementation doesn't end with the adoption of laws and regulations, as the range of necessary national measures must be adequately resourced, enforced, reviewed and revised in perpetuity. This needn't be as onerous as it might sound, especially if States cooperate with each other and with their national stakeholders to identify—and act on—lessons identified. A review of the recent outbreak of kiwifruit vine disease in New Zealand starkly illustrated the importance of effective working relationships between regulators, industry and the scientific community in ensuring the ongoing effectiveness of biosecurity measures, even after framework legislation and monitoring systems are in force. The New Zealand economy is heavily reliant on primary industry, particularly agricultural and horticultural exports. Historically, the country's geographic isolation helped to protect these industries from the introduction of foreign pests and diseases. But now, its biosecurity system, which is heavily geared towards preventing deliberate or inadvertent animal and plant disease incursions, is under strain from the scale of imports and passenger arrivals. New Zealand biosecurity targets identified risk goods, particularly organic materials, as well as other vectors for biosecurity contaminants (such as imported used cars which might be carrying unwanted high risk pest species), which means the system is reliant on timely and reliable scientific assessments of potential risks. Unfortunately for the kiwifruit growers, it appears that the system may have let them down in keeping the kiwifruit vine disease, Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa), out of the country. In November 2010, a kiwifruit orchard in the Bay of Plenty region, which has the highest concentration of kiwifruit

Page 36 growers, was found to be infected with the Psa bacteria, a non-native disease. The airborne disease then spread to 150 orchards within four months and to nearly 1,100 orchards within 16 months. Government research institutes have already spent approximately NZ$1.5m in combating the disease and expect to spend another NZ$5m over the next year to aid the recovery of infected crops and to minimize the disease's impact in the future. It appears that one kiwifruit variety (gold Hort 16A), which accounts for 30 percent of export kiwifruit value, will be eradicated as part of the recovery strategy. A report by New Zealand's Lincoln University estimates that the Psa incursion will cost the kiwifruit industry around NZ$500-$600m over the next ten years. So what went wrong? An independent review by the Sapere Research Group (SRG) released on 29 June 2012 found that, while the exact pathway of the incursion may never be known, there were deficiencies in kiwifruit pollen import requirements and related border control processes before the Psa outbreak. In particular, the government regulator was found to have relied on a scientific review which ruled out the risk of pollen being a vector for bacterial pathogens, failed to conduct a formal risk analysis for pollen imports and didn't consult with industry when it decided to relax the pollen importation requirements, while border control also incorrectly implemented certain import requirements at the point of entry. The SRG report determined that this was a systemic failure and made a series of recommendations for the New Zealand government regulator (the Ministry for Primary Industries), which other States might prudently consider: reprioritize resources towards managing the risks for economically significant industries, particularly for known or emerging risks; centralize the identification and management of emerging risks; improve transparency over first-time imports of organic matter and consult with relevant stakeholders about related risks; ensure border processes for risk good imports remain robust; improve the regulator's engagement with industry and research organizations; and consider commissioning research on specific areas of biosecurity uncertainty. Participants in the BWC meeting next week could usefully share information on, and discuss these sorts of practical biosecurity challenges, to help each other find solutions to strengthen BWC national implementation and thereby avoid disease outbreaks, whether inadvertent or deliberate, which could cause significant harm to their people, industry and national economy. ------

05 July 2012 New blog post: Nuclear warhead dismantlement exercise held in Norway This blog post discusses a recent nuclear warhead dismantlement exercise held in Norway, involving students from the University of Hamburg, and also some of the key requirements for a successful verification mission of this kind. Read the full article here. ------

05 July 2012 Nuclear warhead dismantlement exercise held in Norway David Cliff, London Last week, I participated in a nuclear warhead dismantlement exercise in Oslo, Norway, involving students from the University of Hamburg - half of whom played the role of a host country, while the other half took on the role of inspectors. This simulation was the third such student exercise to have taken place under the auspices of the University of Oslo to build capacity and awareness of these issues among the 'next generation' of nuclear arms control professionals. The first was in 2011, involving students from King's College London while the second had taken place earlier in June 2012 - also involving students from King's. These simulations have their roots in the so-called UK-Norway Initiative on verified nuclear warhead dismantlement: a collaborative endeavour (and one that remains ongoing) between the United Kingdom and Norway to investigate the technical issues surrounding verified dismantlement, especially with regard to the involvement of non-nuclear-weapon states. Where the involvement of such states is envisaged in dismantlement verification, health and safety and national security concerns need to be overlaid with concerns over the possible leakage of nuclear weapon design information. Even the inadvertent transfer of such information to a non-nuclear-weapon state with no intention to develop nuclear weapons could represent a breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And that is a position no nuclear-weapon state would like to be in, and a charge none would want to have to answer. For the German students taking part in last week's simulation, these issues were uppermost in their minds as they negotiated access to the mock dismantlement facility for both a 'familiarisation visit' and an actual monitoring visit. Germany, as a non-nuclear-weapon state, would face exactly the same degree of restrictions as Norway were it

Page 37 to at some stage become involved with a verified warhead dismantlement process. In the end, the student inspectors negotiated a protocol that resulted in them reaching a conclusion of reasonably high confidence that dismantlement of one nuclear warhead had occurred as declared. They coped admirably, too, with the mischievous inclusion of a 'second source' in the dismantlement room. By performing radiation measurements on this source before and after dismantlement, and by negotiating that the hatch to where the source was located was monitored at all times by a notional CCTV camera, the inspectors were able to adeptly negotiate their way around this potential pitfall - or outright show-stopper - in the verification exercise. During the week, VERTIC's Executive Director Andreas Persbo, Senior Researcher David Keir and myself all delivered lectures on various aspects of warhead dismantlement verification. Mr Persbo talked about the main factors that would, should and could influence negotiations over a verification protocol, Dr Keir spoke on the various technical aspects of the process and the kinds of technical tools that can be used, and I gave a presentation outlining some of the key factors that - to my mind - can help make for a successful dismantlement inspection. There are, I argued, five factors that can underpin a successful dismantlement exercise of this kind. The first is that their ought to be clarity over mission purpose and procedure - essentially meaning that a good inspection mission needs a 'meaningful' declaration to be provided by the host party, and that both sides need to have agreed on as many procedural matters as possible before the dismantlement and inspection process begins. Procedural matters are set out in a verification protocol - which the Hamburg students spent several days, and nights, working on - and the more detailed and ambiguity-free this document is, I argued, the less chance there is for confusion and arguments to arise later. Second, I spoke of the need for their to be sufficient - but not indefinite - time allotted for negotiations and familiarisation. Negotiations cannot be allowed to go for ever, I argued, if a host party was looking to stall and stall, for instance, or if inspectors were forever pushing and pushing against an immovable red-line. Ultimately, a kind of balance needs to be found, because the final objective is not to sit in rooms and debate how things should be done but to reach a point where what is going to be done can be done with a sufficiently high degree of inspection confidence. Third I identified the need for inspectors to have access to appropriate equipment, certified and authenticated for use - so that both the host and inspecting party have confidence in the technical tools (radiation measuring devices and so on) being used inside the dismantlement facility. Fourth was the need for the 'right' team, and especially for an inspection team to have a strong team leader and lead negotiator. And last, but by no means least (and indeed perhaps most importantly of all), I stressed the need for all parties to have the right attitude to the verification mission. These kind of inspections - which are conceived of being between a state wanting to dismantle in good faith and an inspection team wanting to confirm that dismantlement took place, not to steal secrets or proliferative information - are not zero-sum games. Verified warhead dismantlement of this kind is a collaborative endeavour. The objective is not to get one over on the other side but to work together to reach a conclusion that the inspection team is comfortable with and which reflects well on the hosting party. Put simply, I argued, for a nuclear warhead dismantlement verification mission to be a success, both sides effectively have to win. If either side 'loses', the whole endeavour has failed. And each side needs to be aware of that at all times - and the students from Hamburg understood that well. My thanks to Ibrahim Said at the University of Oslo and Ole Reistad of the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority for inviting me to take part in what was an extremely interesting and lively week in Norway. If the doubling of exercises that took place between last year and this year is anything to go by, this initiative has a long way to run - and great scope left to expand. ------

05 July 2012 VERTIC releases brief on IUU fishing The paper, by David J. Doulman, provides a review of action to combat IUU fishing, focusing largely on national initiatives. It considers the assessment, monitoring and verification of IUU fishing, reviews the role of regional cooperation and action, and considers the issue of sanctions and other penalties designed to deter IUU practices. This paper argues that monitoring, assessing and verifying IUU fishing is not an easy task, especially in the face of the high financial stakes that encourage and facilitate such activities. Read the brief in full here. ------

29 June 2012 Trust & Verify No. 137

Page 38 In this issue Tamara Patton looks at using 3D modeling for Verification Design and Sonia Drobysz examines safeguards following the NPT PrepCom. Plus: Verification Watch, Science & Technology Scan, Verification Quotes, Programme News, and reflections by the director. This issue is available in PDF and now also in epub and Kindle mobi format (beta versions). ------

29 June 2012 VERTIC co-organises with UNLirec a BWC/UNSCR 1540 seminar in Ecuador VERTIC co-organised with UNLirec, the UN Disarmament Branch for Latin America and the Caribbean, a seminar on the implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and UNSCR 1540 related obligations. The meeting on 26 June was hosted by the Ministry of Defence in Quito and included representatives from several other Ministries, two officials from UNLirec, an Expert from the UNSCR 1540 Committee Experts Group and VERTIC's Legal Officer Rocio Escauriaza Leal.

The seminar looked at the international legal framework for non-proliferation, and at UNSCR 1540 and how it complements the BWC. VERTIC delivered several presentations on the BWC and how it functions, on national implementation measures for the BWC and on ways forward to strengthen implementation.

Some of VERTIC's presentations included:

- La Convención sobre Armas Biológicas - Medidas Nacionales para la Aplicación de la CAB Seminar on the BWC and UNSCR 1540 related provisions ------

28 June 2012 New blog post: United States v Bond: The Finale Last month, the case United States v Bond reached its final stage. Following a decision last year by the US Supreme Court which allowed Ms Carol Anne Bond to challenge her conviction under the ‘Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) Implementation Act of 1998', the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has now reviewed her case and upheld her conviction. Read the full post here. ------

28 June 2012 United States v Bond: The Finale Yasemin Balci, London Last month, the case United States v Bond reached its final stage. Following a decision last year by the US Supreme Court which allowed Ms Carol Anne Bond to challenge her conviction under the ‘Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) Implementation Act of 1998', the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has now reviewed her case and upheld her conviction. The correct application of this Act in criminal matters is good news for national implementation of the CWC, as it strengthens the norm against non-peaceful use of toxic chemicals and holds persons engaging in such activities liable, but the judgment also showed some misconceptions regarding the Convention. Carol Anne Bond was prosecuted under the CWC Implementation Act for putting highly toxic chemicals on the car door handles, doorknob and mailbox of her friend, Ms Haynes, after finding out that Haynes was pregnant with the child of Ms Bond's husband. Ms Bond was sentenced to six years imprisonment and a fine. She argued, however, that the CWC Implementation Act did not apply to her case and also questioned the validity of the Act. The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, to which this case was remanded by the US Supreme Court, did not agree with her on these two points, though nevertheless voiced some skepticism on the breadth and use of the Act. First, the court stated that Ms Bond's conduct clearly fell within the Act. The Act's language may be broad, but it is clear. According to the Act, a toxic chemical, defined as “any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals” will be a chemical weapon, except if it is intended for a peaceful purpose and its type and quantity are consistent with that purpose. The Act then prohibits certain

Page 39 activities, such as the acquisition, transfer and use of a chemical weapon by any person. Ms Bond acquired and used toxic chemicals with the intent to harm Ms Haynes. Her acts are therefore covered by the Act. Secondly, the court ruled that the CWC Implementation Act is valid. In the American legal system, an act implementing a treaty will be valid if the treaty itself is valid, unless the act is not rationally related to the treaty. The court stated that as a treaty aiming to prohibit chemical weapons and related to war and peace, the CWC has a ‘quintessentially international character' and is therefore a valid treaty. Since the CWC Implementation Act ‘faithfully tracks the language of the Convention', it follows that the Act is valid too. However, with respect to the first argument, the court could not help mentioning that ‘one may well question whether Congress envisioned the Act being applied in a case like this'. While the Act is not unconstitutionally broad, ‘its breadth is certainly striking, seeing as it turns each kitchen cupboard and cleaning cabinet in America into a potential chemical weapons cache'. With respect to the second argument, while the Act is legally valid, the court is critical of its enforcement by the executive, in particular the prosecution. ‘The decision to use the Act - a statute designed to implement a chemical weapons treaty - to deal with a jilted spouse's revenge on her rival is, to be polite, a puzzling use of the federal government's power.' If prosecuted for another crime, for example assault, Ms Bond would probably have received a lower sentence, but it is the prosecutor's prerogative to decide under which law to prosecute. In short, while there is nothing legally wrong with the application of the CWC Implementation Act to Ms Bond's case, the court seems troubled that the Act reaches a ‘domestic dispute'. As Judge Rendell writes in her concurring opinion, application of the Act would not ‘offend our sensibilities' if the chemicals had been applied ‘on the seats of New York subway cars'. The judges show a tendency, which can also be seen in media reports on this case, to directly link the concept of individual use of chemical weapons with terrorism. However, this is not how the CWC was conceived. The CWC is first and foremost a disarmament, not an anti-terrorism treaty, as evidenced by the first perambulatory clause of the Convention (“[d]etermined to act with a view to achieving effective progress towards general and complete disarmament …”). Moreover, the requirement to prohibit non-peaceful activities with toxic chemicals in Article VII of the Convention covers all natural and legal persons in a state's territory. The duty to enact penal legislation in particular is not restricted to activities with a terrorist purpose. Ms Bond is clearly not a terrorist, but since she used toxic chemicals to harm her friend through their physiological effects, it is only right she was prosecuted under an Act that criminalizes exactly that behavior. ------

26 June 2012 New blog post: Wilton Park conference on verification Last week, VERTIC and Wilton Park held their second conference on verification, this time focusing on arms control and disarmament verification. The first conference was held in June 2011, to mark VERTIC's 25th Anniversary. Since Wilton Park conferences are held in strict confidence, no names or affiliations can be mentioned in this write-up. Nevertheless, this post will attempt to summarize the main themes coming out of the meeting. Read the full post by Andreas Persbo here. ------

26 June 2012 Wilton Park conference on verification Last week, VERTIC and Wilton Park held their second conference on verification, this time focusing on arms control and disarmament verification. The first conference was held in June 2011, to mark VERTIC's 25th Anniversary. Since Wilton Park conferences are held in strict confidence, no names or affiliations can be mentioned in this write-up. Nevertheless, this post will attempt to summarize the main themes coming out of the meeting. The first thing that came out from the discussion is that the verification community has changed over the last few decades, it has become much bigger, and the debate has deepened. In 1986 - by the time VERTIC was founded - the only intergovernmental organization dealing with verification was the IAEA. Now, several more bodies exist. In the words of one participant, ‘the field of verification has come of age'. Another main point relates to the massive strides in technology development over the last few decades. One participant held that the verification community has not ‘scratched the surface' of the use of technology, and ‘neither have governments'. High technology is becoming the ‘property of everyone', according to another contributor. In

Page 40 this age, it is important to re-think the proportions between distance monitoring and on-site inspection. In addition, technology forms a bridge to youth, who need to be attracted to work in this field. The next generation of professionals should be attracted, as many present verification tasks are for perpetuity. The verification regimes are designed to ‘be around for ever'. It was remarked that technology alone has never been solely relied upon to provide effective verification. Rather, effective verification is supplied by a number of techniques working together. It was also said, though, that the practice of verification is evolving towards more cooperative and innovative uses of technology. A third point was related to resources. First, governments cannot be expected to ‘generate ideas' in an environment of shrinking budgets. In addition, it may be necessary to think about lowering the general verification burden for small states with low or no levels of industry. In some cases, the verification burden is so big, that governments do not contribute to the regime. One way of getting around this is to reduce or streamline the burden of reporting. One particular item of discussion was the verification of the Biological Weapons Convention. One participant argued that inspections in Iraq were ‘carried out against conventional wisdom'. In the participant's view, the perception that the treaty itself in unverifiable is firmly entrenched. The myth, it was argued, is that inspections do not work, whereas proof indicates that inspections compelled Iraq to eventually admit its biological weapons programme. There is some evidence for civil society monitoring in this field, the establishment of the BioWeapons Monitor initiative of the Bioweapons Prevention Project was raised, , although it is far from achieving the role of its counterparts in the landmine and cluster munition regimes and some States still struggle with civil society involvement in the regime at all. This does not mean that one could not envision a greater role for civil society verification of CBRN obligations in the future. The world of information technology is a new and emerging area. It is new ground worth exploring, but it requires careful consideration. Political and legal protection of whistleblowers, for instance, is critical, but may also be problematic. The meeting also discussed the proposed zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. In the view of participants, this process is ‘novel'. Without doubt, the ‘initiative has to come from the Middle East'. One of the main challenges will be to integrate verification efforts relating to all weapons systems (nuclear, biological and chemical) as well as the verification systems relating to ballistic missiles. There will be a trade-off in selecting between a regional and an international organisation carrying out verification activities. The meeting also heard reflections on the future of the UK-Norway Initiative on nuclear warhead dismantlement verification, of which VERTIC was part until 2010. In the view of some participants, the value of the initiative is mostly related to issues of multilateralism, civil society, and technological development. We heard that some participants want the effort to be “concrete and relevant”. The organizers and participants considered this conference a great success and VERTIC intends to continue this cooperation with Wilton Park to host more verification-themed conferences in the coming years. ------

15 June 2012 New blog post: A surprising gift One of the main characters in Tony Scott's 1998 film ‘Enemy of the State', Edward Lyle, at one point exclaims, ‘you know the Hubble Telescope that looks up to the stars? They've got over a hundred spy satellites looking down at us'. He then adds, as an afterthought, ‘that's classified'. Well, not any more. Sometime last year, administrators at the US National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) got a surprising call from colleagues at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). They told them to head over to a facility owned by the aerospace company ITT Excelis to pick up some hardware that the NRO, which operates the US fleet of spy-satellites, no longer needed. Read the full post by Jasmin Kaisla here. ------

15 June 2012 A surprising gift Jasmin Kaisla, London One of the main characters in Tony Scott's 1998 film ‘Enemy of the State', Edward Lyle, at one point exclaims, ‘you know the Hubble Telescope that looks up to the stars? They've got over a hundred spy satellites looking down at us'. He then adds, as an afterthought, ‘that's classified'. Well, not any more. Sometime last year, administrators at the US National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) got a surprising call from colleagues at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). They told them to head over to a

Page 41 facility owned by the aerospace company ITT Excelis to pick up some hardware that the NRO, which operates the US fleet of spy-satellites, no longer needed. In a clean-room at the ITT Excelis site, NASA technicians found two Hubble-sized telescopes, with complete lenses and control mechanisms (the cameras and the control software had been removed). The two telescopes are allegedly leftover hardware components from a cancelled NRO program called Future Imagery Architecture (FIA). Loretta DeSio, the spokeswoman for the NRO, confirmed that the two telescopes were built in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which would match with the FIA program. It is sometimes said that satellite intelligence enabled modern arms control, and it is known that major states rely heavily on multi-spectral satellite imagery for verification purposes. It is not known, however, how sensitive these satellites are. The handover of these two NRO satellites to NASA, however, reveals some interesting technical details, which will serve to enhance our understanding of the use of satellites as so-called ‘national technical means' of verification. The two telescopes have an 1/20th wave aperture that is 2.4 meters wide (the same size as Hubble). In addition, the two telescopes have an additional manoeuvrable mirror for the purpose of boosting image sharpness. In addition, the two telescopes reportedly have a shorter focal length (f/1.2) than Hubble (f/2.3), which gives it a wider angle of view (one might think of the telescopes as two giant microscopes rather than being a camera with a zoom-lens). Matt Mountain, the Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, called the telescopes' optics ‘astounding', while Loretta DeSio confirmed that the hardware represented an upgrade of Hubble's optical technology. With the NRO satellites, it may be possible to achieve a resolution of some 10-15 centimetres per pixel looking down on the earth from an altitude of about 300 kilometres. This is much sharper than anything commercially available (Google Earth, for instance, can achieve 50 centimetres per pixel at best). It is also slightly sharper than previous estimates of what spatial resolution the US can expect from its well-known KH-11 class of reconnaissance satellites. A finer spatial resolution enables satellites to detect such things as distributed soil, vegetation, radiation emitted from heated structures, discharge of warm water plumes from nuclear reactors and components of aerosols, gas plumes and effluents. For instance, twelve years ago, Professor Bhupendra Jasani argued in the Verification Yearbook that, “if underground facilities have been constructed … stressed vegetation that grows on earth-covered bunkers could be distinguished from normal vegetation, since root growth, drainage and soil conditions are different”. To view detail at this level would be very useful for verification organizations. If the IAEA, for instance, had access to this kind of imagery, their knowledge of what might be going on at the Parchin site would be considerably enhanced (see David Cliff's blog entry ‘Iran, the IAEA and the Parchin problem' published last week). For CTBT on-site inspections, such satellite imagery could prove exceptionally useful when attempting to narrow down the search area when looking for a prohibited nuclear explosion. Add to this that modern spy satellites are geared to transmit imagery in near-real time. Vehicles, indeed individuals, can be seen entering and leaving facilities. It would, in theory, even be possible to see items that they are carrying. But it is perhaps its potency that makes their inclusion unlikely. Possessor nations, of which there are but a few, will be unwilling to share their technological edge. Nations with a nervous inclination would be nervous knowing that images of sensitive installations may be broadly circulated (some are even skittish about the comparably fuzzy Google Earth images which are available to the public). While diplomats and experts fuzz, however, imagery resolution is likely to continue to improve to the point where science meets fiction. At some point, also, the resistance to share very high quality imagery will erode. It would be worthwhile for intergovernmental organizations to plan for the day when such imagery becomes the norm rather than the exception. ------

07 June 2012 New blog post: Iran, the IAEA and the Parchin problem Tomorrow, IAEA and Iranian officials are set to meet - the latest in a string of meetings between the two sides over recent months - to further discuss access rights to nuclear sites in Iran where suspect activities are alleged to have taken place. Top of the IAEA's priority list is the Parchin nuclear site south-east of Tehran. In November 2011, the IAEA noted that experiments and testing with potential relevance to nuclear weapons development (particularly involving high explosives) may have been conducted at Parchin in the years after 2000. Read the full post here. ------

Page 42 07 June 2012 Iran, the IAEA and the Parchin problem David Cliff, London Tomorrow, IAEA and Iranian officials are set to meet - the latest in a string of meetings between the two sides over recent months - to further discuss access rights to nuclear sites in Iran where suspect activities are alleged to have taken place. Top of the IAEA's priority list is the Parchin nuclear site south-east of Tehran. In November 2011, the IAEA noted that experiments and testing with potential relevance to nuclear weapons development (particularly involving high explosives) may have been conducted at Parchin in the years after 2000. So far, IAEA efforts to secure access to Parchin have been unsuccessful - despite an apparent attempt by Iran to adopt a more conciliatory tone with the international community, and especially with the ‘P5+1' group of countries, over the first half of this year. Although the kind of testing suspected to have taken place at Parchin may not have involved fissile materials, which could set the stage for a so-called special inspection, the IAEA is keen to gain access because, as they noted last November, these experiments are ‘strong indictors of possible weapons development.' In its latest report on safeguards implementation in Iran (dated 25 May 2012), the IAEA noted that based on satellite imagery, after years of virtual inactivity at Parchin, ‘buildings of interest to the Agency' at the site appear to have been recently subject to ‘extensive activities that could hamper the Agency's ability to undertake effective verification' there. In less diplomatic terms, on 30 May 2012 the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) highlighted suspected ‘sanitization activity' at Parchin (including, most recently, the demolition of two buildings) that raise concerns of an attempt by Iran ‘to destroy evidence of alleged past weaponization activities.' As ISIS note, it may be the case that Iran is ‘attempting to raze the site prior to allowing an IAEA visit.' This week's talks between Iran and the IAEA follow an announcement by the Agency last month that an inspection deal addressing Parchin and other matters of concern looked set to be reached ‘quite soon'. Those were the words of the IAEA's director-general, Yukiya Amano, on his return from a visit to Tehran where he held negotiations with Iranian officials, including Iran's lead nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. Following the visit, Mr Jalili spoke of his desire for ‘good cooperation in the future' with the IAEA, but an agreement has yet to materialise. Given the controversy over Parchin, and the array of other concerns of suspected Iranian nuclear weapons-related research and development, the P5+1 are sure to be watching with interest what happens when the IAEA and Iran meet this week. They, too, have been engaged in intense diplomacy with Iran over recent months as part of a separate, but parallel, effort to resolve ongoing concerns over the nature of the Iranian nuclear programme. (In particular, the P5+1 talks are focused primarily on Iran's controversial uranium enrichment activities.) Initial talks in Istanbul in March between the P5+1 and Iran seemed to go well - although nothing was agreed, beyond agreement to meet again in Baghdad in May - but those second-round talks, where more substantive progress was hoped-for, fell flat. Iran and the P5+1 are now set to meet again in Moscow later in June. And as Julian Borger has written, ‘without more concrete achievements' at the Moscow round of talks, the diplomatic process looks set to run out of steam. If an inspection deal is not reached between the IAEA and Iran on Friday, or as a direct result of those discussions, then that diplomatic track might run out of steam very soon as well. Iran's recent activities at Parchin suggest that the Islamic Republic is making a concerted attempt to cover-up evidence of some sort. Meanwhile, its refusal to admit IAEA inspectors to the site, while nonetheless expressing a willingness to reach a deal, suggests that its intention is to keep the Agency in a holding pattern until any covering-up activities have been fully implemented. There is a very real and growing danger that an IAEA inspection of Parchin (if or when such access is agreed), will have minimal verification significance - but nonetheless provide an opportunity for Iran to argue that it represents evidence of its cooperative intent. The investigation of suspected nuclear weapons-related activities is not an everyday verification task for the IAEA, but in this case it is a priority. It is often said that Mr Amano has followed a tougher line with Iran than his predecessor, Mohammed ElBaradei, since coming to office in 2009, and with Iran arguably seeking to buy time (both in this and the P5+1 process), toughness is what is required. To lessen the chance of making any inspection of Parchin an exercise of little verification value, it must be made to happen without any further delay, and - critically - without any further confidence-eroding activities from Iran on the ground. Postscript (Tuesday 12 June 2012). The talks held in Vienna on Friday 8 June 2012 failed to result in an agreement on further investigating possible nuclear weaponization activities in Iran. According to the head of the IAEA's Department of Safeguards, Herman Nackaerts, ‘no progress' had been made. Mr Nackaerts noted that Iran had raised issues that had already been discussed, as well as new ones. This, he said, was ‘disappointing'. Iran's ambassador to the

Page 43 IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said that talks between the two sides would continue. No date for further discussions was set. ------

31 May 2012 VERTIC participates in meetings convened by Madagascar at the occasion of the UNSCR 1540 Committee’s in-country visit Normal 0 false false false ES-TRAD JA X-NONE

31 May 2012 New blog post: Safety and security over biological waste Inadequate biological waste management constitutes a risk that could lead to proliferation of infectious material and accidental outbreaks. International instruments exist to counter these dangers: the Basel Convention aims to limit and regulate hazardous wastes to minimize possible impacts on human and animal health as well as the environment. The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) necessitates the adoption of biosecurity measures - including biological waste management - to prevent proliferation of dual use material. The adoption by countries of effective measures to securely manage biological waste would help implementation of both international agreements and make progress towards the aims they promote. Read the full post here. ------

31 May 2012 Safety and security over biological waste 96 Normal 0 false false false ES-TRAD JA X-NONE

Page 44 The 1992 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal currently counts 179 States Parties. Article 4 (4) of the treaty requires States Parties to adopt appropriate legal and administrative measures to implement the convention. Obligations include the criminalization of the illicit trafficking of hazardous wastes; establishing controls over the transboundary movements of hazardous wastes; measures to reduce the generation of hazardous wastes to a minimum; and measures ensuring the availability of adequate disposal facilities and training of personnel. ‘Infectious waste' is included in the definition of ‘hazardous wastes' provided by this international agreement. The BWC touches on the issue of biological waste management from the proliferation angle. The BWC doesn't specifically mention biological waste, but it necessitates the adoption of preventive measures, such as security and accountability measures over dual-use biological materials that could be used to develop biological weapons. When looking into national measures on biosafety and biosecurity, VERTIC found that 41 out of 137 countries surveyed had adopted some biological waste management legislative measures. Appropriate and effective biological waste management requires the adoption and enforcement of a legislative framework and national policies on the handling and disposal of infectious waste. Additionally, facilities producing and disposing of biological waste should have internal rules or manuals. Effective handling procedures could include the separation, labelling, packaging and storage of waste in a safe and secure manner. Additionally it could include transporting the generated waste to other facilities with the necessary equipment to safely dispose of it. Exporting waste to other countries is also a possibility and therefore transfer controls over exports/imports and standards for safe handling are necessary—and chain of custody must be ensured. Different disposal techniques to ensure effective inactivation of the biological agents could include autoclaving (steam sterilization), the use of chemical disinfectants and incinerators. Providing adequate equipment and training of personnel involved in the different stages of the generation, handling and disposal of biological waste is an essential component of any efficient biological waste management scheme. Public awareness of the risks that this type of waste represent to health is also necessary. Inadequate handling of biological waste could lead to a disease outbreak. That was the case in the 2009 Hepatitis B outbreak in Gujarat, India where doctors were accused of re-using infected syringes; and the SARS outbreak in Taiwan in late 2003, where waste management procedures in a laboratory were not properly followed. Sewage disposal, lack of separation of biological waste and dumping in landfills are not infrequent practices. Proliferation of this type of material could also happen if storage facilities and containers are not secured since the biologically infected material could be weaponized and used for criminal purposes. Governments should establish a comprehensive legal framework to ensure that biological waste is managed safely and securely. Setting up an effective biological waste management scheme can be expensive. But the potential severity of the consequences of mismanagement means that risk analysis should be carried out and appropriate resources allocated to reduce the possibility of accidental outbreaks and proliferation of this sensitive material. ------

31 May 2012 VERTIC Senior Researcher presents to Cyber Security Conference VERTIC Senior Researcher, Larry MacFaul, presented to the Wilton Park conference 'Confidence building measures in cyber space: lessons from multilateral security regimes, held between Monday 28 - Wednesday 30 May 2012.

Mr MacFaul provided reflections on international instruments in the shared resource arena highlighting measures to manage and govern uses of the sea, atmosphere and trade in commodities. He also discussed security instruments on nuclear, biological, chemical and conventional weapons. He finished with remarks on how cyber threats are being dealt with by international and national bodies in these areas.

The conference also heard from a diverse range of practitioners from the diplomatic, government, commercial and research communities around the world.

Mr MacFaul's presentation is available here. ------

Page 45 29 May 2012 Kuwait legislation added to the BWC Legislation Database ------

29 May 2012 VERTIC Executive Director on the Middle East Yesterday, Andreas Persbo travelled to Edinburgh, Scotland, to participate in a United Nations Association Scotland and Edinburgh conference on the Middle East. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former UK Ambassador to the United Nations, chaired the conference. It featured presentations by, amongst others Ambassador Unal Cevikoz (Turkey), Mr. Sergey Andraishin (Russian Federation) and Ambassador Pekka Huhtaneimi (Finland). In addition, the conference heard views from presenters from the United States, Iran, Israel and Palestine. Several ministers and members of the Scottish Parliament were also present at the conference. Dr Rebecca Johnson of the Acronym Institute summarized the conference, and will be writing the forthcoming report. Mr. Persbo's remarks are available here. ------

29 May 2012 VERTIC Researcher David Cliff presents to UK PONI On 10 May 2012, VERTIC Researcher David Cliff presented to the UK Project on Nuclear Issues annual conference in central London. Mr Cliff's presentation, which looked at the possibility of adopting multilateral verification arrangements for nuclear warhead dismantlement undertakings, is now available online on the website of the Royal United Services Institute - see here. The presentation's accompanying paper is also now available for download - see here. In his presentation, Mr Cliff argues that multilateralising the process of warhead dismantlement verification would entail a number of benefits for global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts. In addition, Mr Cliff noted, these benefits will all have positive knock-on benefits for the stability of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime as a whole. ------

25 May 2012 New blog post: Coalition of the unwilling? As previously highlighted on the VERTIC blog, there has been a storm of controversy surrounding the inclusion of aviation greenhouse gas emissions from flights into and out of the EU in the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS)—the EU-wide carbon market. A so-called ‘Coalition of the Unwilling' was formed by 23 non-EU countries including the US, Russia, India and China. Read the full post here. ------

24 May 2012 Coalition of the unwilling? Grete Luxbacher, London As previously highlighted on the VERTIC blog, there has been a storm of controversy surrounding the inclusion of aviation greenhouse gas emissions from flights into and out of the EU in the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS)—the EU-wide carbon market. A so-called ‘Coalition of the Unwilling' was formed by 23 non-EU countries including the US, Russia, India and China. The coalition first met in February in Moscow and plans to meet this summer in Saudi Arabia. They released a declaration outlining possible courses of action including banning airlines from participating in the scheme. Currently, only India and China have followed through and prohibited their airlines from participating in the scheme. Missed Deadline Both EU and non-EU aircraft operators had until 31 March to submit their verified emissions reports to the EU ETS. With the deadline having past, the EU is reporting that over 1,200 airlines complied, but 10 airlines—two from India and eight from China—did not comply. Despite this non-compliance, the EU is touting the inclusion of aviation into the EU ETS as a success as the Chinese and Indian airlines account for only 3 per cent of overall aviation emissions. Failure to comply can result in fines and the possibility of an EU-wide ban for the aircraft carrier. The Chinese and Indian airlines have been contacted and granted an

Page 46 extension until mid-June to submit the required reports. At the 2012 China Civil Aviation Development Forum held this week, the head of China's Civil Aviation Administration, Li Jiaxiang, reiterated that Chinese airlines would not be participating in the EU ETS. Instead China will be focusing on other measures to reduce aviation emissions. Other non-EU countries are also still speaking out against the inclusion of non-EU based aircraft operators in the EU ETS. At the same conference, the assistant secretary of the US Department of Transportation, Susan Kurland, called on the EU to not apply the ETS to non-EU airlines and spoke out in favour of a global solution through the United Nation's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Global Solution ICAO is made up of 191 member countries and sets international aviation standards and regulations including those covering environmental protection. For the past decade, ICAO has been attempting to design a global framework for aviation emissions. While ICAO has endorsed a goal to limit or reduce the impact of the aviation industry on the climate, it failed to create a global legal framework. This failure, led to the EU including aviation emissions in the ETS. However, after the controversy surrounding the EU ETS there has been a renewed focus on finding a global solution through ICAO. At the recent China conference the EU has asserted that if a global solution were reached it would be open to reviewing and amending the ETS. EU ETS Success? The EU is currently on track to meet its goal of reducing domestic emissions by 20 percent below 1990s levels by 2020 with recently released data showing that 2011 carbon emissions fell 2.4 percent. And while the inclusion of aviation emissions has been hailed a success, there are still many countries that are unsatisfied. Therefore, only time will tell if a global solution can be reached via ICAO because as it stands now, both the EU and China are not backing down. ------

17 May 2012 New blog post: The 1925 Geneva Protocol goes digital In today's blog post, Angela Woodward, Programme Director of VERTIC's National Implementation Measures Programme, looks at digital documents relating to the 1925 Geneva Protocol that were recently made available online. Read the full post here. ------

17 May 2012 The 1925 Geneva Protocol goes digital Angela Woodward, Christchurch Historical documents pertaining to the 1925 Geneva Protocol are now available online through the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs' treaty database. Scanned copies of original instruments of accession, ratification and succession, along with documents relating to reservations, are now a mouse-click away. It is important to have access to these original documents, rather than the potted, translated summaries of their contents that were previously available, to determine the precise legal status of the Protocol's prohibitions on the use of biological and chemical weapons with respect to each State. Importantly, access to these documents has provided answers to a few questions that were percolating in the Geneva Protocol research community about certain States' legal status, although some queries remain. They also provide a fascinating snapshot into diplomatic protocol over ten decades. The 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, commonly known as the Geneva Protocol, is an often overlooked treaty, not least because of its age and the absence of regular treaty meetings. Yet its prohibitions on biological and chemical weapons use have become so widely accepted that they are now considered to be customary international law, binding on all States, whether they have joined the Protocol or not. This ban was further endorsed by the treaties prohibiting the production, development and stockpiling of these weapons: implicitly, in the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and explicitly in the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). All of which makes the continuing maintenance of reservations to the Geneva Protocol's prohibitions by BWC and CWC States Parties all the more curious. Through these reservations, States purport to retain a right to retaliate in kind against CBW use and/or to use such weapons against States not party to the Geneva Protocol: weapons that BWC and CWC States Parties should not hold. While there is little concern that such States are deliberately maintaining these reservations with a view to using these weapons (most have likely just forgotten about them), the legal disparity between their Geneva Protocol and BWC/CWC obligations remains troubling. In a 2011 study for the BWC Seventh Review Conference, Sims, Pearson and Woodward considered

Page 47 that 19 BWC States Parties retained Geneva Protocol reservations which were contrary to their obligations under the BWC and, in some cases, the CWC. It has proved difficult to be precise in such determinations in the absence of the original instruments by which States adhered, or made reservations to, the Protocol, especially as some websites on the Protocol held conflicting data. France, as the Geneva Protocol's depositary State, is responsible for maintaining treaty documents and notifying all States Parties as communications are received and so its information is authoritative. To its credit, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has comprehensively overhauled its extensive online treaty collection and, for the first time, made scanned copies of treaty-related documents publicly-available online. No doubt researchers will review and amend their analyses of Geneva Protocol adherence and implementation in light of this newly available information. The text of at least two previously unavailable reservations are now available for scrutiny. Database users may also marvel at the florid diplomatic language of the 1920s, at King George V's signature on the ratification instrument for the United Kingdom and its Dominions, and at China's 1952 telegram confirming its succession to the Kuomintang regime's adherence to the Protocol. ------

15 May 2012 NPT event on the Additional Protocol On 8 May 2012, VERTIC's Executive Director, Andreas Persbo, launched our new project on the Additional Protocol before a packed conference room in the Vienna International Centre. The meeting, chaired by Ambassador Susan Burk, US Special Representative of the President for nuclear non-proliferation, also featured presentations by other governments or entities offering assistance on the Additional Protocol. Ambassador Hamad Ali Al-Kaabi of the United Arab Emirates, for instance, spoke of his country's experience in implementing the protocol. He highlighted the good work of the US safeguards engagement programme, the importance of training to make implementers understand the regulations, and essence of understanding the reporting requirements under the protocol. Mr Taisuke Mibae, Director, Non-Proliferation, Science and Nuclear Energy Division, Disarmament, Non-proliferation and Science Department of the Japanese Foreign Ministry highlighted his own country's assortment of courses and training programmes on safeguards. Mr. Jinho Chung, Researcher, Non-Proliferation Policy Division at the Korea Institute of Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Control (KINAC) addressed the ROK's effort to develop safeguards approaches to pyroprocessing plants. He also stressed the 2014 launch of the International Nuclear Security Academy (INSA). Mr. Matthew Van Sickle, Team Lead, International Nuclear Safeguards Engagement of the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration spoke about his own programmes effort in offering a very wide range of assistance on safeguards. His presentation is available here. Mr. Persbo's presentation, available here, focused on activities that VERTIC is planning for the coming year. He stressed that if the NNSA ‘is cruising at 30,000 ft, VERTIC has just got clearance to start engines'. He stressed the importance of good regulations for safeguards implementation. He pointed out that more Additional Protocol states means an increased reporting burden not only for the states, but also for the Department of Safeguards. It is therefore important, he said, to work on the ‘quality of reporting' and to, in a nutshell, ‘make it as easy as possible' for all parties involved. In addition, VERTIC staff held consultations with senior officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency and with several prospective client governments. ------

09 May 2012 New blog post: Norway to host disarmament verification simulation In today's (guest) blog post, Ibrahim Said Ibrahim of the University of Oslo looks ahead to the second nuclear warhead dismantlement verification exercise due to be held in Norway in June 2012 - and also at the benefits of educating the 'next generation' about nuclear disarmament verification issues.

Read the full post here. ------

09 May 2012

Page 48 Guest post: Norway to host second disarmament verification simulation Ibrahim Said Ibrahim, Oslo In June 2012, Oslo will play host to selected experts and diplomats from across a range of scientific, technical, legal and policy areas related to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation - not to mention top graduate students in the field of international security. This being because June will see the Universities of Oslo, Hamburg and King's College London carry out the ‘Second International Full-Scale Nuclear Disarmament Verification Simulation'. The first simulation - which took place from 13-17 June 2011 was jointly organized by the University of Oslo and the King's Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS), and hosted by the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology. This simulation built upon the achievements of the UK-Norway initiative (UKNi) between 2007 and 2009 by creating a simplified version of the UKNi framework that was able to involve students and academics from a number of nuclear and non-nuclear-weapon states. The objective then, as now, was to enhance their shared knowledge of the political and technical issues surrounding warhead dismantlement verification. The upcoming second simulation that is to take place in June 2012 will both build on lessons learned from the 2011 simulation and seek to identify different scenarios for future simulations and exercises. The Oslo simulation in 2012 will take place in two parts: in cooperation with CSSS from 4-8 June, and from 25-29 June in cooperation with the Center for Science and Peace Research of the University of Hamburg. The simulation's preparatory phase will take place at the University of Oslo, while the actual simulations will be held at the Institute for Energy Technology. Both the King's and Hamburg simulations are financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Norwegian Disarmament Research Fund. A hands-on education and training tool for disarmament verification The Disarmament Verification Simulation is part of University of Oslo's educational and capacity-building initiative, which is striving to put words into action by addressing some of the observations and recommendations to have emerged from the UKNi (as well as other experiences in disarmament education). One of the main lessons learned from the UK-Norway initiative is the importance of the human factor in creating a successful collaborative disarmament verification exercise. Trust and confidence between inspectors and an inspected party is vitally important if a verification exercise is to be a success. Education, surely, will contribute to addressing this issue. After all, if inspectors are well-versed in verification processes and the various pitfalls involved, this will inevitably increase their confidence in both their own ability to make a valuable contribution - and also their confidence in what it is they are witnessing. Educating ‘next generations' on disarmament verification could also form the basis of an international ‘verification community' and, within that, a high-level group of international experts that could in time advise governments and develop a framework for cooperation on the scientific and technical aspects of nuclear disarmament. In addition, disarmament education is foreseen as a major strategy for preventive diplomacy, as well as a matter regarded with importance by governments and their political leaders. It should be noted that educational research into nuclear disarmament verification allows for research efforts on dismantlement verification to be spread more widely among different countries. At present, the current global expenditures on verification research and development are concentrated heavily within the nuclear-weapon states in general and in the US in particular. What, though, might be the impact of a more diversified, multinational body of research on verification technology and techniques? Furthermore, educational efforts also entail the potential to involve intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Educational projects such as these can spur thinking on how IGOs and non-nuclear-weapon states can collaborate more effectively and contribute better to verification processes. And educational and research collaboration can play an essential role in developing international standards and approved techniques for use in actual disarmament scenarios. Disarmament verification education could also serve as a confidence-building measure between nuclear and non-nuclear-weapon states. That may hold particular benefits for later real-world processes where, as in the simulated world of the UK-Norway initiative, non-nuclear-weapon states may be brought into the dismantlement verification process. Beside the technical measures that can be employed to help ensure the ‘irreversibility' of disarmament, disarmament verification and monitoring education should be envisioned as a key factor to be incorporated on the road to total abolition. Knowledge is considered to be one of the main rearmament steps, and by establishing adequate disarmament education this could help balance out the equation. Moreover, increasing disarmament knowledge through education would increase societal verification pressure, which could in turn translate into concrete disarmament undertakings by states. Ultimately, perhaps the best result of the University of Oslo's efforts would be to create an increased pool of young specialists that can engage actively in nuclear disarmament considerations at both national and international levels. Besides that, the

Page 49 effort hopes to foster a network of institutions in this area, as the field of study is multi-disciplinary and requires various specialists in chemistry, physics and information technology. These are long-term processes, and only small steps, but in the field of nuclear disarmament there are only small steps - and the hope is that these steps, while they may be small, may also be significant. ------

09 May 2012 VERTIC hosts NPT side-event on disarmament verification Tuesday 8 May 2012 saw VERTIC host a side-event at the NPT PrepCom meeting in Vienna on the issue of multilateral nuclear disarmament verification. This event - hosted together with ISS Africa and with input from the New Agenda Coalition - included three presentations: one by VERTIC Researcher David Cliff; one by Michiel Combrink, representing the New Agenda Coalition; and one by VERTIC Senior Researcher David Keir. Mr Cliff's presentation addressed the potential advantages of adopting multilateral approaches to the verification of nuclear warhead dismantlement. His presentation opened with the proposition that the dismantlement of nuclear warheads ‘underpins the concept of nuclear disarmament'. To be considered disarmed of nuclear weapons, Mr Cliff said, ‘one can make the case that a state must not be in possession of any “usable” nuclear warheads.' And while judgements over usability may be informed by a state's capability to reliably deliver a warhead to a target, ‘dismantlement, while reversible, arguably represents the baseline for what constitutes a warhead's inability to be used', Mr Cliff said. This presentation discussed three possible advantages that the multilateral verification of warhead dismantlement might entail. First, it would lead to ‘increased international validity in the outcome,' Mr Cliff said. Second, it represents a means of turning nuclear disarmament into a ‘global collaborative endeavour'. And third, it was argued that such an approach would be beneficial because of the ‘opportunities it presents for the promotion of dialogue and greater understanding among parties on the issues and complexities involved.' The presentation - which also outlines a number of possible scenarios where multilateral verification approaches could be incorporated - can be found in full here. For his part, Mr Combrink presented on the working paper of the New Agenda Coalition entitled: ‘Multilateral nuclear disarmament verification: applying the principles of irreversibility, verifiability and transparency'. This paper - available for download here - notes that the verification of nuclear disarmament measures ‘is an indispensable element in the fulfilment of the nuclear disarmament obligations resulting from article VI of the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation] Treaty.' And that warhead dismantlement and the verification of fissile material permanently removed from military programmes ‘are therefore important matters that will need to be dealt with as increasing progress is made on the path to a world free of nuclear weapons.' The coalition's paper laments the fact that, notwithstanding current activities under the US-Russian Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, ‘no further progress has been made in the development of appropriate legally binding verification arrangements, in the context of the IAEA, to strengthen safeguards in the nuclear-weapon States in support of nuclear disarmament measures.' At present, voluntary offer safeguards agreements covering fissile material in nuclear-weapon states can still be withdrawn from safeguards and used in the development of nuclear weapons, the coalition note. ‘These measures therefore do not give effect to the principles of irreversibility, verifiability and transparency as agreed to at previous [NPT] Review Conferences and provide no assurances regarding the irreversible removal of fissile material from military programmes, particularly weapons-grade highly enriched uranium and plutonium designated as no longer required for military purposes.' Dr Keir then presented on the technical challenges and opportunities in future multilateral nuclear disarmament verification. This presentation focused on the technical issues associated with the verified dismantlement of nuclear warheads, an issue that over recent years has been addressed as part of a collaborative research project between the UK and Norway. In his presentation - available in full here - Dr Keir noted that, above all, any inspection team needs to ‘credibly represent the states who are stakeholders to the dismantlement operation', as well as being ‘technically credible' in its own right. This, he said, means that a team must be composed of personnel that are recognised as being competent to carry out agreed verification measures, that there are no conflicted affiliations among inspectors, and that where nuclear weapons design information is likely to be revealed, considerations must be made for the fact that one or more of the team may have to be from an NPT nuclear-weapon state. Dr Keir also discussed the requirements to secure boundaries and ‘sweep' dismantlement areas to ensure that they are free from radioactive sources (before

Page 50 and after dismantlement operations). And he discussed the essential importance of maintaining a ‘chain-of-custody' throughout the dismantlement process - to ensure against any diversion of materials, and to ensure that no gaps in custody lead to shortfalls in confidence. Dr Keir noted that while some technologies relevant for use in nuclear warhead dismantlement verification are relatively mature, others (such as ‘information barrier' devices) are not yet fit-for-purpose and require further development. VERTIC wishes to thank Noel Stott of ISS Africa for chairing this event, and Michiel Combrink of the New Agenda Coalition for his contribution.

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08 May 2012 VERTIC releases report on illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive material VERTIC has released a timely report analysing the legal instruments that currently underpin efforts to tackle the illicit trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive material. The report - 'Illicit Trafficking of Nuclear and other Radioactive Material: The Legislative Response' examines a range of treaties and other international instruments to identify which actions and activities are prohibited under these agreements and to provide an overview of the current status of international norms relevant to illicit trafficking. The report then considers how states can implement the measures and obligations highlighted in our study into their national legal frameworks and asks how to ascertain how far states have progressed in implementing them. The report opens with an overview of the nature and scale of the illicit trafficking problem. ------

03 May 2012 New blog post: VERTIC appearances at the NPT PrepCom In today's blog post, Andreas Persbo highlights changes to the VERTIC blog, thanks the outgoing editor, and also gives a preview of what's in store for next week's NPT PrepCom.

Read the full post here. ------

03 May 2012 VERTIC appearances at the NPT PrepCom Next week, VERTIC will give three presentations at the NPT PrepCom at two different meetings - rolling out or highlighting several new and exciting projects. Here in London, there will be changes to the way this blog is administered. We will strive to keep you updated with new online content every Thursday, as customary. However, our organization's permanent staff will from now on share the editorial responsibility for the content.

As some of you may know, Hugh Chalmers have been editing these pages on a volunteer basis over the last six months. He has now secured a comfortable new position at RUSI, where he will look into the management of nuclear technology, nuclear arms control and disarmament, and multilateral regimes. He contributes research and project support to the nuclear analysis team, and acts as coordinator for the UK Project on Nuclear Issues. I would like to convey my very personal gratitude for all that he has done for the blog over the past six months.

Next Tuesday, 8 May 2012, is an interesting day for our organization. We are flying a rather big team to Vienna to descent like fireflies on the NPT PrepCom. In a matter of hours, we'll be holding two events. The following day, most of us will be on a flight back to London. In other words, we're planning the NGO equivalent of a hit and run.

The morning event, organized by David Cliff and David Keir, will look at the issue of disarmament verification by intergovernmental organizations. This is something we've been working on for a while together with a small number of partner governments. We'll also have a representative from the New Agenda Coalition attending, presenting their views on disarmament verification, so it's set up to be an exciting meeting. I've had a look at my own team's presentations, and they look good. You will have plenty of things to unpack from the technical

Page 51 presentation in particular.

Download the agenda here.

The afternoon event is hosted by the US Department of Energy and will highlight national efforts to promote the effective implementation of the IAEA Additional Protocol. Some of you will recall that we prowled the General Conference last year, talking to some select governments about this, trying to judge support for a charity-based, UK centred, assistance programme. We found that there was demand for a service of this kind. Our kind funder has therefore decided to push some money our way, to move us halfway to full phase. We will release more details on our upcoming project next Tuesday.

Download the agenda here.

VERTIC will also take the opportunity, at that presentation, to launch its expansion of National Implementation into ‘true CBRN', as we call it internally. For more than a year - almost two years in fact - we have been working on a report on the Illicit Trafficking of Nuclear and Radioactive material. Sadly, we won't have it ready for hard-copy distribution by Tuesday, but it will be available on the web.

Personally, I am very happy with the cover design. It took some time for us to choose the absolutely right cover picture - and this one, I think, is quite cool.

The choice is quite deliberate. It will be interesting to see if anyone figures it out. ------

02 May 2012 Registration open for VERTIC-Wilton Park verification conference Registration is now open for the upcoming VERTIC-Wilton Park conference ‘Verification in the 21st century - technological, political and institutional challenges and opportunities', to be held from Sunday 17 June to Wednesday 20 June 2012. Building on the success of last year's inaugural verification conference, this meeting will assess the role and contribution of verification in multilateral regimes. With a focus on verification of the various weapons of mass destruction regimes, the meeting has two objectives. The first is to assess how to enhance cross-sector and cross-institutional engagement. Credible and comprehensive verification involves a number of different actors - domestic, governmental and international - and is therefore, by its nature, a collaborative exercise. Consequently, engagement between actors becomes an important concern - something that is only heightened by the increasing global spread of dual-use technology. This conference will explore ways in which verification outcomes can be enhanced by engagement between its participant actors. The second objective is to develop a better understanding of the impact and implications of technology on verification activities. The conference includes sessions on verification challenges and opportunities, the relationship between verification and confidence, engaging the non-government sector, technology and verification, cross-cutting verification opportunities, the UK-Norway Initiative and a proposed weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East. Confirmed speakers include Tibor Toth, Laura Rockwood, David Chambers, Ralf Trapp, Catriona McLeish, John Luke, Ole Reistad, Olli Heinonen and Jan Lodding. This meeting is open to all those with expertise to share or an interest in the theme. Please see the conference registration page on the Wilton Park website - see here - to sign up.

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30 April 2012 VERTIC Researcher David Cliff on Voice of Russia Monday 16 April 2012 saw VERTIC Researcher David Cliff appear on a Voice of Russia radio panel discussion to

Page 52 discuss the Iranian nuclear crisis in the wake of recent talks held between Iran and the ‘P5+1' group of countries in Istanbul. Speaking on the show, ‘A way out of Iran's nuclear deadlock?', Mr Cliff argued that despite the recent agreement by Iran to hold talks, the country's lack of transparency over its nuclear activities, its ongoing enrichment of uranium and the ‘suspected weaponisation [research and development] that may or may not be going on there' all represent ongoing causes for concern. See below for the full discussion. On uranium enrichment, Mr Cliff stated that while Istanbul was hailed as a successful meeting, the facts on the ground had not changed and Iran was continuing to enrich material up to the 20 per cent level - close to the level of enrichment suitable for use in a nuclear weapon. An outstanding question, he said, is what level of ‘latent weaponisation capability' are the P5+1 willing to let Iran have. After all, allowing Iran to operate enrichment facilities would always leave it with the ‘latent' possibility of using those facilities for the production of weapons-usable fissile material. As a means of building confidence in the peaceful intentions of its nuclear activities, and possibly avert military action against its nuclear sites, Mr Cliff argued that Iran could begin implementation of both the IAEA Additional Protocol and the modified Code 3.1 clause to its safeguards subsidiary arrangements. The Additional Protocol would oblige Iran to provide IAEA inspectors with more information and permit them greater freedom of movement around nuclear sites; the modified Code 3.1 clause would oblige Iran to provide the Agency with early design information on the construction and modification of nuclear facilities. On the likelihood of military action against Iran, Mr Cliff argued that the Istanbul talks had lessened their likelihood for now - but not removed the option from consideration entirely. He cautioned, though, that air strikes would inevitably lead to a ‘further destabilisation of the entire region' (at a time when violence in Syria remains a serious global concern). Moreover, he argued, military action represents only ‘a short-term fix to a problem that requires a durable long-term solution,' and would simultaneously make the likelihood of reaching that kind of solution less likely.

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27 April 2012 VERTIC's BWC national implementation work noted in US Senate hearing testimony The US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing on 26 April to discuss "Biological Security: The Risk of Dual-Use Research". Dr Daniel Gerstein, Deputy Under Secretary for Science and Technology, US Department of Homeland Security, in response to a question from Senator Joe Lieberman, brought the Committee's attention to research on national implementation of the BWC that has been carried out under VERTIC's National Implementation Measures Programme for the past several years. The most recent sample of the NIM Team's BWC implementation statistics are available here. Dr Gerstein's mention of VERTIC's work starts at minute 96 in the hearing video. VERTIC has also blogged on the legislative issues surrounding the H5N1 controversy. ------

26 April 2012 New blog post: Clearing the fog surrounding nuclear security Now that the dust has settled on the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), held last month in Seoul, commentators have begun releasing their reviews. These reviews are not universally complementary by any means. A common thread, illuminating a flaw in a patchwork approach towards improved nuclear security, weaves many of these commentaries together. In one form or another, calls are being made for a more transparent approach to demonstrating nationally-implemented measures for improved nuclear security. Read the new post here. ------

26 April 2012 Clearing the fog surrounding nuclear security Hugh Chalmers, London Now that the dust has settled on the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), held last month in Seoul, commentators have begun releasing their reviews. These reviews are not universally complementary by any means. A common thread, illuminating a flaw in a patchwork approach towards improved

Page 53 nuclear security, weaves many of these commentaries together. In one form or another, calls are being made for a more transparent approach to demonstrating nationally-implemented measures for improved nuclear security. Nuclear security in the spotlight From its inception as a cooperative enterprise, nuclear security activities have often been kept low-key, and for good reasons. States guard their nuclear facilities very carefully, both as sources of industrial power and as military assets. Early efforts to secure vulnerable nuclear materials such as Project Sapphire in 1994, in which 600kg of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) was secured by the US from inadequate storage in formerly-Soviet Kazakhstan, had to be carried out in extreme secrecy. Now such cooperative threat reduction activities have become relatively commonplace and are openly reported. Commitments made by various states to remove HEU and weapons-grade plutonium from their soil formed a significant part of the work plan produced by the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit. Since then, the US has removed 400 kg of HEU and plutonium and down-blended 700 kg of HEU from civil nuclear programs from countries around the world. According to one assessment of the fulfilment of 2010 NSS commitments, approximately 80 per cent have been carried out. Without doubt this is something to celebrate; many concrete and visible steps have been taken to improve the security of potentially catastrophic quantities of nuclear material. Recall for instance that the ‘Little Boy' bomb dropped on Hiroshima contained only 62kg of HEU (according to public information), less than one gram of which was eventually converted into energy. If only a fraction of the secured HEU and weapons-grade plutonium were to have fallen in to the wrong hands, and weaponised in some manner, the result could have been disastrous. Nuclear security in the shadows However, it is much harder to make a concrete assessment of the security of nuclear materials that remain behind. Among the commitments made in the 2010 work plan, it was decided that participating states will establish and maintain effective national nuclear security regulations, pursue the review and enforcement of compliance with these regulations, and maintain their periodic review and adjustment. Assessing the fulfilment of these commitments is not easy. As the Arms Control Association, authors of the above assessment, have noted, tracking the implementation of some commitments is difficult due to the caveats that some commitments contain, such as phrases like ‘as appropriate' or ‘as soon as possible'. The recently-released Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) Nuclear Materials Security Index has made some attempts to provide a quantitative ‘score' to the transparency of states' nuclear security implementation. Of the states that attended the 2010 NSS, and therefore signed up to the work plan commitments, states such as Israel, India, China, Poland, Pakistan and Italy received some of the lowest scores by NTI. This is not to say, however, that the overall implementation of nuclear security in these states is poor. Indeed, Poland rated joint eighth, and Italy joint sixteenth, in a ranking of overall nuclear security covering 32 states. What it does say is that building international confidence that states are implementing effective national practices, and ensuring their periodic review and adjustment, is not a simple task. Maintaining secrecy over both the particulars and the effectiveness of national nuclear security arrangements is not always a bad thing; it is universally accepted that it is states', and only states', responsibility to secure materials under their control. Advertising weakness or releasing sensitive information could well serve to lessen, not increase, nuclear security. However, as John Carlson of NTI has argued, when taken to the extreme, ‘a culture of secrecy is actually contradictory to good nuclear security culture'. Isolating domestic nuclear security practices from the scrutiny of international expertise can allow ineffective and hazardous approaches to become ingrained, to the detriment of both national and international security. A suitable level of transparency can expose these practices to the sharing of lessons learnt, allowing the refinement of both national and international approaches to nuclear security. And importantly, by displaying a level of transparency, states can build the confidence of the international community, who know that some level of accountability can be correctly placed if security procedures fail. Clearing the fog surrounding nuclear security But how can such transparency be practically implemented? States already report on their implementation of nuclear security legislation through the UN Security Council Resolution 1540 Committee, and through the Convention for the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials (and its amendment) if they are party to it. Verification - either unilateral or multilateral - of the implementation of such legislation in the event of a security failure would involve an extraordinary leap in international intrusion into national sovereignty. Even in the remote event that such intrusion were accepted, international oversight of national judicial procedures could unknowingly pressure such systems into inaccuracy or even failure. In this instance, as in many others, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) offers a useful middle-ground. Their Department of Nuclear Safety and Security offer a number of

Page 54 services to member states which can improve nuclear security practices, such as their Nuclear Security Guidelines and their International Physical Protection Advisory Service (IPPAS). While the former cannot do much to increase international confidence in domestic nuclear security practices, the latter certainly can. During an IPPAS mission, a state's nuclear security systems are reviewed and compared with the IAEA Nuclear Security Guidelines and established best practices. Following this review, the IAEA then makes recommendations for improvements, which in the majority of instances are then implemented through bilateral support programmes. This service is at the moment entirely voluntary, there are no compliance mechanisms in place and the final reports are shared only with the host nation. It cannot serve to ‘verify' the implementation of nuclear security commitments made in multilateral forums, particularly when the commitments are flexible and only binding in the political sense. However, displaying this small level of transparency to a select multilateral team of experts can reassure the international community that host states have at the very least some of the best advice and a clear idea of how they can improve their nuclear security practices. The NTI Index has recognised this important confidence-building effect by including the hosting of IPPAS missions in its ‘Global Norms' scoring category, and subsequently its overall nuclear security score. At the moment, the NSS commitments that have been championed the most are those that are clearly-defined and relatively visible. The removal of sensitive nuclear materials and the conversion of HEU-dependent reactors are all worthwhile steps with a clear point of completion. Commitments to implement effective, reliable and evolving security practices ‘as appropriate', or ‘as soon as possible', have the right aim, but are hard to execute definitively. If these commitments were made alongside commitments to invite IPPAS missions to peer-review their implementation, confidence in, and the effectiveness of, national nuclear security practices could grow. Such commitments should not prove too controversial, as they are only binding in the political, not the legal, sense. Moreover, unlike nuclear safeguards commitments, the IAEA has no mandate to expose the results of their peer-review process to the international community. In the case of nuclear security, incremental steps towards limited transparency could eventually have a big effect. ------

18 April 2012 Belarus, Liberia, Oman and Serbia legislation added to the BWC Legislation Database ------

12 April 2012 VERTIC researcher David Cliff on VOA news Yesterday, VERTIC researcher David Cliff appeared on Voice of America, giving commentary on the up-coming talks with Iran. See the interview below. Speaking on Iran's enrichment facility at Fordow, Mr Cliff said that it ‘was constructed essentially in secret by the Iranians and unearthed by the West in September 2009. What's happened more recently is that the facility has essentially come online and has started actually producing enriched uranium'. Mr Cliff mentioned that, seemingly, ‘There's not been a decision taken within Iran as to whether they want to go for a bomb outright or whether they want to develop what is called a ‘virtual nuclear weapons capability,' where they have all of the material that they need, and they have all of the scientific and the technical knowledge they would need, to develop a nuclear weapon if at some point in the future the ‘go' order was given'. VERTIC is presently working on a fuel cycle analysis of Iran. This report will highlight material flows within the country, and give an overview of where safeguards are applied. It will be of use to academics and analysts seeking a deeper understanding of nuclear fuel cycle issues. VERTIC's work on Iran is supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT). For more information, and updates on project progress, visit the project page. ------

04 April 2012 New Iran article published A piece by VERTIC Researcher David Cliff, on the Iranian nuclear crisis, has today been published in the ITPCM International Commentary. The article - which has also been posted on the VERTIC blog - looks both at the most recent IAEA report on safeguards implementation in Iran and also ahead to coming talks between Iran and the

Page 55 'P5+1' group of countries. Read the full publication here. ------

04 April 2012 The Iranian nuclear crisis: growing stockpiles and rising stakes David Cliff, London In recent months, tensions over the Iranian nuclear programme have escalated considerably. This increase, and the associated rise in Western pressure on Iran's government (not to mention the talk of war), is largely the result of two factors. First, the November 2011 publication - by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - of a broad-ranging overview of suspected Iranian nuclear weapons-related research and development. And second, an increase in Iran's uranium enrichment capability (highly-enriched uranium being one of the two kinds of material essential for developing nuclear explosive devices) through the activation of a new enrichment facility. On the first point, the IAEA's overview of the ‘possible military dimensions' to Iran's nuclear programme was set out in a 12-page annex to its quarterly verification report on the country. As a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is prohibited from manufacturing nuclear arms or other nuclear explosive devices. But in remarkable detail, this annex highlighted IAEA concerns over alleged Iranian work on several components - including fast-acting detonators - that have potential relevance to the development of a nuclear weapons capability. Amongst other concerns, the annex noted further that Iran has reportedly carried out modelling studies relevant to nuclear weapons development, that it may at one stage have carried out preparatory work for a nuclear test explosion, and that it appears to have also ventured into the realm of so-called ‘hydrodynamic' experiments. Such experiments (which seek to investigate how materials will behave in the conditions expected in a nuclear explosion) are noted by the IAEA to be ‘strong indicators of possible weapons development.' Negotiating access to the site where these experiments are alleged to have taken place, Parchin, has been a point of particular friction between Iran and senior IAEA personnel that visited the country for discussions earlier this year. In many Western minds, Iran is set on developing either a ‘virtual' nuclear weapons capability - that is, the technical know-how and the material required to produce such devices at short notice - or weapons outright. Such mindsets are not surprising. Iran's record of less-than-full cooperation with the IAEA over suspect aspects of its nuclear programme (some of which are mentioned above, others below) has done nothing to support Iranian claims that its programme is for peaceful purposes only. Technical estimates of how far Iran is from either a bomb or from the capability to produce one vary widely, however, and those estimates are often difficult in any case to divorce from underlying political and security biases. Of particular concern, though, is the IAEA's judgement of November 2011 - reiterated in February 2012 - that some activities relevant to nuclear weapons development in Iran may still be ongoing. Ultimately, the most crucial factor for any state seeking to build nuclear weapons is their acquisition of sufficient quantities of suitable fissile material. Without enough of the right material, building a nuclear bomb is a technical impossibility. And getting hold of such material is widely regarded as being the most technically-challenging aspect of nuclear bomb-making. As noted above, highly-enriched uranium is one of the two kinds of fissile material essential for the manufacture of nuclear weapons; the other alternative is to use plutonium. Iran is not known to have a reprocessing facility - where plutonium can be extracted from spent nuclear fuel - but it is known today to have three uranium enrichment facilities, all of which are operational (despite repeated resolutions from the IAEA Board of Governors and the UN Security Council calling for Iran's enrichment work to stop). Two of these facilities - the Fuel Enrichment Plant and the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant - are located at Iran's Natanz nuclear site. In brief, enrichment refers to the process of increasing the proportion of uranium-235 (the fissile isotope found in natural uranium) in relation to natural uranium's more predominant isotope, uranium-238. In centrifuge-based enrichment (of the sort used by Iran), natural uranium is first combined with fluorine to form uranium hexafluoride (UF6). The latest IAEA report on Iran, released on 24 February 2012, revealed that some 5,451kg of five per cent enriched UF6 had been produced at the Fuel Enrichment Plant between the start of production there in February 2007 and early February 2012. As the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security has noted, this much material, if further enriched to weapons-grade (that is, to an enrichment level of around 90 per cent and above), is enough to make more than four nuclear weapons. (Further processing, to produce uranium metal from the enriched UF6, would also be required.) At the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, Iran has been enriching UF6 up to the level of 20 per cent since February 2010. It is a feature of the uranium enrichment process that much of the hard work of enrichment is encountered in reaching lower enrichment levels. Enriching uranium to 20

Page 56 per cent is considerably more energy-intensive than further enriching 20 per cent material up to a 90 per cent enrichment level. As a result, Iranian enrichment up to 20 per cent represents, for many, an acute cause for concern. According to Iranian estimates, between mid-September 2011 and mid-February 2012, approximately 21.7kg of 20 per cent enriched UF6 enriched was produced at the pilot plant. The Agency has previously verified that as of 13 September 2011, Iran had produced a total of 73.7kg of 20 per cent enriched UF6 there. Thus, assuming Iran's estimates for the September-February period are correct, since enrichment up to 20 per cent at the Natanz pilot plan began, Iran had as of February 2012 produced some 95.4kg of this kind of material at this facility. Between the release of the IAEA's November 2011 verification report on Iran and its most recent update, Iran also began enriching UF6 up to 20 per cent at its other enrichment site: Fordow. The start of operations at Fordow represents a significant new development (if not an unexpected one) in Iran's efforts to build up a stockpile of enriched uranium, and to increase its overall production capacity. Between mid-December 2011 and mid-February 2012, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant - constructed in secret and exposed, then-unfinished, by Western powers in September 2009 - reportedly produced some 13.8kg of 20 per cent enriched UF6 (according to Iranian estimates). Again, assuming the correctness of Iran's estimates, between Natanz and Fordow the country has therefore produced an overall total of around 109.2kg of 20 per cent enriched UF6. That said, if further enriched to weapons-grade, the amount of uranium metal that could be produced from this amount of UF6 is still less than what the IAEA consider a ‘significant quantity' (at which the development of one nuclear explosive device cannot be ruled out). In terms of verification, the IAEA has regular access to both Natanz and Fordow, as well as to a number of other Iranian nuclear facilities - as provided for by Iran's NPT-mandated ‘Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement' with the Agency. And, indeed, the IAEA confirmed (once again) in February 2012 that it remains able to verify the ‘non-diversion of declared nuclear material' within Iran. The IAEA is able, in other words, to verify that Iran's declaration of its nuclear material and activities is correct. Whether Iran is providing a complete picture, however, is another matter. The challenge of verifying completeness, which came to light in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq (where all manner of undeclared activities were conducted), resulted in the IAEA's development of the so-called ‘Additional Protocol', a voluntary legal instrument that some 114 states around the world are implementing today. Iran, though, is not one of them. Without an Additional Protocol in force, which then obliges states to provide the IAEA with more information and permit greater freedom of access for Agency inspectors, the IAEA is unable to provide credible assurance of the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in a state. That the Agency is unable to provide such assurance in the case of Iran, coupled to the country's ongoing enrichment activities and the IAEA's ‘serious concerns' over possible weaponisation activities (which may or may not still be taking place there), makes for an understandable cause for deep unease about the scope and purpose of Iran's nuclear programme. Recently, it was reported in the world's press that Iran has agreed to return to the negotiating table to hold new talks with the ‘P5+1' group of countries (that is, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany). But while the stakes are high, and rising, expectations are low. Previous rounds of talks between Iran and foreign powers have failed to achieve much - and certainly not much of any enduring character. Whether these newly-proposed negotiations (scheduled to take place in Istanbul in mid-April 2012) will fare any better remains to be seen. Anecdotal evidence suggests that UN and other sanctions on Iran may be beginning to bite, so it may be that Iran is genuinely seeking some level of meaningful multilateral engagement. But it is also just as likely that the country is seeking to alleviate some of the pressure currently being applied to it, to buy more time and to dampen down the ever-increasing talk of air strikes against its nuclear facilities, while in the background continuing to press ahead with its uranium enrichment activities and its stockpiling of fissile material. This article originally appeared in the April 2012 edition (Vol. VIII, No. 29) of the 'ITPCM International Commentary', available online here. ------

30 March 2012 Trust & Verify No. 136 In this issue Gregory Briner looks at the implications for climate change monitoring after the 'COP17' conference in Durban, David Keir ponders the use of robotics in nuclear warhead dismantlement verification, and Scott Spence addresses the evolution of the VERTIC National Implementation Measures programme. Plus: Verification Watch, Science & Technology Scan, Verification Quotes, Programme News from around the organisation,

Page 57 and reflections by the director. This issue also remembers the life of the verification practitioner Brian Jones, who died in February 2012. Download the full publication here. ------

30 March 2012 Some legal aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme On 30 March, Andreas Persbo participated in the second meeting of the International Law Association's Committee on Nuclear weapons, non proliferation & contemporary international law. He delivered a short presentation on some of the legal issues surrounding Iran's nuclear programme. The same session also heard a presentation on the latest IAEA report on Iran by Professor Daniel Joyner of the University of Alabama School of Law. Download Mr Persbo's presentation here. ------

29 March 2012 New blog post: Department of Safeguards releases documents It is often difficult, even for those that specialize in verification, to get a grip on how the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards system actually works. Most would know that it involves the state declaring that they have a certain amount of material, with the IAEA checking that the declaration is correct. But how do the inspectors actually go about checking this, and how do states in practice declare their fissile material holdings? A new set of documents on the Agency website shows just that. Read the new post here. ------

29 March 2012 Department of Safeguards releases documents Andreas Persbo, London It is often difficult, even for those that specialize in verification, to get a grip on how the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards system actually works. Most would know that it involves the state declaring that they have a certain amount of material, with the IAEA checking that the declaration is correct. But how does the inspectors actually go about checking this, and how do states in practice declare their fissile material holdings? A new set of documents on the Agency website shows just that. A little gem of a page can be found hidden in a crevice deep inside the Agency's sprawling website. This page contains a collection of documents, aptly named ‘resources for states', and is designed to help countries implement their safeguards obligations. The collection is by no means easy to read, and only a mad person (or someone terribly committed to safeguards) would attempt to analyse in a web-entry what they all contain. In a nutshell, however, they give out the how, what, when and why of practical safeguards implementation. They give examples of how to fill out declarations, what forms to use, and how to use them. And they give fantastic tabular examples of how inspections are supposed to be conducted in practice. Previously, this kind of information used to be guarded. When VERTIC, for instance, conducted a study on Iran many years ago, we had to ask member states for subsidiary arrangement language, or detail on what is contained in the Codes. We got access to most of what we needed, but only after a long period of time. The release of this documentation can only be welcomed. There is considerable confusion in the public debate on what Codes actually say and mean - the debate about Iran's Code 3.1 springs to mind - and this set of documents will end some of that debate. Of course, the information is still undigested, and most people will not bother to read it. Nevertheless, these new documents will come in handy for those striving for exactitude in their facts, and precision in their arguments. The data is also very useful when comparing with the implementation documents of other arms control regimes - such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty On-Site Inspection Manual or the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Inspection Manual. The IAEA, and its Department of Safeguards, ought to be commended for their decision. Now, of course, it would be equally good if the IAEA were to convince its member states to also release the unabridged version of the Safeguards Implementation Report to the general public. It does contain exceptionally useful data on how well the system works in practice, and how well the organization hits their timeliness and quantity goals. Recently, also, it has started to feature some really interesting financial data, allowing the member states to see how much (or rather how little) the safeguards system actually costs. Safeguards are done on the cheap, and the IAEA should not really have to beg on its knees to secure necessary budget increases. That's a discussion to be

Page 58 had in the future, however.

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28 March 2012 VERTIC welcomes Dr. Neil Selby to the consultants network VERTIC is very pleased to welcome Dr. Neil Selby to the International Verification Consultants Network. This exclusive network of prominent arms control and environment experts assists the Executive Director in his strategic planning, and also gives advice on VERTIC publications. Neil is principal seismologist in the Forensic Seismology team at AWE Blacknest. He joined AWE in 1999 after completing a B.Sc. in geophysics at the University of Durham and a D.Phil in seismology at the University of Oxford. The forensic seismology team at Blacknest provides technical advice to the UK government on the monitoring of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Neil regularly publishes papers in learned journals on treaty monitoring topics, and is a frequent member of international expert groups and workshops on technical issues related to the CTBT. Neil's current research interests include signal detection, and the use of seismological techniques to distinguish earthquakes and explosions. Andreas Persbo, VERTIC's Executive Director, said ‘I am very pleased to welcome Dr Selby to the network. He is the latest in a very distinguished line of AWE advisors to the charity. Dr. Selby will bring expert advice on test ban issues to us, and I am very much looking forward to working with him in the years to come'. ------

24 March 2012 New blog post: Returning to the recipe for avian superflu The debate continues on whether to publish scientific research that details how avian flu, a highly deadly virus for both birds and humans, can be made transmissible between humans. In a previous post, it was mentioned that publishing this research in a redacted fashion and sharing it with a select group of researchers can be supported under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC). To prevent certain aspects of the research becoming publicly available in the journal Science, the Dutch Secretary for Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation has informed the researchers, who are based in the Netherlands, that they have to request an export permit. How is export control law related to the publication of this research? Read the new post here. ------

24 March 2012 Returning to the recipe for avian superflu Yasemin Balci, London The debate continues on whether to publish scientific research that details how avian flu, a highly deadly virus for both birds and humans, can be made transmissible between mammals. In a previous post, it was mentioned that publishing this research in a redacted fashion and sharing it with a select group of researchers can be supported under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC). While a World Health Organization meeting in February called for full publication of the study, the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade has now pointed out that the researchers, who are based in the Netherlands, have to request an export permit. How is export control law related to the publication of this research? At the international level The adoption of export control laws is one of the obligations arising out of the BWC and UN Security Council Resolution 1540. Article III of the BWC requires each state party not to transfer, either directly or indirectly, biological weapons to ‘any recipient whatsoever'. During Review Conferences, states parties agreed that this referred to national export control and that ‘any recipient whatsoever' included those at the ‘international, national and sub-national' level. Similarly, UN Security Council Resolution 1540 requires states to establish, develop, review and maintain appropriate effective national export control laws over materials related to biological weapons (operative paragraph 3 (d)). The Australia Group export control system was established in response to biological and chemical weapons proliferation to Iraq during the 1980s. The participating States agree control lists and procedures to help them fulfill their export control and transshipment obligations under the BWC and the Chemical Weapons Convention. To this end, they have set up common export control lists of biological agents and related equipment. Avian influenza is mentioned on this list. The European

Page 59 Union (EU) has incorporated this list in Annex I of EU Regulation 428/2009 on ‘setting up a Community regime for the control of exports, transfer, brokering and transit of dual-use items and technology.' Based on this EU Regulation, an authorization of an EU member state is required for exports outside of the EU of dual-use items. This also includes the export of technology that can be used for both civil and military purposes (Article 2 (1), Article 3 and 1E001 in Annex I of the EU Regulation). At the national level Dutch law further implements this EU Regulation at the national level. The Decree on Strategic Goods prohibits the export without an authorization of dual-use items mentioned in Annex I of the EU Regulation. This includes the avian flu virus itself and related technology, which means specific information necessary for the development, production or use of the virus. The Decree applies if the item is a tangible good, for example, if the researchers printed their article on paper and wanted to send it via post to the publishers in the United States. In addition, the Law on Strategic Services prohibits the intangible transfer of technology without an authorization, such as transmitting technology by electronic media. This law applies to the researchers if they wanted to e-mail their article to the publishers in the United States. According to the EU Regulation, an authorization for both tangible and intangible export of technology is not required if the information in question is ‘basic scientific research', which is defined as ‘experimental or theoretical work undertaken principally to acquire new knowledge of the fundamental principles of phenomena or observable facts, not primarily directed towards a specific practical aim or objective.' This research did not qualify as such and was therefore not exempted from requiring an authorization, although the exact reason is unclear. Before attending the World Health Organization meeting in Geneva this February to discuss the implications of their study, the researchers received an authorization from the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade. According to a letter from the government to parliament on 7 March, the authorization was given because the meeting consisted of a small group of public health experts and issued “under strict conditions” that were further left unspecified. The president of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences called the need for an export authorization ‘unheard of', ‘impractical' and ‘fundamentally incorrect', but the researchers are also expected to apply for an authorization to publish. The aforementioned letter states that “when an authorization for publication of (parts of) the research will be requested, the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade will weigh the interests of health and science with the risks to security.”

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19 March 2012 VERTIC holds disarmament verification meeting in South Africa Between 7-8 March 2012, VERTIC, working alongside the African Institute for Security Studies (ISS), convened a meeting in South Africa to discuss issues surrounding the potential role of relevant intergovernmental organizations in nuclear disarmament verification. The meeting, held near Johannesburg, was well-attended by representatives from a number of non-nuclear-weapon states and an intergovernmental organization. VERTIC is grateful to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their financial support for this meeting, and the project under which it was held, as well as to all who participated. More details about this project can be found here, and in VERTIC's Brief No. 17: ‘Multilateral verification: Exploring new ideas'. A second meeting is to be held in London in August 2012. ------

16 March 2012 Verifying the CTBT Can the verification regime of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) detect illicit nuclear testing with a high degree of confidence? This question was the topic of conversation on March 2, 2012, when the EastWest Institute, in partnership with London-based VERTIC, hosted a seminar on the verification capabilities of the current Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Moderated by EWI's Jacqueline Miller and Andreas Persbo, Executive Director of VERTIC, the seminar featured presentations by experts Jenifer Mackby and Edward Ifft on technical advancements that have direct bearing on the CTBT's robust and multifaceted verification regime. The CTBT was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 10, 1996. The Treaty has yet to enter into force. 157 countries have ratified the treaty. Another 25 countries have signed but not yet ratified the

Page 60 treaty—including the United States. President Bill Clinton presented the treaty to the Senate for ratification in 1999—and the Senate handed Clinton a stinging defeat when the treaty only received 48 of the 67 votes needed. Opponents of the treaty cited concerns over the effectiveness of the CTBT's verification regime—and, they argue, those concerns remain valid today. Proponents of the treaty point to successful real-world tests of the verification regime with North Korea's nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, as well as the March 2011 tsunami in Japan, where data were provided to help the Japanese government issue early tsunami warnings. CTBT monitoring stations also tracked the release of noble gases and radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima nuclear plant. Proponents of CTBT ratification add that verification regime is ahead of schedule and functioning at a higher level than anticipated. Jenifer Mackby, an Adjunct Fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, spoke first. Mackby has extensive experience in the area of nuclear disarmament and the CTBT in particular, having served as secretary of both the negotiations of the CTBT at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva as well as the Verification Working Group of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Organization (CTBTO) Preparatory Commission in Vienna. Dr. Edward Ifft, who spoke after Mackby, is an Adjunct Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. He has been involved in negotiating and implementing many of the key arms control agreements over the past 40 years, including both the first and second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and the first (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) START. Mackby found the verification mechanisms of the treaty as more than adequate for detecting illicit nuclear tests, noting that “most experts agree the treaty will prevent countries from developing advanced nuclear weapons or improving existing ones, thus impeding a nuclear arms race, curbing nuclear proliferation, and strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty.” Mackby specifically discussed the three main components of the CTBT—the International Monitoring System, the International Data Center, and the On-Site Inspection System. She also singled out some key features in what she considers to be the most far reaching verification regime of any agreement to date. These features include its state-led implementation strategy, zero-yield test threshold ban, and its ability to detect both above- and below-surface detonations. In addition, Mackby noted that current verification capabilities are much greater than when the CTBT was originally signed in 1996, allowing for a much more flexible, nuanced, and focused method of data analysis—or what she termed “precision-detection techniques.” Ifft discussed the On-Site Inspection System (OSI) under the CTBT and its capabilities and drawbacks. The OSI is a vital part of the verification regime; in some cases it may be the only way to verify an ambiguous event. The CTBT's OSI is much more intrusive than any other regime, with inspection teams possessing a wide array of techniques at their disposal. Ifft noted that “when the treaty enters into force, OSI will be a powerful force to use for verification.” Despite these positive developments, Ifft cautioned that certain techniques can be used to try to evade detection, namely de-coupling explosions, hiding tests in chemical explosions, and extremely small yield explosions. Despite these potential pitfalls, Ifft maintained, would-be testers would not have a high-degree of certainty that they could avoid detection—something that could serve as a powerful deterrent. Both Mackby and Ifft concluded that technical advances have strengthened the detection capabilities of the CTBT's intrusive verification regime. Although it is not yet in force, the treaty has contributed to halting vertical nuclear proliferation and the CTBTO has successfully detected nuclear explosions and monitored the relatively low-level accidental release of radioactive material at Fukushima. But North Korea's 2009 nuclear rest highlighted the problem for all states when the CTBT is not in force. Since radionuclides were not detected, an OSI could have provided better insight into the scope of the North Korean test. Mackby added that a number of countries are looking to the United States to ratify the treaty before they do so—China most prominently. President Obama has insisted that that he intends to present the CTBT to the Senate once again for ratification—without specifying the timing. Given the fact that this is an election year and any such attempt would spark new partisan debates, it's unlikely to be anytime soon. Cross-posted from the website of the East-West Insitute, where you also can find interviews and further resources. ------

15 March 2012 New blog post: Chinese emissions monitoring put to the test Last year China announced that it was taking preliminary steps towards implementing a nation-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cap-and-trade scheme. As trial projects begin in seven cities and provinces, it seems the

Page 61 world's largest emitter of GHGs may soon join the EU as the second global actor to implement cap-and-trade. Following in the EU's steps has given China the benefit of hindsight, and the nation is under no illusions as to the volatility and complexity of carbon trading. Such schemes require firm control and robust monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), as the EU discovered when the value of their carbon credits plummeted to a four-year low in January. Is the current Chinese MRV infrastructure up to the task? Read the new post here. ------

15 March 2012 Chinese emissions monitoring put to the test Hugh Chalmers, London Last year China announced that it was taking preliminary steps towards implementing a nation-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cap-and-trade scheme. As trial projects begin in seven cities and provinces, it seems the world's largest emitter of GHGs may soon join the EU as the second global actor to implement cap-and-trade. Following in the EU's steps has given China the benefit of hindsight, and the nation is under no illusions as to the volatility and complexity of carbon trading. Such schemes require firm control and robust monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), as the EU discovered when the value of their carbon credits plummeted to a four-year low in January. Is the current Chinese MRV infrastructure up to the task? Following a directive from China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chonqing and Shenzhen, along with the provinces of Hubei and Guangdong, will set overall emissions control targets and develop proposals for allocating these targets. Unlike Chinese nation-wide targets, which aim to reduce GHG emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 17% by 2015, these local targets are the first to set absolute levels of GHG emissions. With such absolute restrictions in place, China can then set about allocating tradable emissions allowances; the first step towards a nation-wide emissions trading market. A very short introduction to cap-and-trade In general, emissions cap-and-trade schemes operate by translating an absolute limit of allowed GHG emissions, expressed as an equivalent quantity of carbon dioxide, into carbon credits. These credits are then assigned to various industries for use. These industries then consume their credits as they emit GHGs, and they can either save credits by limiting emissions or buy more credits from industries with credits to spare if they surpass their original allowance. For these credits to maintain both environmental and financial integrity, it is absolutely essential that industries are capable of accurately monitoring and reporting their consumption of emissions credits, and that national authorities can verify these reports. The German Institute for Applied Ecology recently laid out a set of criteria through which any cap-and-trade MRV system can be assessed. Depending on individual circumstances, such an MRV system should offer, amongst other things, environmental integrity, data availability, transparency and institutional feasibility. To elaborate on these criteria, it is worth applying them to the EU cap-and-trade scheme to see how its MRV provisions check out. The European Emissions Trading Scheme As discussed in a previous post, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) MRV system requires industries to develop a monitoring and reporting plan which has to be approved by a centralised body before being implemented. Through these plans, emissions can be monitored by the industries themselves, through either the calculation of projected emissions or by direct measurement. Although there is a tiered approach to monitoring accuracy, states are only allowed to implement less than the highest levels of accuracy when they can show that meeting such a standard would be financially unfeasible. Annual emissions reports are then submitted to accredited verification authorities who check the figures to ensure accuracy. Once these reports have been verified, industries must then surrender the corresponding number of emissions credits. In this case, environmental integrity is met by requiring high levels of monitoring accuracy, the near blanket coverage of industries which require over a minimum level of power input, and the consistent application of detailed guidelines. The EU also provides numerous and varied methodologies for calculating and directly monitoring emissions levels, ensuring the availability of data. This data is also made freely available to the public, who can see exactly how many credits an individual installation has used, banked, purchased or sold each year. It seems that when measured against the Institute for Applied Ecology's criteria, the EU ETS measures up pretty well. Indeed, the institute believes that the EU ETS can provide ‘important lessons for the setup of institutions and MRV of data'. China's MRV framework Assessing China's MRV framework against these criteria is not so simple. The pilot schemes are still in their infancy, and only one implementation proposal has so far been approved. However, a national framework for

Page 62 emissions MRV does exist, both to meet international reporting requirements and to track progress towards national targets of GHG emissions per unit GDP. This framework will probably form the backbone of any future cap-and-trade MRV framework. A report by the Climate Policy Initiative includes some interesting analysis on this framework and its suitability for use with a cap-and-trade scheme. According to the report, China's ability to monitor GHG emissions has developed substantially over the past few years. While this development was initially triggered by international requirements dictated by multilateral institutions, namely the UN climate change forums, growing domestic drivers have since become the most influential factor. Through this development, the state's Statistics Indicators, Monitoring, and Examination System (SME) has come to play a core role. This system processes data collected by the National Bureau of Statistics which in turn collect emissions information from energy producers, circulators and consumers. Up to the task? Although detailed and consistent guidelines exist as to how this information should be reported, the depth of information to be reported currently depends upon the revenue produced by each subject. Industries which turn over less than a threshold level of revenue either report far less information to the National Bureau of Statistics, or no data at all. The risk of misreporting is also introduced as the career prospects of officials involved in reporting is often linked to their success meeting allocated targets. As such, reported emissions figures are verified and cross-checked by various layers of national and provincial bureaucracy through a system of inspections and examinations. If this framework is assessed according to the criteria laid out by the Institute for Applied Ecology, certain aspects of the framework suggest that some improvements must be made before it is applied to a cap-and-trade scheme. Firstly, although local authorities are well-equipped to analyse and verify collected information, their access to information needs to be improved to ensure environmental integrity. Relaxing the reporting requirements for industries with a small contribution to GDP seems to go against the aim of reducing emissions per unit GDP, as unproductive but emissions-intensive activities may go unnoticed. As these targets are replaced by absolute emissions targets these reporting requirements should be expanded accordingly. Secondly, if China hopes to eventually link its domestic cap-and-trade schemes to other schemes such as the EU ETS or a future UN scheme, it may have to improve the transparency of its verification procedures. As it stands the current framework follows guidelines for developing states established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However this may not be sufficient for other actors when monetary value is linked to the results of the MRV process. If China hopes to develop carbon credit futures and options that can be traded on an international level, as proposed by a government advisor, customers must have confidence in the product they are buying. The recently-announced pilot schemes will serve as the ideal opportunity to refine existing MRV procedures, and the EU ETS could be a useful source of inspiration.

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09 March 2012 RSS feed now on the VERTIC homepage An RSS feed has been added to the VERTIC website, which is accessible through the RSS button on the bottom right of the home page. Our visitors with RSS readers will get automatic updates on the latest VERTIC news and blog postings. ------

09 March 2012 New blog post: Yongbyon redux North Korea and the US announced recently that they have reached an agreement whereby North Korea undertakes to stop conducting nuclear and long-range missile tests, and to halt nuclear activities at the Yongbyon facility. Importantly, the DPRK has also announced it shall allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors back to Yongbyon to confirm aspects of this suspension. The UN nuclear watchdog has stated that its inspectors are ready to monitor the key site. Given the fractious relationship the DPRK has had with Agency inspectors, how might this long-awaited return play out, and where might the limits of North Korean cooperation lie? Read the new post here. ------

Page 63 09 March 2012 Yongbyon redux Ariane Tabatabai, London North Korea and the US announced recently that they have reached an agreement whereby North Korea undertakes to stop conducting nuclear and long-range missile tests, and to halt nuclear activities at the Yongbyon facility. Importantly, the DPRK has also announced it shall allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors back to Yongbyon to confirm aspects of this suspension. The UN nuclear watchdog has stated that its inspectors are ready to monitor the key site. Given the fractious relationship the DPRK has had with Agency inspectors, how might this long-awaited return play out, and where might the limits of North Korean cooperation lie? ‘Green shoots' of a new bilateral relationship? The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has, once again, pledged to make some concessions on its nuclear programme. The news comes less than three months after the death of Kim Jong-Il and the coming to power of Kim Jong-Un. The agreement reached between the US and the DPRK involves an American pledge to fulfil the 240,000 metric-ton food aid requested by Pyongyang. In return, North Korea has agreed to a moratorium on nuclear tests, long-range missile launches and nuclear activities at the Yongbyon site. This site has been the home of the majority of North Korea's known nuclear programme, and throughout its life has housed a number of reactors and related support facilities. As part of this agreement, North Korea will allow IAEA inspectors to return to this facility for the first time since 2009 to confirm the cessation of uranium enrichment and the disablement of an old nuclear reactor. Following Pyongyang's statement, the IAEA announced it was standing ‘ready to return to Yongbyon to undertake monitoring activities upon request and with the agreement of the agency's Board of Governors.' Both the Agency and the international community as a whole are quite familiar with such signs of growing cooperation from North Korea, particularly from the recently-deceased Kim Jong-Il. Unfortunately these signs have more often than not proved to be fleeting. Pyongyang has usually taken one step forward, two steps back, falling short of fulfilling its end of the bargain. But in light of the recent change in its leadership, commentators are hopeful that North Korea may be committed to materializing some of its promises this time. No option can be ruled out in the case of the DPRK. However, a sudden shift towards permanent transparency and cooperation in the verification process seems unlikely, as it would reveal more information than the leadership might want to disclose. Indeed, the news comes in as verification experts try to address new allegations. These include claims that the Hermit State, which has an uncertain stockpile of weapons-usable nuclear material, may have conducted two underground nuclear tests in May 2010, while potentially being involved in illicit nuclear trafficking. Verification in the DPRK so far… North Korea under Kim Jong-Il had a record of engaging the international community and securing aid, before taking a step back and refusing to fulfil its end of the agreement. The IAEA has visited North Korea a number of times through their safeguards agreement, technically still active, and later through negotiated verification frameworks. On these occasions cooperation from North Korea was intermittent, and inspectors have been ejected from the country on more than one occasion. While cooperation lasted, inspector activities were either limited or produced worrying conclusions. Given that a number of previous inspections bear a striking resemblance to those recently proposed, this history is not encouraging. The DPRK-US Agreed Framework, signed in 1994, provided that the IAEA would monitor the ‘freeze on the DPRK graphite-moderated reactors and related facilities' in tandem with its regular safeguards verification activities. Under this framework the Agency was able to maintain a continuous, though limited, eight-year-long presence at Yongbyon, implementing inspections at a number of facilities and monitoring the reactor freeze. The inspections were halted in 2002 as a result of a controversy generated by the US, according to which the North had an undeclared uranium enrichment programme. Ten days after the departure of the Agency's inspectors from the Hermit State, Pyongyang announced an unprecedented step: its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In 2003 the first round of the Six-Party Talks began, involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia. These talks led to the issuance of a Joint Statement in 2005 by all parties, in which North Korea undertook to halt its nuclear weapons programme and to return to the NPT and Agency safeguards in exchange for economic aid and security assurances. However only one year later North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test. Despite this setback, negotiations within the Six-Party Talks continued and in 2007 the parties agreed on initial actions to implement the 2005 Joint Statement. In a similar manner to the recent announcements, the DPRK agreed to ‘shut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment the Yongbyon nuclear facility, including the reprocessing facility, and invite back Agency personnel to conduct all necessary monitoring and

Page 64 verification as agreed between the IAEA and the DPRK'. While the Agency was able to confirm the shutdown of all facilities related to these initial actions, their activities were strictly limited to these actions alone. The accounting for, or verification of, nuclear materials under their safeguards agreement was kept firmly off the table. After this initial step forward, the DPRK decided to take two steps back. After being condemned by the UN Security Council for missile testing, the DPRK asked the inspectors to leave, yet again, and announced that it was reactivating its nuclear programme. This was followed, only a month later, by a second North Korean nuclear test. Since then the Agency has not been allowed back into Yongbyon. Recent developments and impact on verification As the Agency prepares for another return to Yongbyon, it will be keenly aware of a number of questions regarding the North Korean nuclear programme that are, and will likely remain, unanswered. As an unnamed source close to the six-party talks has been quoted by Asahi Shumbun; ‘Yongbyon is nothing but a show window'. According to the source, ‘North Korea could not care less even if it suspends activity (in Yongbyon) and readmits inspectors.' While North Korea has been in self-imposed exile from the international nonproliferation regime, the Agency has kept a close eye on nuclear activities in North Korea, both inside and outside Yongbyon. In both cases there have been worrying developments. While activities at the new uranium enrichment facility revealed to Stanford scientist Dr. Siegfried Hecker have been included in the Agency's monitoring remit, it is not clear whether the new nuclear reactor under construction at the site will be. It has been estimated that this new reactor, situated in the shadow of one of its deactivated predecessors, will require several tonnes of enriched uranium fuel to operate. Although North Korea has agreed to suspend all nuclear activities at Yongbyon, if the Agency is not allowed to include this new construction in its activities it will be hard to verify the fulfilment of this agreement. In the same vein, if the Agency were able to confirm the cessation of enrichment at Yongbyon but not the halted construction of this new reactor, it would be hard to suppress suspicions that there may be an undisclosed source of fuel outside Yongbyon. Suggestions have also emerged that North Korea may have conducted two further nuclear tests in 2010. Swedish defence researcher Lars-Erik De Geer has produced research soon to be published in Science & Global Security which hints that radioactive isotopes detected in Russia and South Korea indicate some type of nuclear explosion in North Korea. Although considerable uncertainty still exists regarding these conclusions, their publication in the lead-up to the Agency's return will only highlight the limited scope for verification progress. Once more unto the breach Very little has been decided regarding the eventual verification process that will be undertaken at Yongbyon, and the suggestions that exist in the recent announcements are not consistent. While the US has announced that the moratorium will concern both the uranium enrichment facility and previously-disabled reactor, Pyongyang has only officially mentioned the former. However, a U.S. senior administration official has confirmed that both aspects were indeed covered during the negotiations, and that both should be subject to IAEA verification. Even in the best case scenario, IAEA confirmation of the complete cessation of nuclear activities at Yongbyon will not allay the fears surrounding the North Korean nuclear programme. As Dr. Hecker told the US Congress in 2004; 'a “deterrent” [needs] to have at least three components: 1) The ability to make plutonium metal, 2) the ability to design and build a nuclear device, and 3) the ability to integrate the nuclear device into a delivery system. What we saw at Yongbyon was that they apparently have the capability to do the first.' Although the IAEA may be able to monitor the removal of the first component, they will be unable to address the remaining two. Unless North Korea takes an unexpectedly transparent approach, it is also unlikely the Agency will be able to gain solid knowledge of existing stocks of weapons-usable plutonium. Previous estimates of these stocks have fallen between 50 and 60kg. As the Agency awaits the initiation of dialogue from North Korea on the particulars of their verification visit, much remains to be clarified as to their remit. Which ‘associated facilities', for instance, will be covered? Will the new reactor under construction be included along with the spent fuel reprocessing facility known to exist at Yongbyon? It is likely that for the Agency, the truly challenging work will begin now as they negotiate a verification framework with North Korea that will allow them to achieve the goals set by both the US and their eventual hosts. Given the previous record with North Korea, and the modest expectations of the US negotiating team responsible for securing the recent agreement, it is prudent to expect that North Korean transparency will be kept to the bare minimum consistent with their announcement. The United States' expectations that the DPRK take steps towards irreversible denuclearization, as expressed in their background briefing is certainly not attainable overnight, regardless of change in the country's leadership. This process may indeed be more challenging than previously experienced, given the brief delay after Kim Jong-Il's death and his

Page 65 son's access to power, a period where the regime's stability can be tested. Given the previous history with similar verification visits, the international community may not be ready to trust any step towards denuclearisation, no matter how small, without a solid verification process in operation. Clearly, concrete steps towards an irreversible denuclearisation process under IAEA monitoring must be undertaken to establish this long-lost trust in the DPRK. Should the North decide to comply with its engagements this time around, such a process may reach inception. This would be a major step forward, enlightening us on one of the most enigmatic nuclear weapons programmes currently in existence. It is quite possible however that history will repeat itself, and that the DPRK will take one cooperative step forward, only to take two steps back. Nevertheless, getting feet on the ground, even for a short while, will still be beneficial. Given the conspicuous lack of hard, contemporary information available to the IAEA, even a brief period of access should still be seen as a good thing. ------

01 March 2012 New blog post: An illuminating look into black carbon Short-lived pollutants such as black carbon do not typically enjoy the same attention given to greenhouse gases in multilateral climate change negotiations, despite making a significant contribution to global warming. But recent news suggests that when nations focus on these pollutants, they can agree to powerful mitigation measures in a relatively short time. With financial support from a small number of nations, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) will soon implement a programme aimed at tackling these pollutants at their source; the inefficient burning of fuels. According to UNEP, if implemented widely enough this programme alone could halve the global temperature rise projected for 2050. Despite this potential, all financial support for this ‘second front in the fight against global warming' has come from outside the dominant multilateral climate change negotiating forum. Is there a way to monitor the global levels of black carbon, and if there is how might it widen and improve the support for this new front? Read the new post here. ------

01 March 2012 An illuminating look into black carbon Hugh Chalmers, London Short-lived pollutants such as black carbon do not typically enjoy the same attention given to greenhouse gases in multilateral climate change negotiations, despite making a significant contribution to global warming. But recent news suggests that when nations focus on these pollutants, they can agree to powerful mitigation measures in a relatively short time. With financial support from a small number of nations, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) will soon implement a programme aimed at tackling these pollutants at their source; the inefficient burning of fuels. According to UNEP, if implemented widely enough this programme alone could halve the global temperature rise projected for 2050. Despite this potential, all financial support for this ‘second front in the fight against global warming' has come from outside the dominant multilateral climate change negotiating forum. Is there a way to monitor the global levels of black carbon, and if there is how might it widen and improve the support for this new front? A burning question Black carbon (BC) is a product of the incomplete burning of fossil fuels, wood, and other biomass. Given enough air these fuels can combust completely, converting all the stored carbon into carbon dioxide (CO2). In practice there is never enough air present and combustion converts the stored carbon into a mix of other products such as carbon monoxide, organic carbons and black carbon. This mix of carbon products is what we know as soot. As its name suggests, BC gives the soot its dark colour. This light-absorbing property is also what makes it so damaging to the environment. As BC absorbs sunlight it heats up, warming itself and its immediate environment. On entering our atmosphere, BC warming can influence cloud formation and disrupt rain patterns. After a short period of time BC mixes with other particles and becomes soluble in water, allowing it to fall as rain where it can become embedded in snow and ice. Here BC warming dramatically accelerates the rate at which ice melts, further influencing the global climate. It is now estimated that over 100 years, one gramme of BC has between 100 to 2,000 times the warming potential of one gramme of C02. While the damage that BC can do to the environment is abundantly clear, it is not so obvious exactly how much black carbon exists in the global environment at any one time. Building such a global inventory for BC is not very easy. But doing so could galvanise more nations into taking action against BC and allow these efforts to be targeted at the areas of greatest need. From the bottom,

Page 66 up…. Most contemporary efforts to develop such an inventory focus on the rate at which BC is emitted, rather than directly measuring existing quantities. This is not a simple process. Different forms of imperfect combustion create different quantities of carbon products, so estimates must be made as to the fraction of fuel that is converted to BC. One must also have accurate information as to the rate at which each type of combustion occurs throughout the globe. Access to such information is limited, particularly from developing states, who are thought to account for over three-quarters of BC emissions. Even among the developed states within the Arctic Council, accurate information is sometimes hard to come by, and considerable uncertainty remains in their emissions estimates. One attempt at a global inventory of BC based on 1996 fuel-use data demonstrates just how severe these uncertainties can be. Although they estimate that approximately eight tonnes of BC are emitted per year, they acknowledge that the actual figure could lie anywhere between 4.3 and 22 tonnes per year. Such ‘bottom-up' approaches of monitoring can produce a highly-detailed picture of how and where BC is emitted. However, they are extremely reliant on sparse fuel consumption information and do not tell us much about where the BC goes and how long it stays there. To get a better picture of the global stocks of BC, the researchers of the above inventory agree that more direct ‘top-down' methods must be included. …or from the top, down? At a local level, there are a number of monitoring networks which sample the air and analyse collected particles to determine levels of atmospheric BC. In the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere sampling networks such as the UK Black Carbon Network provide good estimates as to local levels of black carbon. The majority of these samplers operate by collecting particulate matter from the air in filters. The level of light absorbed by these particles is then measured and an estimate is made as to how much absorption can be attributed to BC. If these local measurements of atmospheric BC are compared to local data on emissions, it is possible to draw limited conclusions as to the distribution and transport of BC in the atmosphere. However, these networks are not sufficiently dispersed to give a good idea as to the global distribution of BC. Emissions from North America and Europe are frequently transported up to the Arctic, where the effects of deposited BC are severe and the monitoring networks few in number. According to the Arctic Council's Arctic Mapping and Assessments Programme (AMAP), there have been only a few long-term observations of BC in the Arctic which focused only on the Western Arctic. Employing similar sampling techniques to those described above, these observations unfortunately give neither a full picture of BC levels in the Arctic nor an idea of long-term trends. Monitoring the level of BC deposited in snow and ice faces similar challenges. According to AMAP, even fewer attempts have been made to monitor deposited BC. In all cases, these observations came to their conclusions by using similar filter-based detection techniques on melted samples of collected snow. Lacking a suitably broad range of samples, AMAP has argued that ‘it is a challenge to generalize findings from these campaigns.' The highest ground When one considers the inherent challenges of collecting numerous samples from the hazardous and changeable environment of the Arctic, this lack of a suitable sample base becomes understandable. One way around this problem is to find a way to measure the level of deposited BC remotely. Scientists around the globe have already turned to satellite technology to monitor global levels of CO2, could this ultimate form of ‘top-down' monitoring be used to create a global inventory of BC? The Japanese GOSAT satellite has been orbiting Earth from pole to pole since 2009 and has been able to build up a detailed and long-term picture of global CO2 distributions. Within a year of its launch the satellite was producing detailed CO2 maps, identifying individual hotspots in previously unsuspected locations. Similar satellites aimed at detecting atmospheric BC are either fully operational or in the development stage. Both the European Space Agency's ENVISAT satellite and the North American Space Agency's (NASA) TERRA satellite are capable of identifying the weak infrared signature produced by warming atmospheric BC. Had its launch not failed, NASA's Glory satellite would also be monitoring atmospheric BC by observing the size, quantity and shapes of atmospheric aerosols. Importantly, there are also suggestions that these satellites can be used to identify warming BC embedded in snow and ice. Scientists from the Norwegian Space Centre's PRODEX project have been testing the usefulness of satellite information against physical samples of BC in the Arctic. Although their conclusions are tentative, they show a level of promise for the satellite-based detection of BC. The scientists tested satellite-based BC monitoring by identifying two sites in the Arctic island of Svalbard which would normally have similar local climates and BC levels. However, one of the sites was carefully chosen as being close to the coal mining settlement of

Page 67 Barentsburg, where coal dusts and vehicle exhausts raise the BC level in the surrounding area. As these sites were imaged by the TERRA and ENVISAT satellites, a clear difference in the infrared signals from both sites emerged over the course of a year. Although their study does not take into account numerous other anthropogenic influences on the satellite signal, the differences were found to be consistent with the change in sampled BC levels at both sites. Monitoring-induced vertigo? Unfortunately neither satellite-based monitoring techniques are sufficiently advanced to give an accurate picture of global BC distributions. The PRODEX programme may well be on to something, but their work is only established at a conceptual level. And while satellite-based monitoring of atmospheric BC has come a long way, it alone cannot derive the amount of BC detected. A global inventory of BC must be developed from a combination of all the techniques described above. But as all these techniques have their strengths and their weaknesses, which are the best suited? It is important to remember that the development of a global inventory of BC is a means to an end, namely the effective mitigation of BC warming. Perhaps then the answer can be found from within the UNEP programme itself. According to their assessment of the impact of black carbon, the implementation of their supported mitigation measures ‘would be most effective if it were country- and region-specific'. If there is indeed a causal link between the methods used to monitor an issue and the manner in which the issue is addressed, then the global monitoring of BC levels would best serve its purpose if it were carried out in a similarly tailored manner. In regions such as the Arctic where the physical collection of samples is challenging and the available fuel combustion information is incomplete, satellite-based BC monitoring may soon prove extremely useful.

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27 February 2012 Britain and disarmament Today, VERTIC hosted the launch of the latest book by Dr John R. Walker, entitled Britain and Disarmament: The UK and Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons Arms Control and Programmes 1956-1975. As Dr Walker himself notes, the book is the result of around 25 years of research into the ‘dusty recesses' of Foreign Office and other government departmental files, including substantial periods of time spent in the National Archives at Kew. This book addresses issues concerning the military, economic and political pressures that influenced government policy between 1956 and 1975, as well as the extent to which Britain played a role in the international arms control arena, and the impact of international agreements on Britain's weapons programmes. And Dr Walker, in addition to working in the Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, is a first-rate historian. ‘The past continues to exert an influence on current policy preoccupations ‘, he writes, ‘and the historical background often helps inform contemporary debates.'

As the book's publisher - Ashgate - notes, in exploring these issues as Dr Walker does, this book provides the first attempt to assess British nuclear, biological and chemical arms control policy and practice during the Cold War. VERTIC was honoured to host Dr Walker, and delighted to welcome so many people - students, policy-makers and shapers and think-tankers alike - to today's event. A meticulous, broad-ranging study of nearly 20 years of British arms control history, the book is highly recommended for anyone seeking to better understand how policies governing some the worst kinds of weapons have developed in the United Kingdom - and where Britain has come from as it contributes to the arms control debates of the present. Download Dr. Walker's presentation here. ------

24 February 2012 New blog post: Europe’s emissions trading scheme expands to new heights As of 1 January 2012 aircraft operators with flights originating or terminating at airports within the European Community must participate in the European Greenhouse Gas Emission Allowance Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The EU ETS has been in place for energy intensive industrial installations since 2005, and is now the first market-based trading scheme to include emissions from aviation activities. As the expansion covers all incoming

Page 68 and outgoing flights, non-EU states have begun questioning its international legitimacy. Do the monitoring, reporting and verification procedures for the expanded emissions trading scheme shed any light on their concerns? Read the new post here. ------

24 February 2012 Europe’s emissions trading scheme expands to new heights Grete Luxbacher, London As of 1 January 2012 aircraft operators with flights originating or terminating at airports within the European Community must participate in the European Greenhouse Gas Emission Allowance Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The EU ETS has been in place for energy intensive industrial installations since 2005, and is now the first market-based trading scheme to include emissions from aviation activities. As the expansion covers all incoming and outgoing flights, non-EU states have begun questioning its international legitimacy. Do the monitoring, reporting and verification procedures for the expanded emissions trading scheme shed any light on their concerns?

EU Emissions Trading Scheme The EU ETS is an EU-wide carbon market, covering 11,000 industrial installations based within the 27 EU member states and three European Economic Area (EEA) member states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway). These installations account for approximately 50% of the EU's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The scheme aims to reduce these emissions in a cost-effective manner by 8% from 1990 levels during the 2008 to 2012 period, in line with EU obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. After the expiration of the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period this year, the EU ETS aims to cut GHG emissions by a further 21% from 2005 levels by 2020. Under the scheme, each country sets an emissions limit and allocates allowances to individual installations that have obtained the necessary GHG emissions permit. Under the scheme's compliance cycle, an installation's emissions must be monitored, reported and verified. Once this process is complete, each installation must surrender the corresponding number of emission allowances to the competent authority of the member state. Climate Change & Aviation in the EU For the 2008 to 2012 period, the EU seems to be on track to meet their GHG emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol, coming in at 17.9% below base year levels. Furthermore, the EU also seems to be on track for meeting its goal of reducing domestic emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. As the EU is on track to meet all of these targets, why did it decide to add aviation activities to the EU ETS? Currently, emissions from aviation activities account for approximately 3% of the EU's GHG emissions. However, this figure is set to rise. While other emissions have decreased, aviation emissions have experienced a rapid increase, having doubled from 1990 levels. Emissions from aviation activities are not only on the rise in Europe, they are rising globally. It is estimated that by 2020 emissions from aviation will be 70% higher than 2005 levels. In 2010 the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) received a mandate to work towards a global solution to decrease aviation emissions. Despite this, the EU proceeded with its own plan while not ruling out the option of future collaboration for a global solution with ICAO or other international bodies. The EU formally announced the addition of aviation emissions to the EU ETS in January 2009. The first trading period to include aviation emissions began at the start of this year and will end in 2013. This trading period is set to reduce EU aviation emissions by 3% compared to the average level between 2005 and 2006, equivalent to a 97% cap on what is known as ‘historical emissions'. The next trading period (2013 to 2020) is set reduce aviation emissions by a further 2%, capping emissions at 95% of this historical level. From the outside looking in Numerous non-EU countries have spoken out against the expansion of the EU scheme, arguing instead in favour of a solution through the ICAO. A major concern for these countries is the fact that if a flight originates at an EU airport and terminates in Beijing, the emissions from the entire flight are counted, not just those emitted in EU airspace. This has led to calls from countries such as the US, Russia, and China over infringement of sovereignty as they claim the EU is imposing its laws in other countries. When the EU ETS monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) process is examined in detail, there are a number of elements which indeed seem to reflect these concerns. The EU ETS MRV process for both stationary installations and aviation activities is known as ‘the compliance cycle' and is outlined in Directives 2003/87/EC and 2008/101/EC. While the MRV processes are similar, there are several additional verification provisions for aircraft operators. The compliance

Page 69 cycle begins with the annual monitoring of an installation's or aircraft's GHG emissions. These emissions are monitored via a plan approved by their member state's competent authority. Aircraft operators not based in the EU are assigned a member state, known as an administering member state, to which they will report. Each installation and aircraft operator must then compile and submit an annual report detailing their activities and emissions by 31 March of the following year. This report must be verified through an independent EU-accredited verifier prior to submission. The verification process includes the strategic analysis of activities, an on-site analysis for stationary installations, a risk analysis, the actual verification, and both an internal verification report and a verification report outlining the methodology and opinion of the verifier. There are several additional verification provisions for aviation activities falling under the scope of the EU ETS. These provisions include the confirmation by the verifier that all aviation activities falling under the scope of the EU ETS have been accounted for and the uniformity of fuel consumption and purchase data. To clarify any confusion that may occur, the EU ETS Compliance Forum published detailed non-binding guidance for aviation verifiers. Once verification is complete, installations and aircraft operators have until 30 April to surrender allowances covering their emissions, thereby completing the compliance cycle. One allowance is the equivalent of one tonne of CO2 emitted by an installation. If an installation emits more than their allowances cover, they have the option of buying surplus allowances from other installations on the carbon market. Those installations that do not hand over the correct number of allowances will be charged EUR 100 per tonne of CO2 not covered. Aircraft operators who fail to pay for excess emissions could also face an EU-wide ban. Throughout the verification process, the verifier considers the national laws and legal framework of the administering member state, not those of the state that the aircraft operator is based. Aviation companies on the outside of the EU looking in therefore have to accept that they will be assigned to an EU state, and that they will have their compliance judged against this state's laws. For some countries in which these airlines are based, this could seem like a step too far away from their right to sovereignty. Trade War? Indeed, the addition of aviation emissions from flights originating or terminating at any airport within the EU has been highly controversial. While numerous countries have spoken out against the inclusion, China has gone further and banned its airlines from paying any charges without government consent. Furthermore, several airlines from the United States brought the matter to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). However, the ECJ ruled in favour of the EU ETS asserting that it did not infringe on sovereignty as it was in line with international law. The major complaints from both the air industry and governments include the previously mentioned sovereignty infringement and the possibility of higher costs for both airlines and customers. Thomson Reuters Point Carbon has estimated that by 2020 the addition of aviation to the EU ETS could cost airlines EUR 9 billion. The EU asserts that consumer costs will be minimal, even if the extra costs are reflected in the ticket prices. It predicts that by 2020 there could be a possible increase of EUR 1.8 and EUR 9 for domestic EU flights, while international flights would obviously have higher prices dependent upon the length of the trip and carbon prices. In recent weeks the media has been speculating as to the possibility of a trade war between EU and non-EU countries. Events came to a head this week, when 23 non-EU countries including China, Russia and the US met in Moscow to discuss possible courses of action. These countries issued a declaration, which laid out possible actions including the prohibition of airlines from participating in the scheme, a review of the open sky agreements, and possible fees for EU airlines when flying in non-EU airspace. Russia even put forward the possibility of reducing the availability of permits that allow EU airlines to use the airspace over Siberia. All of these countries also endorsed finding a global solution through ICAO. Despite the controversy, the EU has stood by its assertion that the addition of aviation emissions to the EU ETS is not only legal, but is currently the most cost-efficient and environmentally beneficial solution. It also emphasizes the fact that if a global initiative were created it would suspend this portion of the scheme.

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21 February 2012 VERTIC's Board of Trustees selects new Chair and President of the VERTIC Charity VERTIC's Board of Trustees is pleased to announce that Dr Edwina Moreton will assume the chairmanship of the Board, effective today. Andreas Persbo, Executive Director, said: ‘It's been a great pleasure working alongside Sir Hugh Beach and Owen Greene over the last few years, and I am very grateful for the advice and

Page 70 direction that they've offered over this time. I am very much looking forward to working with Edwina in the coming years. She will bring new perspectives to the charity, and surely help us to explore exciting new research areas'. The Board has also selected General Hugh Beach as President of the VERTIC Charity. Andreas Persbo said ‘Sir Hugh has been a towering presence in the British arms control and disarmament community for decades. His sharp intellect is only surpassed by his humanism and kindness. We have been honoured to have him serve on our board for almost two decades, and giving him the newly established title President of the Charity is the very least we can do to show our appreciation and respect.' These positions were confirmed today at VERTIC's Annual General Meeting. The biographies for Dr Moreton and General Beach can be found here. ------

16 February 2012 New blog post: Promising plastics and neutron detection For those attempting to detect sensitive fissile materials, the nature of their quarry creates significant obstacles to their hunt. Issues relating to safety, security, secrecy and size all work against nuclear inspectors, and are all unavoidably the result of the items of concern. The radiation produced by some materials, and the potentially devastating uses of others, requires such a high level of material isolation that direct interaction by nuclear inspectors is highly unlikely. This makes finding these materials somewhat like looking for a needle in a haystack, without the ability to search through the haystack. And the consequences of missing the needle can be huge. This problem was not over-stated by the former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei when he said: ‘Either we begin finding creative, outside-the-box solutions or the international nuclear safeguards regime will become obsolete.' Thankfully, recent advances in radiation detection technology show that this call has not gone unanswered. Read the new post here. ------

16 February 2012 Promising plastics and neutron detection Hugh Chalmers, London For those attempting to detect sensitive fissile materials, the nature of their quarry creates significant obstacles to their hunt. Issues relating to safety, security, secrecy and size all work against nuclear inspectors, and are all unavoidably the result of the items of concern. The radiation produced by some materials, and the potentially devastating uses of others, requires such a high level of material isolation that direct interaction by nuclear inspectors is highly unlikely. This makes finding these materials somewhat like looking for a needle in a haystack, without the ability to search through the haystack. And the consequences of missing the needle can be huge. This problem was not over-stated by the former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei when he said: ‘Either we begin finding creative, outside-the-box solutions or the international nuclear safeguards regime will become obsolete.' Thankfully, recent advances in radiation detection technology show that this call has not gone unanswered.

Scientists in the US have recently developed a material that can help sift through the large quantity of radioactive materials presented during nuclear safeguards inspections and border screenings, identifying any that might be of concern. The team, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), have designed a new plastic which emits a characteristic glow when exposed to atomic particles known as neutrons. These miniscule, electrically-neutral particles are radiated from materials by the same fission process which, when forced into a chain reaction, creates a nuclear explosion. Unlike other forms of radiation, such as gamma rays, significant quantities of neutrons are a convincing indication of the presence of fissile, rather than simply radioactive, materials. According to their published results, the scientists have been able to design the plastic so that these characteristic particles create a recognisably different glow to that of other, less specific, forms of radiation. While there are a number of other detectors capable of similar discrimination, all have their drawbacks. What then could this new plastic do for the international nuclear safeguards regime? Safeguarding the atom The international safeguards regime in its role verifying the peaceful uses of nuclear energy focuses most of its concern on two materials; uranium and plutonium. As the two principle materials involved in creating nuclear explosions, these materials also enjoy the attention of nuclear arms control inspectors and border control authorities. These nuclear investigators are assisted in their search by the very characteristics that make these

Page 71 materials so dangerous; both contain a relatively large number of neutrons. For example, while a hydrogen atom contains no neutrons, and only one proton and one electron, the most common isotope of uranium contains 146 neutrons, and 92 protons and electrons. These neutrons act as a type of glue, keeping all the positively-charged protons together in the atom's nucleus when they would normally violently repel each other. However, this glue is not particularly stable. Over time, or if more neutrons are added, this ‘heavy' atom can split into two lighter, more stable atoms. This process of fission releases a large amount of energy in the form of both gamma rays and spare neutrons. Usefully, detecting these two products and measuring their rate of emission can indicate the presence of fissile material and, given a knowledge of the material, a guess at its quantity. Nuclear investigators therefore rely heavily on detecting these emissions when inferring the presence of fissile materials. Neutron detectors in particular are used extensively throughout the international nuclear safeguards regime, the verification protocol of the New START agreement and at large ports and border crossings. These detectors can vary enormously in size, shape and operating technique depending on the task at hand. For example the IAEA manual on safeguards techniques and equipment lists over 30 different neutron detectors for measuring both fresh and irradiated nuclear fuel in its various forms. From principle to practice This variety however indicates just how difficult it can be to make reliable and safe inferences regarding the presence of fissile materials with neutron detectors. Although neutrons can penetrate through relatively thick shielding, their range is not infinite. Establishing just how these detectors should be used, at what distance, and for how long requires a huge amount of forethought. Placing the detector too close to materials could present a safety hazard to the operators, or even a security hazard to the owners. Placing it too far away could prevent the operators from detecting the material at all. This is why the IAEA has developed such a range of detectors, including remote detectors which can operate under water and close to fuel stocks without risking dangerous exposure. This is also why the New START verification protocol annex dedicates over 20 pages, or nearly one-third of the entire document, to establishing in minute detail exactly how these detectors should be used. Compounding these procedural issues are two important technical problems. Firstly, the neutron ‘glue' holding atoms of uranium together is far stronger than that which holds atoms of plutonium together. Uranium atoms do not spontaneously split often enough to produce a detectable number of neutrons. This process has to be carefully induced by adding a destabilising number of neutrons to the atom. For New START inspections this is particularly problematic. Inducing fission in warhead materials, while not as disastrous as you might think, still presents an unacceptable level of risk for hosts. As such this practice is currently not allowed in the New START agreement. Secondly, although there are very few processes beside fission that produce energetic neutrons, gamma rays are far more common. These are frequently emitted by materials that, while being radioactive, may not be fissile. An interfering background of gamma rays is often built up in nuclear facilities by day-to-day operation and the presence of other radioactive materials. In large enough quantities, even cat litter contains enough radioactive thorium to emit an interfering number of gamma rays. This is why although the IAEA list over 30 types of neutron detectors, the majority utilise just one technique for detecting neutrons; the neutron-induced creation of charged particles in pressurised helium-3 gas. Looking into gas detectors In general, gas detectors operate by transferring the energy of incoming neutrons to atoms of gas contained within an electric field. This field acts on the gas atoms in a manner which strains the bonds which hold the charged electrons and protons together. If an incoming neutron is able to transfer enough energy to this atom, these bonds can break. If this happens, the electrical balance between protons and electrons becomes disturbed enough for the particle it to have an overall electric charge. In this case, the electric field then pulls the charged particle towards the edge of the container. As it does so, it impacts upon any other particles which lie in its path, creating yet more unbalanced particles which are similarly pulled to the edge of the container. This chain reaction creates a detectable electrical signal in the container indicating the initial neutron interaction. Unfortunately, gamma rays are also capable of disturbing the electrical balance in the gas particles. As most nuclear materials emit ten or more times as many gamma rays as neutrons, this can be a real problem. In the case of measuring highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel, the interaction of gamma rays on the gas can be so frequent that no indication of neutron interaction is discernable in the flood of gamma-induced electrical signals. There are two ways around this. The first is to place shielding around the detector which block the passage of gamma rays while permitting neutrons to pass through. In the presence of gamma rays and neutrons of comparable energy, only 5cm of lead is needed to absorb 90% of the incoming gamma rays and only 0.1% of the neutrons. The second is to carefully choose the gas in the chamber. This is why detector designers turn to the helium-3 isotope. While

Page 72 there is an approximately 70% chance a neutron will interact with a helium-3 atom, there is only a 0.01% chance a gamma ray will interact. So why are scientists developing novel ways of reliably detecting neutrons? Although helium-3 is extremely effective, it has to be stored in the detectors under high pressure and in the presence of extremely strong electrical fields. While the isotope is thought to be abundant on the surface of the moon, it is rarely found naturally on earth. The main source of helium-3 actually comes from the dismantlement of old nuclear weapons. Tritium, which is used to help trigger nuclear explosions, decays over time into helium-3 which is then extracted at dismantlement. However, the rate of warhead dismantlement is not fast enough to keep up with the demand, which has grown in line with the increased demand for border security after the 9/11 attacks. Consequently the price of helium-3 has soared by approximately 2000% over the last few years. There is clearly a gap in the market for cheap, effective and discriminating neutron detectors. A winning combination With funding from the US National Nuclear Security Administration, the scientists from LLNL have taken a significant step towards filling this gap. Working with a different neutron detection technique, known as scintillators, the team have developed a plastic which is cheap, easy to produce and, like helium-3, capable of distinguishing between neutrons and gamma rays. Unlike gas detectors, scintillators indicate the presence of radiation by absorbing radiation energy and emitting it as light. This light can then be translated into an electrical signal which can be easily interpreted. Importantly, some scintillating materials react differently to gamma rays and neutrons, producing bursts of light that last for different durations. If this difference is pronounced enough, it is possible to discriminate between the components of light caused by gamma rays and neutrons. A number of scintillating materials currently exist which can do this, but these are either expensive, rare, toxic, or flammable. While cheap and stable plastic scintillators are widely used at border controls, these cannot discriminate between gamma rays and neutrons and are mainly used to detect gamma rays only. After experimenting with various scintillating dyes embedded in molecular structures, the LLNL scientists have hit upon a winning combination. By embedding a compound called polyvinyltoluene (more commonly referred to as PVT) with a scintillating dye named 2,5-diphenyloxazole (again, more commonly referred to as PPO), they were able to achieve an efficient and usable level of neutron-gamma ray discrimination. Promising plastics At this early stage of development, it is hard to determine exactly what impact this advance will have on the use of neutron detectors in the international nuclear safeguards regime. However, it is clear that this new material shows a great deal of promise. As a plastic it is cheap and easy to fabricate into any number of shapes and sizes, making it applicable for fissile material detection at all scales, from small portable IAEA safeguards inspections to large fixed cargo monitors. The latter example is particularly relevant as international efforts to prevent the illicit transfer of nuclear materials grow in strength. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 requires all states to ‘develop and maintain appropriate effective border controls and law enforcement efforts to detect, deter, prevent and combat the illicit trafficking of [nuclear materials]'. Given the global decline in helium-3 stocks, new plastic neutron detectors may become the only realistic way of achieving this. Advances such as this could well be one of the ‘creative, outside-the-box solutions' needed to keep the international nuclear safeguards regime from becoming obsolete.

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16 February 2012 Civil law version of VERTIC’s Sample Act now available The National Implementation Measures team has created a new version of the ‘Sample Act for National Implementation of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and Related Requirements of UN Security Council Resolution 1540' for countries with a civil law system. The civil law version of the Sample Act is available in French and Spanish. Please click here for the documents. ------

07 February 2012 New blog post: The New START treaty: going well, as far as it goes A little over a year has now gone by since the US-Russian 'New START' agreement on strategic offensive nuclear arms came into effect. The pact, a harder-fought battle within the US Senate than many at one time anticipated, was approved there in December 2010 and by the Russian parliament in January 2011. On 5 February 2011, the

Page 73 two countries exchanged the relevant instruments of ratification and the active life of the treaty began. Read the full post here. ------

07 February 2012 The New START treaty: going well, as far as it goes David Cliff, London A little over a year has now gone by since the US-Russian ‘New START' agreement on strategic offensive nuclear arms came into effect. The pact, a harder-fought battle within the US Senate than many at one time anticipated, was approved there in December 2010 and by the Russian parliament in January 2011. On 5 February 2011, the two countries exchanged the relevant instruments of ratification and the active life of the treaty began. Treaty limits and verification New START, a successor to the 1991 START I agreement, requires each party to ensure that no later than seven years after entry into force they hold no more than 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads apiece. The treaty also sets each party a limit of 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers. A further limit, of 800, on deployed and non-deployed heavy bombers, ICBM launchers and SLBM launchers also applies. In terms of verification, New START is broadly similar to START I, but certain ‘counting rules' differ markedly in that it is the actual number of warheads attached to each deployed ICBM or SLBM that are counted under the new treaty. Under START I, missiles were treated as if they held a pre-agreed number of warheads, regardless of how many they were actually fitted with. They were, in the lexicon of the treaty, ‘attributed' with a certain number. Depending on their type, bomber aircraft were also given various attribute numbers of warheads under START I, whereas under New START each heavy bomber is counted as holding one warhead, even if several more are carried. (For a fuller discussion of the evolution of US-Russian nuclear arms control agreements, see VERTIC's September 2011 report on ‘ Irreversibility in Nuclear Disarmament', pages 51-61.) Overall, the verification regime of the treaty includes provisions for on-site inspections and exhibitions, data exchanges (including telemetry data) and notifications, and for the use of ‘national technical means' (i.e. satellites). Indeed, it is the kind of insight into the Russian strategic arsenal provided by the verification provisions of the treaty (an insight lost in the period between the expiration of START I in December 2009 and the entry into force of New START) that many in the US have argued to be more important than the numerical limits set by the treaty itself. Boots-on-the-ground access to sites housing warheads and delivery vehicles is an especially important part of that insight. New START includes provisions for two kinds of on-site inspection. Each party can conduct up to ten ‘Type One' inspections per year of sites housing deployed and non-deployed delivery systems. On each such visit, the treaty requires that inspectors are told and shown where each missile is, and also that they are told how many warheads are deployed on each. The inspection team is then permitted to select one missile and be shown how many warheads it is holding. The risk, therefore, if a host party was attempting to cheat, is that inspectors would select a missile holding more warheads than previously declared. (Each party can also conduct eight inspections per year of sites where only non-deployed delivery systems are located - known as ‘Type Two' inspections.) Data exchanges and stockpile numbers So how does the situation stand at the moment? Under the New START agreement, an initial database was required to be created within 45 days of the treaty's entry into force. This database was to specify the unique identification code of each deployed and non-deployed ICBM, SLBM and heavy bomber and their locations. The database was further required to list the total number of deployed warheads each party has, by type of missile. New START requires this database to be fully updated every six months, although most changes require notifications to be made to the other party within days. As the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee noted on pages 26-27 of its October 2010 report on the treaty (Executive Report 111-06): ‘At any given time, therefore, the United States will have a reasonable understanding of where each Russian ICBM, SLBM, and heavy bomber is based and whether that missile or bomber is deployed or in maintenance. Over time, moreover, the United States will get a sense of each missile and heavy bomber's deployment and maintenance routine.' And vice versa, it stands to reason, for the Russian side. Data released on 1 December 2011 revealed that as of 1 September 2011 the United States held 1,790 deployed strategic warheads and that the Russian arsenal consisted of 1,566. (Earlier data released on 1 June 2011 revealed that in February 2011 Russia held 1,537 deployed warheads, meaning that Russia in fact increased its number of deployed warheads between February and September of last year.) With regard to delivery systems, as of 1

Page 74 September 2011 the US reportedly held 822 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers while Russia had 516. Against the limit of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and heavy bombers set by the treaty, the US total stood at 1,043 while Russia's was then at 871. Implementation update On 22 December 2011, Rose Gottemoeller - the chief US negotiator for the New START treaty - wrote an article featured in The Hill , a Washington-based newspaper, in which she noted that the implementation of New START was ‘going very well.' (Although it must be noted that, while not an implementation issue, the previous month had seen Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threaten to withdraw from the pact due to ongoing concerns over US missile defence plans.) In her article, Ms Gottemoeller announced that of the 18 inspections allowed annually by the treaty, the US had at that point conducted 16 and hosted 17. ‘We are constantly in communication with the Russians,' Ms Gottemoeller added, noting that over 1,700 notifications - which were helping ‘to track movement and changes in the status of weapon systems', she wrote - had by then already been exchanged since the treaty came into force. The US experience so far, Ms Gottemoeller said, was demonstrating ‘that the New START treaty is enhancing [US] national security by building predictability and stability between the United States and Russia'. In an implementation update released by the US State Department on the one-year anniversary of New START's entry into force, it was revealed that both sides have now conducted their full annual quota of 18 inspections, and that over 1,800 notifications had been exchanged over the past year. The State Department also noted that three exhibitions have been carried out since 5 February 2011: one by the Russians and two by the US. The Russians exhibited their RS-24 mobile ICBM and launcher; the US, for its part, exhibited its B-2A heavy bomber and demonstrated that its B-1B heavy bombers are no longer capable of carrying nuclear armaments. B-1B aircraft will thus no longer count toward the limits of the treaty. What next? The key question, though, is what next? Ms Gottemoeller's piece in December touched only briefly on next steps, with her noting that the US was ‘setting the stage for the future' with New START, and that further reductions in US and Russian nuclear arsenals would build on the agreement. President Obama is no fan of nuclear weapons, and has come out openly in favour of their (eventual) abolition. Notably, in a planning document issued by the US Department of Defense in January 2012, it was declared that: ‘It is possible that [US] deterrence goals can be achieved with a smaller nuclear force, which would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in our inventory as well as their role in US national security strategy.' (Page 5, emphasis in original.) How best to translate that ambition into concrete action is by no means clear though. In a New York Times editorial from December 2010, published shortly after the US Senate voted in favour of ratifying New START, the need for action on shorter-range ‘tactical' nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons kept in storage was stressed. Neither were addressed by New START (nor have they been by any other treaty), and both the US and Russia have cumulative totals of tactical and stored weapons numbering in the thousands. But despite it being reported in the wake of New START's ratification that the Obama administration sought to return to the negotiating table in 2011 to discuss tactical weapons, progress on that front has so far failed to materialise. As Kingston Reif has noted, there are several major challenges to negotiating a new agreement - both in Russia and the US. Russia has concerns over US missile defence plans and over the balance of conventional forces in Europe, while Republicans in the US who were sceptical of New START are likely to be just as sceptical of another treaty, Mr Reif observes. Then too, he writes, are the ‘new challenges' involved in ‘verifying and ensuring confidence in the location and destruction' of non-deployed warheads and tactical weapons. In any case, there is also the matter of the Russian and US presidential elections, both of which are to take place this year. The seemingly smooth implementation to date of New START is good news, but any substantive further action on Mr Obama's ambitious nuclear arms control agenda - if indeed he succeeds in winning a second term - will likely have to wait a while longer yet. ------

03 February 2012 Djibouti legislation added to BWC Legislation Database ------

03 February 2012 New report on the state of nuclear non-proliferation and safeguards Although its demise is often foretold, the nuclear non- proliferation regime remains an essential part of the overall

Page 75 international security architecture. It is important that it remains so given the projected rise in the number of countries investing in nuclear power programmes. With this possible increase of states with nuclear power, and the associated extra facilities that would need to be safeguarded, the need for a robust and efficient International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system is becoming an increasing imperative. Written by Andreas Persbo, this paper first looks at the main prohibitions of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, then examines the history and operation of the IAEA safeguards system. It concludes with some suggestions for improvements. It makes the case for increasing the IAEA safeguards budget, highlights the importance of legislative and technical assistance, and stresses the need for the continued optimization of the safeguards system. Read the full report here (link will take you to SIPRI website). ------

03 February 2012 New blog post: Nuclear verification issues and priorities in Iran Late January 2012 saw a high-level International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation - led by the Agency's head of safeguards, Herman Nackaerts - travel to Iran with the goal of resolving ‘all outstanding substantive issues' relating to the country's controversial nuclear activities. The visit came amidst an upswing in tension between Iran and Western countries over an EU ban on Iranian oil imports, and just a few months after the IAEA issued a 12-page summary of ‘Possible Military Dimensions to Iran's Nuclear Programme'. In his November 2011 report on Iran to the IAEA Board of Governors (to which the 12-page summary was annexed), the IAEA's Director general, Yukiya Amano, noted the Agency's ‘serious concerns' that Iran's nuclear programme was not of an entirely peaceful nature. Having ‘carefully and critically' assessed the ‘extensive information available to it' - and having found that information ‘to be, overall, credible' - Mr Amano's report stated that Iran appears to have carried out ‘activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.' Prior to the end of 2003, the report said, these activities seemed to have taken place under a ‘structured programme'. According to indications in the information available to the Agency, some activities relevant to weapons development continued after 2003, and it was judged that some activities may still be ongoing. Read the new post here. ------

03 February 2012 Nuclear verification issues and priorities in Iran David Cliff, London Late January 2012 saw a high-level International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation - led by the Agency's head of safeguards, Herman Nackaerts - travel to Iran with the goal of resolving ‘all outstanding substantive issues' relating to the country's controversial nuclear activities. The visit came amidst an upswing in tension between Iran and Western countries over an EU ban on Iranian oil imports, and just a few months after the IAEA issued a 12-page summary of ‘Possible Military Dimensions to Iran's Nuclear Programme'. In his November 2011 report on Iran to the IAEA Board of Governors (to which the 12-page summary was annexed), the IAEA's Director general, Yukiya Amano, noted the Agency's ‘serious concerns' that Iran's nuclear programme was not of an entirely peaceful nature. Having ‘carefully and critically' assessed the ‘extensive information available to it' - and having found that information ‘to be, overall, credible' - Mr Amano's report stated that Iran appears to have carried out ‘activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.' Prior to the end of 2003, the report said, these activities seemed to have taken place under a ‘structured programme'. According to indications in the information available to the Agency, some activities relevant to weapons development continued after 2003, and it was judged that some activities may still be ongoing. The weaponisation annex IAEA concerns over the scope and purpose of Iran's nuclear programme are now almost a decade old. For much of the last ten years, the Agency has expended extensive effort in trying to verify that all nuclear materials and activities in Iran have been properly reported and that their applications are purely peaceful. But in that time, suspicions that Iran has been seeking to develop nuclear weapons - or, if not actual weapons then the technical and material capability to manufacture them at short notice - have never been put to rest. Rather, as a result of information obtained by the Agency through its own activities or received from others, and coupled to numerous instances of less than full cooperation from Iran (or outright attempts at concealment), those suspicions have

Page 76 grown. Credibility of information Paragraphs detailing Agency concerns over possible military dimensions to the Iranian nuclear programme have become a regular fixture of IAEA reports on Iran over recent years. The November 2011 annex, however, provides a truly remarkable level of information - much of which has not been seen publicly before. A full section of the annex is dedicated to explaining the sources and credibility of this information. Amongst that which has been received by the Agency, it notes, was ‘a large volume of documentation (including correspondence, reports, view graphs from presentations, videos and engineering drawings), amounting to over a thousand pages.' According to the IAEA, this package of documents - known as the ‘alleged studies documentation' and received by the IAEA from a member state in 2005 - is technically complex and shows research, development and testing activities over time, as well as ‘working level correspondence consistent with the day to day implementation of a formal programme.' In addition to the alleged studies documentation, and information acquired through its own efforts, the annex notes that the Agency has received information from more than ten member states. This information has included procurement data, information on the international travel of Iranian individuals of interest, financial records, health and safety documents, ‘and other documents demonstrating manufacturing techniques for certain high explosive components.' This information, the IAEA notes, ‘tends to corroborate the information reflected in the alleged studies documentation, and relates to activities substantially beyond those identified in that documentation' as well. Indicators of weaponisation? As set out by the Agency in November 2011, among the concerns to have arisen to date are indications of the following: that Iran has come into possession of information on nuclear weapon design, as well as documentation on the process for converting uranium compounds into 'hemispherical enriched uranium metallic components'; that it has pursued a project to 'secure a source of uranium suitable for use in an undisclosed enrichment programme'; and that Iranian individuals and entities have in the past sought (successfully or otherwise) to procure 'equipment, materials and services' with relevance to both civilian applications and nuclear weapons development. The inherently dual-use nature of many possible indicators of weaponisation (i.e. their applicability to other uses besides nuclear weapon development) is a recurrent feature of much of the IAEA's information, and a cause of great uncertainty regarding Iran's intentions. Iranian work on detonators is a prime example. The annex states that contained within the alleged studies documentation were a number of documents ‘relating to the development...of fast functioning detonators, known as “exploding bridgewire detonators” or “EBWs”' by Iran between 2002 and 2003. Whilst these types of detonators have a few non-nuclear applications (and Iran reportedly said in 2008 that its work on EBWs was for civil and conventional military uses), they are also highly relevant for the design of nuclear explosive devices. It is noted, furthermore, that the Agency has in the past been provided with information to indicate that Iran ‘has had access to information on the design concept of a multipoint initiation system'. Such a system, the IAEA explains, ‘can be used to initiate effectively and simultaneously a high explosive charge over its surface' - a key design feature of an implosion-based nuclear explosive device. Indeed, according to the IAEA, Iran has not only had access to the design concept, but has also worked on the development of an initiation system of this kind, with the assistance of a ‘foreign expert' (named elsewhere as Vycheslav Danilenko, a Russian scientist) who was present in Iran between 1996 and 2002. Information provided to the Agency, the annex notes, reveals that Iran also carried out 'at least one large scale experiment in 2003 to initiate a high explosive charge in the form of a hemispherical shell.' After 2003, 'experimental research' potentially relevant to the improvement of a nuclear initiation system reportedly continued. Together with the development of EBW-type detonators, alleged Iranian work on an initiation system represents an understandable worry for the IAEA. The annex also includes references to possible Iranian forays into so-called hydrodynamic experiments - which involve high explosives in conjunction with nuclear material or surrogate materials, and which, the Agency noted, are ‘strong indicators of possible weapon development' - and alleged modelling studies. These studies, which apparently took place in 2008 and 2009 and reportedly involved the modelling of a spherical highly-enriched uranium core subjected to shock compression (as would be the case in the detonation of a nuclear device), were noted to be of ‘particular concern' to the Agency. Their application to anything other than a nuclear explosive device was ‘unclear', and an explanation by Iran was ‘essential', the IAEA said. It is further alleged that Iran has worked on components containing nuclear material to assess their suitability for generating neutrons (which are used to initiate fission chain reactions in modern nuclear explosives), and that it ‘may have planned and undertaken preparatory experimentation' for a nuclear test explosion. Suspected Iranian work from 2002 to 2003 on ‘how to

Page 77 integrate a new spherical payload into the existing payload chamber' of Iran's Shahab-3 missiles is also documented in the annex, as is alleged associated work on developing a ‘prototype firing system' that would allow the payload to detonate either above a target or on impact with the ground. Nuclear material verification in Iran Regardless of how knowledgable or advanced Iran has become in the realm of nuclear weaponisation (and, as Mark Hibbs has pointed out, the Agency draws no such conclusions), its ability to build any kind of nuclear explosive device will always ultimately depend on whether it has a sufficient quantity of highly-enriched uranium or plutonium. Indeed, it is often said that acquiring enough fissile material is the most difficult part of nuclear bomb-making. Nuclear weapon designs have after all been around since the 1940s, and in the age of the internet the broad outlines of how a nuclear weapon works are more or less freely available. Iran does not conduct reprocessing to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel (as far as the Agency is able to tell), but the Iranian leadership has been expanding the country's uranium enrichment capability over the past ten years despite repeated IAEA and UN Security Council resolutions calling for it to stop. Today, Iran is known to have two principal enrichment sites: Natanz, where two plants are located, and Fordow. Both sites are regularly inspected by the IAEA. The Agency's November 2011 report notes that at Natanz, Iran's Fuel Enrichment Plant has produced some 4,922kg of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6; a mixture of uranium and fluorine) since operations at that facility began in February 2007. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security has noted that this much low-enriched uranium is enough to make four nuclear weapons if it is further enriched to what is generally regarded as ‘weapons-grade' level - that is, to an isotopic uranium-235 concentration of around 90 per cent or above. (Further processing, to produce uranium metal from the enriched UF6, would also be neccesary before the material would be suitable for use in a weapon.) At the smaller Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, where Iran has been enriching uranium up to 20 per cent since February 2010, the IAEA reports that 73.7kg of UF6 enriched to 20 per cent uranium-235 has been produced between then and September 2011. Based on VERTIC calculations, that much material, if further enriched to over 90 per cent, is enough to produce around 10kg of weapons-grade uranium (once the UF6 has been converted to uranium metal). It is worth noting that this much material would amount to less than half of an IAEA ‘significant quantity' - the Agency term for the approximate amount of nuclear material at which it says the possible development of one nuclear device cannot be ruled out. For its part, the enrichment plant at Fordow - the existence of which Iran kept secret until realising the plant had been uncovered by Western intelligence agencies in 2009 - became operational in December 2011. The circumstances of the construction of the Fordow facility remains a matter that the IAEA is seeking clarification from Iran on. Overall, the Agency's report of November 2011 noted - as previous reports have done on many occasions - that the IAEA is able to verify the non-diversion (from peaceful uses) of declared nuclear material in Iran. But as it has similarly admitted on many previous occasions, it is unable to provide ‘credible assurance' of the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore unable to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful uses. In other words, the Agency is able to verify the correctness of Iran's declaration under its IAEA safeguards agreement - but not whether that declaration is complete. Additional Protocols and facility design information What would greatly facilitate the Agency's ability to verify the completeness of Iran's nuclear declarations would be for Iran to implement the IAEA's Additional Protocol. Developed in the early to mid-1990s (after the extent of Saddam Hussein's nuclear deception was uncovered in the wake of the Gulf War) and rolled out in 1997, the Additional Protocol requires states to provide the IAEA with more information about their nuclear programmes and permit greater freedom of access around nuclear sites for inspectors. However, while non-nuclear-weapon state parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) must conclude a safeguards agreement with the Agency, the signing and ratifying of an Additional Protocol is voluntary. Understandably, the IAEA is keen for all states with safeguards agreements to also have an Additional Protocol in place. Many do (some 114 to be precise), but among the hold-outs are the states of greatest concern - Iran included. Iran signed up to the Additional Protocol in December 2003, implemented the measures contained therein for a number of years (pending ratification of the protocol by the Iranian parliament), but ceased implementation in February 2006 in protest at the IAEA Board of Governors' decision to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. Iran's Additional Protocol has never been ratified, and provisional implementation of it has not resumed. Aside from Additional Protocol implementation, the IAEA's nuclear verification efforts in Iran would also be helped if Iran was to comply with the ‘modified Code 3.1' clause to its safeguards agreement's ‘subsidiary arrangements'. In the past, Code 3.1 said that states had

Page 78 to report design information for new facilities no later than 180 days before a facility was scheduled to receive nuclear material for the first time. However, as James Acton has explained: ‘It became clear that this requirement did not provide the IAEA with sufficient time to plan and prepare for safeguards. So, in the early 1990s the IAEA modified Code 3.1. The new version requires states to report on a new facility as soon as the decision to construct is taken.' Iran agreed to abide by this rule in February 2003, but in March 2007 it decided to revert to providing design information according to the original form of the clause. The IAEA director general's November 2011 report on Iran notes that the country is ‘the only state with significant nuclear activities in which the Agency is implementing a comprehensive safeguards agreement but which is not implementing the provisions of the modified Code 3.1.' The legality of Iran's decision to back-track from the modified Code 3.1 clause remains under dispute. Back in 2007, the IAEA noted that Iran's safeguards agreement precludes it from making unilateral modifications to its subsidiary arrangements. Iran's position has been that the Iranian parliament never ratified its 2003 decision to abide by the modification to Code 3.1 (thus Iran claims it was never bound to it). But, as Dr Acton has argued, this position is somewhat undermined by the fact that Iran did not ask for parliamentary ratification of its original subsidiary arrangements back in the 1970s. The IAEA's visit - and its role in verifying weaponisation And so, with all these disputes and uncertainties hanging in the air (as well as a few other concerns, including ongoing Iranian work to build a research reactor at Arak, which both the Agency and the UN have requested Iran to halt), senior IAEA officials visited Iran from 29-31 January 2012. Returning from Iran, Mr Nackaerts said that it had been a good trip, but that there was still ‘a lot of work to be done' and that, accordingly, another visit was planned ‘in the very near future.' With concerns over Iran's nuclear programme running so high, the Agency is keenly aware of its own critical role. Earlier in January, Mr Amano had announced that his ‘key priority' for 2012 was ‘to try to make progress towards restoring international confidence in the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme.' That, he said, was ‘the most important of the major safeguards issues' on the IAEA's agenda. It will not be easy to restore such confidence without a substantially increased level of Iranian cooperation with the Agency. And it is likely to lead the IAEA further down the road of investigating indicators of weaponisation - which leaves some with an uncomfortable feeling of the organisation straying from its authority to apply safeguards to nuclear material (since many weaponisation activities do not necessarily involve nuclear material). But that seems wrong-headed. As John Carlson puts it, ‘weaponisation is not only a breach of NPT commitments, but indicates diversion or intended diversion of nuclear material, so is clearly encompassed by the IAEA's responsibility [as set out in the standard text of safeguards agreements, paragraph 28] to provide timely warning of diversion.' (Emphasis added.) Writing along with Russell Leslie and Annette Berriman, Mr Carlson argues that: ‘For an activity of a kind that could involve nuclear material, the IAEA should be able to investigate, as otherwise it will not be able to confirm (or otherwise) the state's assertion that no nuclear material is involved. If inspectors find no nuclear material, however, they may still consider that the activity has not been satisfactorily resolved. If the activity by its nature would not involve nuclear material, it still may be of a kind that should be investigated.' (Emphasis in original.) They note that, in fact, a general recognition that the Agency's verification authority needs to extend beyond nuclear material can be found in the Additional Protocol - which covers a host of activities, such as the manufacture of centrifuge components, where nuclear material would not normally be present. ‘The rationale for this is clear - information on these activities strengthens the IAEA's ability to verify and draw conclusions on nuclear material in a state concerned,' they note. ‘A similar rationale applies to weaponisation activities.' Material priorities Away from the somewhat contentious ground of weaponisation, nuclear material verification efforts in Iran require - as matters of priority - for Iran to be persuaded to restart implementation of its Additional Protocol and fall back into line with the modified Code 3.1 rule. How best to achieve these aims, what balance of inducements and punishments would be appropriate, goes beyond the scope of this article. But if Iran is serious when it says that it has no interest in developing nuclear weapons, then it needs somehow to be persuaded that full transparency of its nuclear programme is in its own best interest. Even then that might not be enough for Western powers, who may well argue that an Iranian enrichment capability - even under safeguards - presents an unacceptable proliferation risk. Iran, though, shows no signs of stopping its enrichment drive. It has stated plans to build ten new enrichment facilities, and has said that the sites for five of these have already been decided. It has not, however, responded to Agency requests for more information about these sites. Nor has it yet provided the IAEA with information in connection with a February 2010 announcement that it is in possession of laser enrichment

Page 79 technology. The military option, of course, remains on the table, as Steve Coll has discussed recently. But for most commentators (Mr Coll included), the cost/benefit weighing-up of military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites tends to result in considerably heavier costs than benefits. That being the case - and with Iran seemingly intent to hold firmly onto its enrichment capability - the need for the extra verification provisions enabled by the Additional Protocol, and the early design information required by the modified Code 3.1 clause, are crucial. Although the Iranian case is admittedly complicated by the IAEA and UN Security Council resolutions calling for Iran's enrichment work to stop, the NPT - which Iran remains a member of - places no restrictions on the kinds of nuclear technology that states can develop. Thus, neither enrichment nor reprocessing is proscribed by the NPT (whether they ought to be is another debate entirely), but the wording of the treaty states that countries' development of nuclear energy must be for peaceful uses and in conformity with the non-proliferation undertakings to which NPT non-nuclear-weapon states have agreed. It is not, therefore, an unconditional right. If concerns over Iran's enrichment activities are ever to subside, the IAEA needs to be afforded the cooperation and access that it requires to be able to verify that Iran's nuclear programme and associated activities do not present a threat to regional stability or wider international security - or both.

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26 January 2012 New blog post: The Biological Weapons Convention and the recipe for avian superflu Scientists in the Netherlands and the United States may have changed avian flu into a superflu virus. With a human mortality rate of 60%, avian flu was already a highly dangerous disease. But the new version is also highly contagious, potentially spreading from human to human as easily as the seasonal flu. Although the scientists were eager to publish their results, security experts doubted whether the findings should be disclosed, stating that publication of the study could serve as a recipe for biological weapons. What does the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) say on the silencing or sharing of scientific developments? Read the new post here. ------

26 January 2012 The Biological Weapons Convention and the recipe for avian superflu Yasemin Balci, London Scientists in the Netherlands and the United States may have changed avian flu into a superflu virus. With a human mortality rate of 60%, avian flu was already a highly dangerous disease. But the new version is also highly contagious, potentially spreading from human to human as easily as the seasonal flu. Although the scientists were eager to publish their results, security experts doubted whether the findings should be disclosed, stating that publication of the study could serve as a recipe for biological weapons. What does the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) say on the silencing or sharing of scientific developments? Fretting over the findings The scientists in question, Ron Fouchier from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, United States, came to the same results independently. Mr. Fouchier infected ferrets, which are known to react to influenza in the same way as humans, with a genetically mutated form of avian flu. When these ferrets became ill, he used samples of the reproduced virus to infect healthy ferrets. This process was repeated ten times until the virus itself was able to transmit between ferrets in adjacent cages through the air. In theory, this virus could therefore spread from human to human through the air without losing its virulence. ‘It is probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make', says Mr. Fouchier. The dual-use nature of this research has stirred a heated debate. Scientists argue that this research will save lives. Since avian superflu can evolve in nature over time, it would teach them which mutations to look out for and help them to develop vaccines. As scientists, they need to publish and review their results in order to reach these goals. However, biosecurity experts point out that for those with the wrong intent, the publication of this research is a recipe for killing people, not saving them. While only a good virologist could make the precursor virus used by Mr. Fouchier, it would take just five adaptations in two genes to do so. Faced with this dilemma, the editors-in-chief of the journals Science and Nature, to which Mr. Fouchier and Mr. Kawaoka had submitted their articles respectively, requested the opinion of the National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity (NSABB). Last month the NSABB, a US federal committee which advises on publication of dual-use

Page 80 research, argued that the findings should be published, but in a redacted fashion omitting both the details and methodology. The editors and scientists begrudgingly agreed to follow this advice, but on the condition that interested scientists would have access to the full research via other channels. Due to the intense public and media attention their research has received since then, however, the scientists have voluntarily suspended their work for 60 days in order to allow time for an informed public debate. Silence partly, share responsibly The decision to withhold certain aspects of scientific development from publication while sharing it with a selected group is strongly supported by the BWC. The decision is a compromise between preventing the development of biological weapons and sharing research on new scientific developments. In Articles I and X and under the Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs), the Convention's transparency mechanism, the BWC aims to strike the same balance by prohibiting biological weapons entirely while supporting the sharing of biological research. Article I of the BWC requires states parties to ‘never in any circumstances […] develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain' biological weapons. Biological weapons are here defined as microbial or other biological agents and toxins, whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes. This definition is known as the general purpose criterion - biological agents and toxins are weapons unless there is a peaceful justification for their type or quantity. These two studies on avian superflu meet these criteria as their objective is to better understand the virus and pave the way for developing vaccines. While this research is justified under the Convention, replicating or using its results for harmful purposes is not. Its publication is therefore legitimate, but it should take its possible negative consequences into account. Blocking publication of this research would not only have meant curbing academic freedom to publish, but also restricting this information to research institutes in the Netherlands and the United States. States cannot force the academic and private sectors to share information. However under Article X of the BWC, states undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the use of biological agents and toxins for peaceful purposes. Similarly, Form C of the CBMs encourages publication of biological research. However, it accepts there may be restrictions and therefore asks states parties to report on their policy regarding publication. While not able to publish their results in full the scientists may be able to share them, as is promoted under the BWC, with Asian countries where avian flu has occurred or is likely to occur. It is through sharing that the researchers in the Netherlands and the United States received the avian flu samples in the first place. The recipient countries will have to demonstrate that this new virus will be used responsibly, including through strong national legislation, which requires the necessary safety and security measures for laboratories to prevent accidents or intentional releases. The World Health Organization has now called for an international meeting to discuss how and under which conditions this research should be shared. At the moment, the research has not been disclosed, and has even stopped. However, the decision to publish it in redacted form has only put greater emphasis on finding other avenues to share the results. This may still not prevent people with the wrong intent from learning more about avian superflu, but it will no longer be gleaned by reading a recipe in an academic journal.

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26 January 2012 Multilateral verification: Exploring new ideas Today, VERTIC released a briefing paper on the subject of ‘Multilateral verification: Exploring new ideas'. This paper, by David Cliff and David Keir, outlines new thinking in the realm of multilateral disarmament verification and considers the arguments for incorporating multilateralism into future verified disarmament processes.

Since 2011, VERTIC has been engaged in a project that seeks to investigate next steps in verifying nuclear disarmament, with an emphasis on the potential role of intergovernmental organisations. As the paper notes, ‘pursuing a multilateral approach to the challenges of nuclear disarmament verification will require bold and innovative thinking.' Building on its experience as an independent observer to the UK-Norway Initiative, which looked at non-nuclear-weapon state involvement in disarmament verification, VERTIC ‘plans to break new ground and generate long-term engagement—by states and intergovernmental organisations

Page 81 alike—on this issue.' By doing so, VERTIC hopes to realise ‘at least some of the potential benefits of widening the range of actors involved.'

Indeed, this paper argues that there is great promise for multilateralism in future verified nuclear disarmament and, furthermore, that the benefits of multilateral engagement could encourage an increase in the pace of nuclear disarmament itself.

The paper is available for download here. ------

20 January 2012 New blog post: Building confidence in the BWC Following the conclusion of the Seventh Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), it is clear there has been no significant progress towards formally verifying compliance to the convention. Considering the impact of what little progress that was made at the conference, and what steps can be taken to improve confidence in the convention, is therefore all the more important. Read the new post here. ------

20 January 2012 Building confidence in the BWC Nibras Hadi, London Following the conclusion of the Seventh Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), it is clear there has been no significant progress towards formally verifying compliance to the convention. Considering the impact of what little progress that was made at the conference, and what steps can be taken to improve confidence in the convention, is therefore all the more important. Since the BWC came into force in 1975, state parties have held a Review Conference every five years to assess the convention's operation and to develop measures to strengthen it. The Review Conferences are intended to “review the operation of the Convention, with a view to assuring that the purposes of the preamble and the provisions of the Convention […] are being realized.” Nevertheless, there has so far been no success in reaching a consensus on a comprehensive verification and compliance system. While the BWC's sister treaties, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention have formal verification procedures and compliance mechanisms, the BWC does not. As such it has no accompanying inspectorate, no monitoring agency and no standing compliance body. Therefore, it is up to the state parties themselves to build confidence in others that they are adhering to the convention. While enforcing strong domestic national implementation measures is a crucial aspect of this, without formal verification it is necessary to effectively communicate such measures to build confidence in the convention as a whole. Various mechanisms have been adopted under the convention to help achieve this. The evolution of BWC Confidence-Building Measures The first and most fundamental measure was adopted at the second BWC Review Conference in 1986. Member states agreed to implement a set of Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) which require state parties to annually exchange information on a wide range of domestic issues. These CBMs were expanded upon later at the next review conference to cover seven aspects of domestic activity relevant to the convention: 1. The exchange of data and information on research centres, laboratories and national biological defence research and development programmes (CBM A) 2. The exchange of information on outbreaks of infectious diseases and similar occurrences caused by toxins (CBM B) 3. The encouragement of publication of results and promotion of use of knowledge (CBM C) 4. The active promotion of contacts (CBM D) 5. The declaration of legislation, regulations and other measures (CBM E) 6. The declaration of past activities in offensive and/or defensive biological research and development programmes (CBM F) 7. The declaration of vaccine production facilities (CBM G) Unfortunately most states parties have failed to submit these confidence-building measures on a regular basis. However, the minority of states who do engage in this

Page 82 confidence-building process contribute to increased transparency, which can be to the benefit of many other states. Following the agreement of these measures in 1991 a second measure was taken to improve confidence in the convention; the creation of the Ad Hoc Group of Governmental Experts (VEREX). The work of this group, centred on researching BWC verification measures and culminating in a report, which in turn helped to prompt the creation of another, more wide-ranging working group. In 1994 state parties created the Ad Hoc Group (AHG) to negotiate a legally-binding protocol to strengthen the effectiveness and improve the implementation of the Convention. Unfortunately this group was not able to complete its work. After six years of multilateral negotiations, the BWC verification protocol negotiations collapsed in July 2001 after the United States, with tacit support from certain other states, rejected the text prepared by the Ad Hoc Group. Since then, progress towards a formal verification regime has effectively come to a stand-still. Expectations and outcomes of the Seventh Review Conference Hopes for progress towards formal verification at the Seventh Review Conference were therefore rather muted. Attention had shifted towards improving what measures already exist for building confidence in the convention. In the April 2010 edition of Trust & Verify, Nicholas Sims argued that CBMs should receive “comprehensive attention” and “at a minimum”, the conference should update the forms CBM reporting forms and make it easier for CBM returns to be “shared and used.” Following the Seventh Review Conference, it has become apparent that very little was in fact achieved regarding CBMs. The most notable changes were the slight amendments that saw CBM D (active promotion of contacts) deleted, and the update of CBM forms aimed at making the process more user-friendly. The Implementation Support Unit (ISU), established in 2006 to facilitate (amongst other things) the exchange of CBMs, has also had its mandate extended to 2016. With this extension, the conference recommended that the ISU should continue to examine and develop options for electronic means of submitting CBMs. This recommendation by itself is nothing new, and the ISU has been pursuing this since the last review conference, held in 2006. But to focus on the Conference's review of the CBMs neglects the other existing compliance mechanisms that are available to the BWC. While recourse to the UN Security Council in cases of suspected non-compliance, under Article VI, has not been made to date, the mechanism should not be overlooked. The UN Secretary-General's mechanism for investigating alleged biological weapons use (which the UNSC would likely invoke in such instances) is a tried, tested and recently updated procedure. Similarly, the consultation and clarification procedure elaborated under Article V, particularly in its multilateral mode, holds promise for further refinement and expansion to consider, in a cooperative manner, questions about compliance. Also, the reiterated push for user-friendliness underscores the importance of increasing participation in an important mechanism that is only implemented by a minority of state parties. Providing assistance to states for the full implementation of the convention, including submission of CBMs, is therefore essential. Indeed, the Seventh Review Conference has recognised this. The ISU will now establish and administer a database system to facilitate requests for and offers of exchange of assistance and cooperation among states parties. State parties are invited to submit to the ISU any requirements, needs or offers for assistance, including in terms of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information regarding the use of biological and toxin agents for peaceful purposes. Developing a network of support As many proponents of formal BWC verification point out, CBMs are not a replacement for a formal verification mechanism. And without the latter, the veracity of the information contained in the former cannot be completely assessed. If states are to develop deeper confidence in the adherence of other states to the convention, it is all the more important to ensure that the available confidence-building measures are implemented universally, effectively and regularly. Other confidence-building measures mooted at the BWC Review Conference, such as the United States' suggestion of voluntary visits, should also be explored. Providers of support in this respect are not limited to states alone; the non-governmental sector also has a lot to offer those seeking assistance in national implementation. In particular, the VERTIC National Implementation programme carries out surveys of relevant national legislation which a number of states have found highly valuable when completing their declarations of national legislation and regulation (CBM E). One state has even submitted one of these surveys to the ISU to complete this aspect of the CBMs. The work of VERTIC in this area continues to this day, with the provision of support to Burundi, the most recent member of the BWC, and with the delivery of legislation surveys and membership packages to seven additional non-state-parties in 2012. When striving to fulfil the important goal of full and universal implementation of the BWC, no avenues should be left unexplored, and VERTIC looks forward to assisting state parties in this endeavour.

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13 January 2012 Chad, Eritrea, Mauritania and Namibia legislation added to BWC Legislation Database ------

12 January 2012 New blog post: Is a step towards laser enrichment a step back for nuclear non-proliferation? Collecting sufficient quantities of fissile material is often considered the most challenging step towards acquiring nuclear weapons. As such, controlling the techniques used for accumulating highly-enriched uranium is a crucial aspect of nuclear non-proliferation. Laser enrichment, a third-generation technology offering a cheap and efficient route to enriched uranium, has recently moved one step closer to becoming a commercially-viable reality. Provided this technological development reaches a successful conclusion, it is worth considering the potential proliferation risks involved. What could both national and international authorities put in place, in terms of verification and safeguarding, to mitigate the risks posed? Read the new post here. ------

12 January 2012 Is a step towards laser enrichment a step back for nuclear non-proliferation? Gabriele Loche, London Collecting sufficient quantities of fissile material is often considered the most challenging step towards acquiring nuclear weapons. As such, controlling the techniques used for accumulating highly-enriched uranium is a crucial aspect of nuclear non-proliferation. Laser enrichment, a third-generation technology offering a cheap and efficient route to enriched uranium, has recently moved one step closer to becoming a commercially-viable reality. Provided this technological development reaches a successful conclusion, it is worth considering the potential proliferation risks involved. What could both national and international authorities put in place, in terms of verification and safeguarding, to mitigate the risks posed? General Electric (GE) has recently announced that it has successfully completed small-scale tests of a laser-enrichment technique named SILEX (Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation). This faster and cheaper technique is based on a principle of photo-dissociation, whereby a specially-tuned laser is used to break molecular bonds and separate particular isotopes of uranium. As they move towards the first commercial SILEX plant, concerns regarding the potential elicit military exploitation of such a technique are all the more pertinent. A brief history of SILEX The origins of SILEX can be traced back to 1992, when Australia's Silex Systems began testing the technology. By 2006 GE had signed a deal with Silex Systems to enhance cooperation in the development of SILEX. After forming an alliance with Hitachi in 2007, the two companies under the title GE-Hitachi (GE-H) began testing SILEX in 2008. Their venture, known as Global Laser Enrichment (GLE), managed to realise a small-scale test loop, which was soon developed to become a larger test cascade. These experiments, conducted at a GE-H research facility near Wilmington, North Carolina, managed to reach a successful conclusion last year, successfully meeting both performance and reliability criteria. With this success under their belt, the company is now working towards commercialising the entire process. If all goes according to plan, GE-H may begin work on an industrial-scale SILEX facility next year. The proposed facility would most likely begin full-scale enrichment by 2014, with a capacity somewhere between 3.5 and 6 million separative work units (SWU, a measure of separation capacity proportional to the energy consumed). At full capacity, this facility could provide fuel for up to 42 reactors per year, for 40 years. In comparison, the total separation capacity of the entire URENCO group in 2010 stood at 12 million SWU. The future of SILEX There is an important hurdle to cross before this plant can become a reality. Under the US Atomic Energy Act, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must provide GE-H with a license before they can begin construction. In order to grant the license, the NRC has to issue an Environmental Impact Statement and a Safety Evaluation Report. The NRC is also required to conduct hearings in which members of the public can raise any environmental or security-related concerns they might have. The outcomes of these two stages are then included in a final statement assessing a plant's impact on public health and safety, and on the environment. During

Page 84 construction, the NRC is also required to inspect the facility in order to verify the adherence to the license itself. This whole process usually takes up to 18 months, eventually leading to the final license. During 2009 GE-H completed the application submission to the NRC in order to achieve the license for its $1 billion and 600,000 square-foot commercial plant. The NRC was expected to make its final judgement by December 2011. However, despite conducting public hearings in which no petitions were made, they have yet to release their Environmental Impact Statement. Originally planned for last February, it is now expected for February 2012, while the final green-light license could arrive in September 2012. In explaining this delay, the NRC has cited only rather unspecific “safety” reasons. Could other concerns aside from public health, safety and the environment come to influence the passage of the GE-H license? Separating the pros and cons of SILEX While the new technology presents many benefits for peaceful civilian nuclear programmes, these can swiftly become drawbacks when placed in the wrong hands. Advocates are keen to highlight the lower costs and higher efficiency associated with laser enrichment. Compared to gas centrifuge systems, SILEX could potentially be significantly cheaper, simpler to implement and far more productive. Once the technology has been mastered, SILEX could well allow for much smaller, more efficient, enrichment facilities. It is exactly this prospect which worries a number of analysts and scientists. When exploited for covert military purposes, SILEX could be extremely hard to detect and safeguard. Iran has already undertaken small-scale laser enrichments tests, starting in the Seventies, and have kept the outcomes hidden. China, India, Iraq, Russia, Japan and Pakistan are all believed to have undertaken similar efforts. It is quite possible that some of these states may be inspired by GE-H's successful tests to strengthen their research, and more may begin to explore the technology. The possibility that some states may eventually pursue research and development beyond IAEA safeguards cannot be ignored, and such concerns will eventually have to be addressed. The American Physical Society (APS) has presented a report highlighting the risk of encouraging research on laser enrichment when it could complicate efforts to detect covert facilities. Following this, in June 2010 the APS asked the NRC to bolster its license considerations by requiring a proliferation risk assessment, alongside the current safety and environmental inquiries, before providing a license. Although GE-H has carried out an independent nuclear proliferation assessment, it has not communicated the results to the NRC. As pointed out by Timothy Johnson, NRC licensing project manager for the Wilmington facility, requesting such information goes beyond the jurisdiction of the NRC. GLE President Christopher Monetta maintains that concerns related to proliferation risks are overrated. As SILEX technology is very advanced and still to be fully tested, it requires both high-profile expertise and consistent capital resources to be implemented. Furthermore, fuel produced by GLE should be enriched to a far lower extent than that required for nuclear weapons (around 4% compared to 80-90%). Last but not least, the process is subject to commercial protection and an agreement between Australia and the US on information restriction. Donald Kerr, former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory suggests that laser enrichment would be unlikely to be illicitly achieved. Furthermore, any covert attempt to replicate the proposed GLE plant at Wilmington would be easily uncovered, given the probable size of such a venture. An unsolved question However, this argument would only be fully satisfactory if states pursue Wilmington-like projects. Domestic research could lead to systems of any size and complexity. Critics affirm that the Wilmington plant would allegedly generate fissile material for 1,000 bombs each year. Thus, even a small clandestine laser-enrichment facility could produce fuel for a significant number of nuclear weapons, and it would be harder to detect. With a smaller physical footprint and increased use of dual-use technologies, gaining even a small awareness of suspicious laser enrichment activities may be challenging for the IAEA. Especially when dealing with states without the Additional Protocol. If states were to pursue domestic laser enrichment programmes, unrelated to the work of GLE, arguments comparing the two will provide little comfort. So too will the October revelation that GLE had been fined $45,000 by the NRC due to a “significant lack of management attention”. How then should the benefits of laser enrichment be realised while controlling the risks? Drawing inspiration from technological improvements and pursuing further ones should not be forbidden in advance, especially when for peaceful purposes. History has shown that controlling the spread of technological innovation is challenging at best. It seems that requiring a comprehensive and thorough assessment of the proliferation risks needs to be an essential innovation for NRC licensing. Having an independent assessment of internal information control systems could go some way towards alleviating the concerns of proliferation directly related to the GLE project. Although the IAEA has a lot of experience in identifying and exposing covert gas centrifuge programmes, it has little experience in uncovering covert laser enrichment programmes. The recent successes of GE-H in laser

Page 85 enrichment goes to show that the technology will most likely become commercially-viable in the near future. The Agency must be prepared accordingly.

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