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IAEA, VOL.37, N0.3 1995 BULLETIN VIENNA, AUSTRIA QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY Front Cover: The United Nations officially commemo- rates its 50th anniversary in October, with the interna- BULLETIN tional community taking stock of both its accomplish- ments and shortcomings as the world's instrument for international peace and sustainable development. The road ahead is full of challenge and opportunity. For the IAEA — which works closely with the UN and its family of organizations in the nuclear sphere — the future is unfolding along a compelling new course. Problems and needs have emerged which demand greater vigi- lance and cooperation among States — particularly concerning issues of nuclear non-proliferation, arms control, and safety. As they build toward the next 50 years, the IAEA and its UN partners will need renewed support to effectively help countries take steps on the road ahead for achieving a better, safer world. (Cover design: Hannelore Wilczek, IAEA; Stefan Brodek, Vienna; Photo: Zefa, Vienna; Bryan F. Peterson) Facing Page: Emerging from the dust and death of scorched fields, a flower unfolds to the promise of life. (Credit: Stefan Brodek, Vienna) CONTENTS Features The IAEA, United Nations, and the new global nuclear agenda by Hans Blixl 2 The IAEA and the UN family: Networks of nuclear cooperation by Sheel Kant Sharma 110 International law and nuclear energy: Overview of the legal framework by Mohamed ElBaradei, Edwin Nwogugu and John Rames 116 Radiation safety services: From the laboratory to the field by Robert Ouvrard and Fernando Lopez-Lizana 126 Bulletin Update Inside Technical Cooperation: Practical projects for development /Insert Special Report Measure for measure: The NPT and the road ahead by Bernhanykun Andemicael, Merle Opelz and Jan Priest 130 Topical Reports IMS at 25: Pioneer of the nuclear information highway by Joyce Amenta and Alexander Sorokinl 39 The IAEA on line: Closer links for the global nuclear community by Jerry Barton and Lothar Wedelcind 144 Departments International Newsbriefs/Datafile / 48 Keep abreast with IAEA publications / 54 Posts announced by the IAEA / 55 Databases on line / 56 IAEA conferences and seminars/Coordinated research programmes / 60 ISSN 0020-6067 IAEA BULLETIN, VOL. 37, NO. 3 (SEPTEMBER 1995) FEATURES US President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the United Nations in December 1953 proposing the creation of an international atomic energy agency. See excerpts from the historic address on pages 8 and 9. IAEA BULLETIN, 3/1995 FEATURES The IAEA, United Nations, and the new global nuclear agenda Cooperative links in key areas have been strengthened in response to emerging challenges and opportunities • ladical changes in the global nuclear land- cally support. At the global level, the members by Hans Blix scape after the Cold War have set the world on a are sovereign States who do not always see compelling new course. Smaller nuclear arse- eye-to-eye every step of the way. Efforts to nals, stronger bonds against the bomb's further bridge differences, build consensus, and coordi- spread, and renewed commitments for the atom's nate actions can be a complex, lengthy process. safe and peaceful use are all parts of the changing While talking about problems is not enough, it scene. The transformation is redefining the is the first step to finding and implementing global nuclear agenda for the United Nations and workable solutions for them. the IAEA on the road to the next millennium. Fortunately, the international climate now is Today's challenges and opportunities are more conducive to constructive action than dur- rooted in the concerted international drive over ing most of the UN's first half century. The the past half century to harness the atom and polarized ideological debates of the cold war no brighten prospects for a nuclear-weapons-free longer threaten to deadlock the UN. The warmer world. Despite positive steps and welcome shifts climate has opened important new avenues of of attitude, there is a difficult distance to go. But global cooperation, and is bringing new prob- key elements for sustaining progress are in place lems that must be solved to the tables of the UN and the missing pieces are not hard to see. and its family of organizations. The picture can be easily overshadowed by "The problems that confront the United the many critical assessments and competing Nations are also a challenge for the Member headlines of the day, especially in a year marking States that make up the United Nations and the both the atomic bomb's horrific power and the peoples of the world whom the organization anxious birth of the United Nations 50 years ago. serves," UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali The UN and its system of organizations have has recently written. "In these changed cir- come in for some particularly tough criticism. cumstances, there is a pressing need for gov- Whatever specific points at issue, the views are ernments and public opinion to decide what bound by common threads: the aspiration for a they want the United Nations to be, what they better and safer world, and the growing desire for want it to do, and what they are willing to greater confidence that one is being built. The contribute to make it work." UN was born as the world's instrument for inter- In the past, a good deal of criticism has been national peace and security to meet humanity's directed at the lack of cohesion and coordination highest hopes and greatest expectations, and in in the UN system. In my view, the criticism is not some ways it has been asked to carry out nearly applicable to the IAEA and its relations with the impossible missions. As the "Atoms for Peace" UN in the nuclear sphere. Channels have long organization within the UN system, the IAEA, been in place for effective cooperative action in too, is held to serve our highest standards and fields of nuclear non-proliferation and arms con- ideals. (See box, page 9.) trol, and the safe development of peaceful nu- While some of the criticism and calls for clear technologies. reform are justified, many accusations are mis- Three events over the past decade — the placed. Often discounted is the fact that no or- Chernobyl nuclear plant accident in 1986, the ganization operates in a vacuum. Achievements, discovery of Iraq's clandestine nuclear-weapons and shortcomings, are closely bound with fluid external events and internal realities of what members are willing to do, pay for, and politi- Dr. Blix is Director General of the IAEA. IAEA BULLETIN, 3/1995 FEATURES programme in 1991, and the breakup of the So- these measures are working, albeit difficulties viet Union into independent States in the 1990s — remain in securing the DPRK's full compliance have particularly left their marks. The IAEA's with its safeguards agreement. agenda has adapted accordingly, to respond to new Overall, the Security Council has looked to sets of problems and needs. Some programmes the IAEA as the nuclear inspection arm of the have been reoriented, others significantly strength- UN system, and the IAEA has looked to the ened. The overriding aim is to support States in Council as the body politically responsible for building a stronger, more effective international ensuring compliance with nuclear non-prolifera- framework for safe nuclear development. Allow tion undertakings. Building upon this established me to more fully address some important aspects relationship is now of paramount importance as within the context of global developments and the more arms-control agreements requiring verifi- Agency's roles within the UN system. cation are adopted or near completion, and the non-proliferation regime nears universality. Forward movements. In May 1995, meet- Securing a nuclear-weapons-free world ing at UN headquarters in New York, the 178 States party to the landmark Treaty on the Non- Most visibly in the 1990s, the IAEA and UN Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) took have demonstrated close, prompt, and effective important steps forward. (See related article be- interaction in areas of disarmament and nuclear ginning on page 30.) They indefinitely extended non-proliferation. The widely publicized nuclear the NPT and confirmed that the NPT involved a inspections in Iraq — which the IAEA performs commitment to nuclear disarmament by the nu- under the mandate given by the UN Security clear-weapon States. They targeted 1996 for Council and with the cooperation of the UN conclusion of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Special Commission set up after the Gulf War — (CTBT), which is being negotiated under aus- are a case in point. Through dozens of IAEA-led pices of the UN Conference on Disarmament in missions under the Council's mandate, inspec- Geneva. States also called for an early conclu- tors discovered and mapped Iraq's clandestine sion of an agreement to cut off production of nuclear weapons programme, effectively moved fissile materials for weapons purposes; they en- to destroy or neutralize it, and activated a long- dorsed the creation of more nuclear-weapon-free term monitoring and verification plan to prevent zones; they expressed support for ongoing ef- its revival. forts aimed at more effective nuclear verifica- The case tested the global community's re- tion and IAEA safeguards; and they called for the solve and the responsiveness of its mechanisms provision of necessary resources for the Agency for sustained, coordinated and firm action. The to meet its responsibilities under the NPT. IAEA's founders presciently vested the Agency As the outcome of the NPT Conference made with a right of direct access to the Security Coun- clear, there is near universal renunciation of the cil, where international authority for enforce- bomb. The overwhelming majority of States no ment action is placed.