United Nations 41st GENERAL PLENARY MEETING ASSEMBLY Thursday, 2 November 1978, at 11.15 a.m. THIRTY-THIRD SESSION as; ~ Official Records • NEW YORK CONTENTS the situation could change because of the absence of any Page legal barrier to the construction of plants without safe­ Agenda item 14: guards. Report of the International Atomic Energy Agency 755 6. I should like to stress that point. In every supple­ mentary non-proliferation scheme that is being considered President: Mr. Indalecio LIEVANO (Colombia). today-whether it takes the form of a so-called "technical fJ.x" or of a new institution such as the regional fuel-cycle AGENDA ITEM 14 centre-the application of IAEA safeguards is taken for granted. However, unless IAEA safeguards are univer.sally Report of the International Atomic Energy Agency applied or at least are applied to all nuclear material in countries taking part in the scheme there will be significant 1. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from Spanish): I loop-holes. invite the Director-General of lAEA, Mr. Sigvard Elound, to present the report of the Agency for the year 1977. 1 7. Equal priority must of course be gh',en to ensuring that the IAEA safeguards are and remain effective. This is not 2. Mr. EKLUND (Director General, International Atomic merely a question of achieving certain technical objectives. Energy Agency): It is again a pleasure to have this It is above all a political question. The Agency remains opportunity to apprise the Assembly of recent develop­ dep~ndent upon the political support of its 110 member ments in IAEA in conjunction with the submission to the States to ensure that the means-that is, the fmance and the Assembly of the Agency's 1977 report. I should like to qualified technicians-are prOVided to enable it to carry out address in particular three matters which are of the utmost its mandate. It also requires the full political co-operation importance to the Agency. These are: The Agency's of inspected States, without whose help it would not be contribution to the prevention of nuclear-weapons pro­ possible to apply effective safeguards. liferation, the role of nuclear power and the Agency's efforts to assist developing countries in its field of activity. 8. It is of some significance, therefore, that in September this year the General ConferenCe of the Agency un­ 3. On 1 June I had the honour to address the tenth special mimously approved a substantial "increllse in the Agency's session of the General Assembly, on disarmament,2 and to safeguards budget.3 That will rise from approximately $10 give an account of the Agency's efforts, in particular in the million in 1978 to $15 million in 1979, and will permit the implementation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Agency to increase its inspection force from approximately Nuclear Weapons [resolution 2373 (XXII), annex] and 90 to 150 inspectors. Together with the extensive ratifica­ other agreements. Today the situation is as follows. tion that the non-proliferation Treaty has already received and the even wider acceptance of IAEA safeguard~, this 4. One hundred and four nations are now parties to the willingness of our member States to agree to a substantial Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. increase in safeguarding activities at a time when the However, some non-nuclear-weapon States that have nu­ Agency's budget is under severe strain in my view re­ clear facilities are still not parties to the Treaty. One of presents a practical demonstration that the international those countries has already demonstrated that it is capable community subscribes fully to the political imperative that of producing nuclear explosives. there must be no further horizontal spread of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosives. That represents a reaffrrma­ 5. In that respect the situation has not changed since the tion that the non-proliferation Treaty remains our bulwark thirty-second session of the General Assembly last year; nor against proliferation. It might be wished that the same have the non-proliferation priorities changed. As before, the support were forthcoming for other measures of nuclear top priority remains that of securing the universal applica­ arms control and disarmament. tion of the non-proliferation Treaty or of equivalent safeguards, first in those countries that have plants which 9. The International Fuel Cycle Evaluation, which began are not safeguarded and secondly in those countries where la~ t year, is now fully under way, with 53 countries everything at this moment is under safeguards but where participating. It is expected that the results of that undertaking will further strengthen efforts to achieve the non-proliferation goal. Ul1:i1 then, we must do nothing to 1 International Atomic Energy Agency, The Annual Report for 1977 (Austria, July 1978); transmitted to the members of the General Assembly by a note of the Secretary-General (A/33/145). 3 See International Atomic Energy Agency, Resolutions and 2 See Official Records of the General Assembly, Tenth Special Other Decisions of the General Conference, Twenty-second Regu:Or Session, Plenary Meetings, 13th meeting. Session, GC(XXII)/RES/357. 7SS A/33/PV.41 756 General Assembly - Thirty-third Session - Plenary Meetings ,~ imperil the non-proliferation structure that emerged in power in the industrialized countries· will affect the 1970. This is embodied in articles III and IV of the developing countries also. The developing countries cannot non-proliferation Treaty as well as in article VI, and it was be indifferent to the possible results. 1 reaffirmed in the Declaration of the tentl} special session, J on disarmament [resolution S-l0/2, sect. The most ,I Ill. 14. On the global energy front, there are certain steps the I important aspect is that, if a country is prepared to industrial world could take to ease the energy situatioa. "I renounce nuclear weapons and to accept safeguards cover­ Among the more important are the following. J ing all its nuclear activities to verify compliance with that commitment, it is free to engage in any form of peaceful 15. First, the industrial world must take effective 1 f nuclear activity, including that based on regional co­ conservation measures to reduce the pressure of demand un f operation. indeed, the more technologically advanced the price and stocks of the world's dwindling oil reserves. countries should help it to gain access to ~aceful tech­ As United Nations surveys have pointed out, for many 1 ! nologies. developing countries, especially in Africa, there is probably I no significant alternative to oil for the remainder of this ! 10. This implies that there is an equal obligation on century, and these countries will be particularly hard hit supplying countries not to abridge or change their supply when demand outruns supply. I,! ,I contracts. Irrevocable safeguards must be balanced by ,I i irrevocable commitments to supply. Moreover, as repre­ 16. Secondly, the industrial countries must forge ahead I , V~ with current nuclear-power programmes, which at present , sentatives know, article ')f the .non-proliferation Treaty i places solemn obligations on the nuclear-weapon States to offer the only immediately available alternative to tradi­ work in good faith to end the nuclear arms race, while the tional means of producing electricity on a large scale. preamble to the Treaty recalls the determination of the parties to the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the 17. Thirdly, as developing countries turn increasingly to Atmosphere, in Outer Space and under Water, signed in nuclear power in the next decades, they will be in Moscow in 1963, "to seek to achieve the discontinuance of competition with the industrial world for available uranium all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time". In our resources. To reduce this competition it is desirable that all concern to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries should promote prospecting for uranium and that countries, let us never forget the real threat to peace the development of the fast breeder reactor should con­ represented by the growing arsenals of nuclear weapons. tinue, since thereby the world's nuclear-fuel resources would be extended one hundredfold. 11. The General Assembly will consider this year under its agenda item 35 the preparations for the second review 18. Fourthly, of course, as I have already said, the conference of the States partiJs to the non-proliferation developing countries must be helped to introduce peaceful Treaty, which is to be held in 1980. I should like to assure nuclear-power technology wherever this is economically the Assembly of the Agency's readiness to extend its full promising. co-operation to the organizers of the conference and to 19, The remarkable paradox that we now face is that~ provide the factual material that is requested, as for the while the Governments of the main industrial countries are first Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the committed to all, or most, parts of this four-point Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, held in 1975. programme-and I recall in this connexion the statements of the Presidents and Prime Ministers of the leading 12. The Agency's safeguarding responsibilities have con­ free-market industrial countries at the Bonn Economic tinued to grow rapidly. Between 1976 and 1977 the Summit Conference this spring-despite this commitment at number of nuclear plants under safeguards rose by. 50 per the highest level, the introduction of nuclear power has cent, and the amount of nuclear material more than slowed down considerably, and even halted in some doubled. By the end of last year the Agency was inspecting countries. 100 power reactors and 169 research reactors.