The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2007

made clear the U.S. government’s support for ensuring that states that decline to pursue proliferation-sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle technologies can have reliable access to nuclear fuel supplies and an expanding role in peaceful nuclear cooperation. Toward that end, three years ago he unveiled a bold proposal to create a new framework for nuclear energy: a safe, orderly system to field civilian nuclear plants without adding to the danger of weapons proliferation. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership involves developing and deploying advanced, more proliferation-resistant civilian nuclear-energy systems, including reactors that are designed specifically to meet the needs of developing countries, and providing assurances of fresh fuel and spent-fuel management to states that do not pursue enrichment and reprocessing programs. We are, in other words, committed to both energy and security. In conjunction with the GNEP, we believe it is very important to develop a mechanism for reliable access to nuclear fuel. Together with the U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands and Russia, we have circulated a propos- al to IAEAmembers for such a fuel supply program, along with a U.S. reserve of nuclear fuel that could be drawn upon to back it up. And this isn’t just talk: we are already in the process of converting more than 17 metric tons of highly enriched uranium from our own defense programs into low-enriched uranium to help create such a reserve. In the long run, we envision the creation of a fuel leasing system, in which the supplier takes responsibility for the final disposition of spent fuel —whether this occurs in the fuel-cycle country that has produced it or elsewhere. We also welcome discussions on the possibility of an IAEA- overseen fuel bank as a supply of last resort. Especially in this era of increasing worries about the environmental costs and long-term availability of fossil- fuel supplies, these initiatives hold enormous promise, and deserve broad support and participation. Our GNEP initiative envisions a future in which countries around the world could receive the benefits of having civilian nuclear power, including a reliable supply of reactor fuel, without undertaking the significant and vastly expensive infra- structure investments needed for enrichment, recycling and disposal facilities. Because sensitive nuclear technologies have weapons applications, it is essential that all of these forward-leaning and ambitious programs be conducted in ways that pro- tect against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For that reason, we urge the universal adoption of the IAEA Additional Protocols, which provide IAEA inspectors with long-overdue information and rights to access, increasing their ability to detect undeclared nuclear activities. These measures should become the new “floor” of safeguards protection, and Pres. Bush has called for them to become a qualifying criterion for nuclear trade. We also believe that the safeguards system can sometimes require enhanced access and additional transparency measures when a country has been noncompliant. A Universal Partnership At the most basic level, the entire edifice of peaceful nuclear cooperation and benefit-sharing since the NPT’s inception is premised on strict adherence to the obli- gations that form the essential core of the treaty. This requires that all NPT parties demand rigorous compli- ance. Participation in a world of peaceful nuclear benefit- sharing — a world of cooperative development of civilian nuclear power and of civilian nuclear trade and assistance across a wide range of economically, scientifically and medically vital areas — can and should be widely avail- able, but such projects should occur within a complete safeguards framework. Recipients of such benefits should eschew capabilities and behavior that create unnecessary proliferation risks. One of the foundations of our approach is that countries that violate their nuclear nonproliferation obligations need to restore international confidence in their peaceful inten- tions as a precondition for engagement and partnership in the exciting and expanding world of shared nuclear tech- nology benefits. In order to accomplish this, a country may need to abandon capabilities acquired in the course of vio- lating its NPT and IAEA safeguards obligations. Such capabilities must be regarded as having been “tainted,” and may need to be abandoned if the world is to regain trust in that country’s peaceful nuclear intentions. This is what we and our British allies asked of Libya in helping that country implement its brave and historic commitment to give up its WMD. It is also what we have asked of North Korea in making clear our requirement that it dismantle its entire existing nuclear program— for essentially no part of that program was undertaken for a legitimate, peaceful purpose. So it is hardly surprising that if Iran wishes to partake in the wide range of nuclear cooperation and assistance being offered it and escape the adverse consequences of F O C U S 28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 7