Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom
Date: 25 March 2008
Location:
B340 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC
12:30 - 2:00 PM
Sponsored by:
AAAS's Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy
How well can the IAEA safeguard existing civilian nuclear energy facilities against the threat of nuclear proliferation? How sound are the agency's inspection efforts to prevent the possible diversions of fresh and spent fuel rods from reactors and of nuclear materials directly useable to make bombs from nuclear fuel making plants? What can the IAEA reliably detect in such countries as Iran and North Korea? How well might the IAEA be able to prevent military diversions from the civilian nuclear programs that Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, UAE, Turkey and Yemen are planning? How much sense does it make for the IAEA what members' claim is their inalienable right to any and all forms of civilian nuclear technology? What can and should be done to make IAEA safeguards more effective?
To get the answers, The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) conducted over two years of meetings and private interviews, and commissioned analyses by 13 nuclear experts including the IAEA's former deputy director general for safeguards, UNSCOM inspectors, IAEA safeguards technicians, nuclear engineers and industry officials and outside analysts from the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom is the result. Spotlighted in the August 23, 2007 edition of The Economist, this report identifies the IAEA safeguards system's key structural and operational deficiencies and pinpoints where additional funding would strengthen IAEA safeguards and where it would not. It also sets out a detailed set of recommendations for the U.S. and like-minded states to make the IAEA safeguards system more credible and effective.
Henry Sokolski, the Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, will present a summary of NPEC's latest book. Charles Ferguson, Ph.D., of the Council on Foreign Relations, will respond. Biographies of the speakers are available below.
Please RSVP online.
Related Links:
Henry Sokolski's Slides
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