Contact: Jennifer Linker, 202/939-2372, jlinker@CarnegieEndowment.org
For Immediate Release: January 10, 2006
Pierre Goldschmidt, former Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), called today for the United Nations (UN) Security Council to adopt a generic and binding resolution that would automatically authorize three steps if a state is found in non-compliance by the IAEA. In a web-only Policy Outlook, The Urgent Need to Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime, Goldschmidt’s argument follows Iran’s announcement this morning that it will resume its nuclear research program and conduct experiments with nuclear fuel. To read online go to:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/PO25.Goldschmidt.FINAL.pdf
These three steps’ impact would:
• Strengthen the IAEA’s authority to conduct inspections necessary to resolve uncertainties,
• Deter the noncompliant state from thinking it could withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and then enjoy benefits of ill-gotten material and equipment,
• Suspend sensitive fuel-cycle-related activities in the state.
Goldschmidt argues, “Considering the stalemate in both North Korea and Iran and the risk that both states are getting closer to a nuclear weapon capability, it is clear that rather than idly watching the ‘crisis in proliferation,’ it is time for the international community to give the IAEA safeguards regime the requisite authority and empowerment to act.”
Security Council action is the only way to maintain a rules-based approach for managing nuclear technology, while continuing the prospects for sharing the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy more widely with developing countries.
Goldschmidt contends that concrete measures can readily be taken within the IAEA and UN framework to improve the assurance that all nuclear material and activities remain exclusively for peaceful purposes, if the international community is willing to strengthen the authority of the IAEA.
Pierre Goldschmidt is former Deputy Director General of the IAEA and currently a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is based in Brussels.
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