Confronting the “Perpetual Menace to Human Security”

Abstract

Nuclear weapon states historically have attached great secrecy to their nuclear weapon and fissile material production programs and stockpiles, despite warnings that this would fuel fears, handicap informed debate and decision making, and drive arms races. As evidenced by the “Action Plan on Nuclear Disarmament” agreed upon at the 2010 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference, however, the international community now sees greater transparency about nuclear weapon and fissile material stocks as necessary for enabling and monitoring progress toward nuclear disarmament. To support this effort, the International Panel on Fissile Materials has proposed a step-by-step program for weapon states to declare their inventories, production histories, and disposition of nuclear warheads and fissile materials, and to set up joint projects to develop methods for verifying these declarations. This openness initiative is described here, and could be adopted at the 2015 NPT Review Conference, laying a basis for negotiating verifiable deep reductions in nuclear arsenals and their eventual elimination.

KEYWORDS:

• Fissile material
• highly enriched uranium
• plutonium
• verification
• nonproliferation
• disarmament

Notes

1. Niels Bohr, “Memorandum to President Roosevelt,” July 3, 1944, in Niels Bohr, Collected Works, Volume 11: The Political Arena (1934–1961), Finn Aaserud, ed., (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005), pp. 101–08.

2. International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2013: Increasing Transparency of Nuclear Warhead and Fissile Material Stocks as a Step toward Disarmament, October 2013, <www.ipfmlibrary.org/gfmr13.pdf>.

3. International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2013: Increasing Transparency of Nuclear Warhead and Fissile Material Stocks as a Step toward Disarmament, October 2013, <www.ipfmlibrary.org/gfmr13.pdf>.

4. The Panel's twenty-nine members include nuclear experts from Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. IPFM research and reports are shared with international organizations, national governments, and nongovernmental groups. Key documents are available at <www.fissilematerials.org> and <www.fissilematerials.org/blog>.

5. White House Press Release on Hiroshima, Statement by the President of the United States, August 6, 1945, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, <www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/pdfs/59.pdf>.

6. Niels Bohr, “Open letter to the United Nations,” June 9, 1950, in Bohr, Collected Works, Volume 11, pp. 173–86.

7. Report by the Panel of Consultants of the Department of State to the Secretary of State, January 1953, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954: Volume II, Part 2, National Security Affairs, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1983 <history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v02p2/d67>.

8. Report by the Panel of Consultants of the Department of State to the Secretary of State, January 1953, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954: Volume II, Part 2, National Security Affairs, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1983 <history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v02p2/d67>.

9. United Nations Security Council Resolution S/RES/1887, 2009, states that the Security Council resolves “to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, in accordance with the goals of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), in a way that promotes international stability, and based on the principle of undiminished security for all.”

10. Randy Rydell, “Nuclear Weapon State Transparency, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the United Nations,” in International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2013, pp. 39–49.

11. See e.g., Stephen I. Schwartz, ed., Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998). See also, Hans Born, Bates Gill, Heiner Hânggi, eds., Governing the Bomb: Civilian Control and Democratic Accountability of Nuclear Weapons, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

12. For details, see Peter Dessaules, “Challenges of Producing National Fissile Material Declarations,” in International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2013, pp. 59–70.

13. For estimates of nuclear warheads, see Hans Kristensen and Robert S Norris, “Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles and Transparency,” in International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2013, p. 9.

14. Figures for stockpile estimates of fissile material are rounded. For details, see International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2013, p. 8–26.

15. See, for example, Schwartz, Atomic Audit, pp. 353–43; Arjun Makhijani, Howard Hu, and Katherine Yih, eds., Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and its Health and Environmental Effects, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995).

16. Duarte, “Perspectives for an Increase in Accountability and Transparency through International Mechanisms for Nonproliferation,” cited in Rydell, “Nuclear Weapon State Transparency,” p. 41.

17. The ten-nation Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI) has sought to “promote transparency in nuclear disarmament reporting,” and in 2012, the NPDI states presented a model reporting form that weapon states could consider to develop “a draft standard nuclear disarmament reporting form.” See “Transparency of nuclear weapons: the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative,” Working paper submitted by Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, 2012 NPT Prepcom, NPT/CONF.2015/PC.I/WP.12, 20 April 2012, <www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=NPT/CONF.2015/PC.I/WP.12>.

18. “Fourth P5 Conference: On the Way to the 2015 NPT Review Conference,” US Department of State, Washington, DC, April 19, 2013, <www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/04/207768.htm>.

19. For the “Action Plan on Nuclear Disarmament,” see “2010 NPT Review Conference Final Document, Vol. 1,” New York, 2010, pp. 19–21, <www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2010>.

20. For the “Action Plan on Nuclear Disarmament,” see “2010 NPT Review Conference Final Document, Vol. 1,” New York, 2010, pp. 19–21, <www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2010>.

21. For the “Action Plan on Nuclear Disarmament,” see “2010 NPT Review Conference Final Document, Vol. 1,” New York, 2010, p. 24, Action 20: “States parties should submit regular reports, within the framework of the strengthened review process for the Treaty, on the implementation of the present action plan… .” Action 21: “As a confidence-building measure, all the nuclear-weapon States are encouraged to agree as soon as possible on a standard reporting form and to determine appropriate reporting intervals for the purpose of voluntarily providing standard information… .”

22. For the “Action Plan on Nuclear Disarmament,” see “2010 NPT Review Conference Final Document, Vol. 1,” New York, 2010, p. 21, Action 5: “The nuclear-weapon States commit to accelerate concrete progress on the steps leading to nuclear disarmament … [and] are called upon to report … to the Preparatory Committee at 2014.”

23. The United States has released detailed declarations, with updates, of its fissile material stockpiles: the plutonium declaration covering the period 1944–94 was released in 1996, and updated in 2012 to cover the period up to 2009; the HEU declaration for the period 1944–96 was completed in 2001, publicly released in 2006, and updated in 2006 to cover the period up to 2004. See Dessaules, “Challenges of Producing National Fissile Material Declarations,” pp. 59–70.

24. The United States has released detailed declarations, with updates, of its fissile material stockpiles: the plutonium declaration covering the period 1944–94 was released in 1996, and updated in 2012 to cover the period up to 2009; the HEU declaration for the period 1944–96 was completed in 2001, publicly released in 2006, and updated in 2006 to cover the period up to 2004. See Dessaules, “Challenges of Producing National Fissile Material Declarations,” pp. 59–70.

25. Fred McGoldrick, “The International Plutonium Guidelines,” in International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2013, pp. 71–81.

26. James Fuller, “Nuclear Archaeology and Warhead Verification Collaborations,” in International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2013, pp. 82–89.