A Novel Framework for Safeguarding Naval Nuclear Material

ABSTRACT

The present international standard allows non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) to forego safeguards when nuclear material is used in a “non-proscribed military activity,” though no criteria have been established to determine when NNWS can remove naval nuclear material from safeguards. Though at present, only nuclear-armed states possess nuclear submarines, the global nuclear naval landscape may soon change with the advancement of Brazil's fledgling program and the possible precedent it would set for other NNWS. A framework is needed to shore up nuclear security and prevent nuclear material diversion from the nuclear naval sector. Proposed and existing nonproliferation frameworks, including a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and commitments through the nuclear security summits, are insufficient to close this loophole. A Naval Use Safeguards Agreement (NUSA), modeled after the Additional Protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency, would provide a framework to remove the opacity surrounding nuclear material in the naval sector. Designed for NNWS and encouraged as confidence-building measures for nuclear weapon states, NUSA would explicitly outline those stages in the naval nuclear fuel cycle where safeguards are to be applied and in what context. This viewpoint also further provides direction for targeted research and development in technical naval nuclear safeguards solutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Naval nuclear propulsion
• safeguards
• proliferation
• International Atomic Energy Agency
• Nuclear Security Summits
• fissile material
• Brazil
• Additional Protocol

Acknowledgments and Disclaimer

This work was supported by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the FAS Task Force on Nuclear Naval Reactors, and the MacArthur Foundation. The authors would like to thank Linton Brooks, Charles Ferguson, Uday Mehta, Joseph Pilat, Michael Rosenthal, Laura Rockwood, and Adriana Ureche who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research. All opinions expressed in this document are the authors' own.

Notes

1. IAEA,“The Structure and Content of Agreements Between the Agency and States Required in Connection With the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” INFCIRC/153/Corrected, June 1972.

2. INFCIRC/153/Corrected, para. 14.

3. While India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have nuclear weapons, they are not members of the NPT and are thus not legally recognized as NWS.

4. Greg Thielmann and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini, “Threat Assessment Brief: The Naval Nuclear Reactor Threat to the NPT,” Arms Control Association, July 2013, <www.armscontrol.org/files/TAB_Naval_Nuclear_Reactor_Threat_to_the_NPT_2013.pdf>.

5. Ibid.

6. Regarding Iran's interest, see Zachary Keck, “Iran's Nuclear Submarine Gambit,” The Diplomat, April 18, 2013, <http://thediplomat.com/2013/04/irans-nuclear-submarine-gambit/>. For the other states, see: Thielmann and Kelleher-Vergantini, “The Naval Nuclear Reactor Threat to the NPT.”

7. For more on the way in which Brazil can set a precedent for potential future NNWS to develop nuclear naval programs, see, in this volume, Jeffrey Kaplow, “The Canary in the Nuclear Submarine: Assessing the Nonproliferation Risk of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Loophole,” Nonproliferation Review 22 (June 2015), pp. 185–202. –Ed.

8. In March 1995, Ambassador Gerald Shannon of Canada, acting as a “special coordinator” responsible for shepherding states’ views on a prospective scope of a treaty that would ban fissile materials for nuclear weapons, submitted his report to the General Assembly. CD/1299 called for the establishment of an ad hoc committee within the Conference on Disarmament to negotiate a “non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable” treaty.” Report of Ambassador Gerald E. Shannon of Canada on the Most Appropriate Arrangement to Negotiate a Treaty Banning the Production of Fissile Material for Nuclear Weapons or Other Nuclear Explosive Devices to the Conference on Disarmament, CD/1299, March 24, 1995, <www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/(httpAssets)/6AE007387CF2B123C125799C00492848/$file/CD_1299.pdf>.

9. Ibid.

10. Document INFCIRC/153 details NNWS’ safeguards obligations under the NPT.

11. Ibid.

12. Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion, Report on Use of Low Enriched Uranium in Naval Nuclear Propulsion, 1995, p. 3, <www.fissilematerials.org/library/onnp95.pdf>.

13. The Verification Research Training and Information Centre, “Confidentiality and Verification: the IAEA and OPCW,” May-June 2004, p. 114.

14. Ibid.

15. For a detailed description of a zero-knowledge protocol for arms control verification, see Alexander Glaser, Boaz Barak, and Robert J. Goldston, “A zero-knowledge protocol for nuclear warhead verification,” Nature 510 (June 2014), p. 497.

16. UK Ministry of Defence, “UK/Norway Initiative on nuclear warhead dismantlement verification,” March 31, 2010, <www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-norway-initiative-on-nuclear-warhead-dismantlement-verification--2>.

17. 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, “Final Document, Volume I,” NPT/CONF.2010/50 (Vol. I), May 2010; Nuclear Suppliers Group, “Guidelines for Nuclear Transfers,” INFCIRC/254/Rev.12/Part 1, November 2013.

18. Alicia Swift, “Naval Nuclear Propulsion: A Feasible Proliferation Pathway?” in Sarah Weiner, ed., A Collection of Papers from the 2013 Nuclear Scholars Initiative, (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 2014), p. 201.

19. The Quadripartite Agreement is set forth in IAEA, “Agreement of 13 December 1991 Between the Republic of Argentina, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards,” INFCIRC/435, March 1994.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid., Article 13.

22. Ibid.

23. Sébastien Philippe, “Safeguarding the Military Naval Nuclear Fuel Cycle,” Journal of Nuclear Materials Management XLII (Spring 2014), p. 43.

24. Togzhan Kassenova, Brazil's Nuclear Kaleidoscope: An Evolving Identity (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2014), p. xii.

25. Alexander Glaser, Boaz Barak, and Robert J. Goldston, “A zero-knowledge protocol for nuclear warhead verification,” Nature 510 (June 2014), p. 497–502.