Under the NPT, NWS are not required to conclude a CSA with the IAEA. However, to alleviate the concerns about the discriminatory nature of the NPT, the NWS have voluntarily agreed to apply safeguards to some of their nuclear facilities and fissile material that are not involved in military activities. All NWS have also concluded tailored Additional Protocols with the IAEA.

The IAEA Annual Report 2020 (Annex), published in September 2021, lists facilities in NWS under Agency safeguards or containing safeguarded nuclear material.80 The IAEA does not publish the number of inspections conducted in NWS. The safeguarded facilities include the following.

➢ China: A power reactor, a research reactor, and an enrichment plant
➢ France: A fuel fabrication plant, a reprocessing plant, and an enrichment plant
➢ Russia: A separate storage facility
➢ The United Kingdom: An enrichment plant and two separate storage facilities
➢ The United States: A separate storage facility

In its Safeguards Statement, “the [IAEA] Secretariat concluded for [five NWS] that nuclear material to which safeguards had been applied in selected facilities remained in peaceful activities or had been withdrawn as provided for in the agreements. There were no such withdrawals from the selected facilities in France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.”81

Each NWS has already concluded an IAEA Additional Protocol. Among them, the respective protocols by France, the United Kingdom and the United States stipulate that the IAEA can conduct complementary access. Among them, the United States is the first country that has hosted a complementary access visit by the IAEA. Compared to the three NWS mentioned above, application of IAEA safeguards to nuclear facilities by China and Russia are more limited. No provision for complementary access visits is stipulated in their Additional Protocols.

France and the United Kingdom, respectively, have offered to make certain civil nuclear material subject to IAEA safeguards under trilateral agreements with EURATOM and the IAEA. However, because of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU, or “Brexit,” in January 2020, the United Kingdom also withdrew from the EURATOM. Prior to this, in June 2018, the United Kingdom and the IAEA signed a new safeguards agreement along with an Additional Protocol. The UK Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) had planned to launch its own safeguards and nuclear material accountancy in 2021,82 and announced that it assumed its responsibilities effective as of 11:00 p.m. GMT on December 31, 2020.83

India, Israel and Pakistan have concluded facility-specific safeguards agreements based on INFCIRC/66. These non-NPT states have accepted IAEA inspections of the facilities that they declare as subject to these agreements. According to the IAEA Annual Report 2020, the facilities placed under IAEA safeguards or containing safeguarded nuclear material in non-NPT states as of December 31, 2020 are as listed below.84 (The IAEA does not publish the number of inspections conducted in those countries.)

➢ India: Ten power reactors, three fuel fabrication plants (an increase from two in the previous year), two separate storage facilities
➢ Israel: One research reactor
➢ Pakistan: Seven power reactors (an increase from six in the previous year) and two research reactors

Regarding these countries’ activities in 2020, the IAEA “concluded that nuclear material, facilities or other items to which safeguards had been applied remained in peaceful activities.”85

Concerning protocols additional to non- NPT states’ safeguards agreements (which differ significantly from the model Additional Protocol), the India-IAEA Additional Protocol entered into force in July 2014. This Additional Protocol is similar to ones that the IAEA concluded with China and Russia, with provisions on providing information and protecting classified information but no provision on complementary access. No negotiation has yet begun for similar protocols with Israel or Pakistan.

Some NNWS call on the NWS for further application of the IAEA safeguards to their nuclear facilities in order to alleviate a discriminative nature that NNWS are obliged to accept fullscope safeguards whereas NWS do not need to do so. At the 2019 NPT PrepCom, the NAM countries, in particular, continue to demand that the NWS and non-NPT states should accept full-scope safeguards, and urge to establish, by the 2020 RevCon, a standing committee to monitor and verify the nuclear disarmament steps undertaken unilaterally or through bilateral agreements by the NWS.86

 

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80 IAEA, IAEA Annual Report 2020, GC(65)/5/Annex, Table A33(a).
81 IAEA, “Safeguards Statement for 2020.”
82 Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), “Corporate Plan 2020 to 2021,” July 21, 2021, https://www.gov. uk/government/publications/office-for-nuclear-regulation-corporate-plan-2020-to-2021/office-for-nucl ear-regulation-corporate-plan-202021.
83 ONR, “ONR Becomes UK Safeguards Regulator,” December 31, 2020, http://news.onr.org.uk/2020/ 12/onr-becomes-uk-safeguards-regulator/.
84 IAEA Annual Report 2020, GC(65)/5/Annex, Table A33(a).
85 IAEA, “Safeguards Statement for 2020.”
86 NPT/CONF.2020/PC.III/WP.14, March 21, 2019.