Материал: Крючков Фундаменталс оф Нуцлеар Материалс Пхысицал Протецтион 2011

∙nuclear power and fuel cycles;

∙nuclear safety and radiation protection.

The department of nuclear sciences and applications studies global problems faced by the world, such as food and fresh water shortage, human health problems, etc.

The department of technical cooperation aims to facilitate transfer of nuclear energy knowledge to countries seeking it – primarily to the developing world. The technical assistance program covers:

∙personnel training (provision of training allowances, re-training courses);

∙consultancy missions to help in solving problems related to nuclear energy uses;

∙research contracts. Every year, the IAEA allocates $ 4 to 5 million for research activities. It supports studies under 1900 contracts and agreements in more than 90 countries, with the majority of them being developing economies.

The department of safeguards is the Agency’s largest unit with about 366 employees. This is explained by the fact that the department is entrusted with one of the most important tasks undertaken by the Agency, to wit, implementation of the international safeguards as a system of measures used by the IAEA to make sure that its member-states meet their obligations assumed in connection with the Agency’s Statute and the NonProliferation Treaty.

To this end, the safeguards department is staffed with about 250 inspectors. Inspection activities include independent measurements of nuclear material parameters on sites and use of containment and surveillance techniques to keep nuclear materials under control during inspection intervals. The IAEA inspectors have at their disposal up-to-date instrumentation and advanced systems. The safeguards-related data are processed by state-of-the-art computers.

The tasks of the safeguards department include inspections at national fuel cycle facilities; development of inspection/monitoring techniques and equipment; evaluation of safeguards information; cooperation with national authorities on matters of safeguards implementation. The safeguards department has six divisions (see Fig. 3.1). Three operations divisions carry out actual inspections in various regions of the world. The functions of the other three divisions are to support the activities of the operations staff.

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The division of information technologies analyzes and assesses the safeguards implementation activities by collecting and reviewing reports, questionnaires on design of facilities, and inspection results.

The division of technical services is responsible for development and use of equipment, instrumentation and computers. It provides the inspectors with up-to-date facilities.

The division of concepts and planning develops and improves safeguards implementation procedures and approaches, works out ways for enhancement of their efficiency, and deals with matters of standardization and statistical treatment of inspection results.

International legal framework for development and application of the IAEA Safeguards

Given below are definitions of some terms associated with the practice of international safeguards.

Source material is uranium (natural or depleted) and thorium in the form of metal, alloy, chemical compound or concentrate (other than ore).

Special fissionable material is plutonium–239; uranium–233; uranium enriched in U-235 or U-233; or other material containing one or several of the above substances.

The IAEA Safeguards constitute a system of technical measures taken by the IAEA in accordance with its Statute and the NPT for the purpose of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

1.The IAEA Safeguards were originally based on the Statute of this organization [2]. The principal requirements and conditions of the safeguards application were defined in Article III.A.5 of the IAEA Statute. Those requirements may be described as minimal. A state was required to make a minimum of efforts for providing access to nuclear materials at individual facilities chosen for inspection on agreement with the parties concerned.

2.In 1961, the IAEA Statute was taken as a basis for development of the initial safeguards system which is described in INFCIRC/26. At that stage, the inspection and verification activities of the Agency were limited to small research reactors and laboratory facilities.

3.As nuclear activities grew in scale, it became clear that the original system of safeguards was in need of extension and improvement. In 1965, the system was revised and extended to include nuclear power reactors, irradiated fuel reprocessing facilities, as well as nuclear materials found at

fuel fabrication plants. This system – INFCIRC/66 – amended in 1966 and

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1968 is in use up to now as a basis for agreements on safeguards concluded with the states that have no nuclear weapons and are not signatories to the NPT. Like all the earlier systems of safeguards, INFCIRC/66 was aimed at control over individual facilities in a country (such was, for instance, the agreement between the IAEA and Israel).

4. With the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons having come into effect in 1970, the IAEA acquired new significance in its role of consolidating the non-proliferation regime. It is very important that Article III.1 of the Treaty stipulates that the safeguards should be extended to all peaceful activities of the signatory states. Thus, unlike the safeguards imposed according to the IAEA Statute upon specific facilities, the safeguards arising from the NPT are full-scale and covering the whole nuclear fuel cycle in the states where they are implemented. The system described in the IAEA document INFCIRC/153, was set up 1971 and is still effective.

5. INFCIRC/153 [3] states that the main obligation assumed by a state in the framework of a safeguards agreement concluded in accordance with the NPT, lies in the fact that the safeguards should cover all the source or special fissionable materials involved in peaceful nuclear activities on the state’s territory for the exclusive purpose of making sure that such material is not diverted to production of weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

The system of INFCIRC/153 requires that a state should keep the Agency informed, or, more specifically, that it should:

∙supply the IAEA with information on the design features of its facility as well as with other, safeguards-related information;

∙keep accounting records for every material balance area;

∙submit to the IAEA reports on its nuclear materials as shown by the current accounting documents.

Thus, availability of a national system for accounting and control of nuclear materials is a prerequisite for implementation of efficient international safeguards, but cannot supplant the latter.

Agreements based on INFCIRC/153 will also stipulate that:

∙a state should set up and maintain its system for accounting and control of all nuclear materials to be kept under the safeguards;

∙a national system for NM accounting and control should be structured according to material balance areas;

∙a national system should provide for the availability and use of measurement systems and procedures to determine the actual inventory of nuclear materials (i.e. should allow taking a physical inventory at facilities).

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It is required that facilities submit to the IAEA reports of three types, which should be prepared on the basis of accounting documents:

∙a report on changes in the NM inventory (a detailed list of all materials received and dispatched);

∙a material balance report with indication of the inventory difference and the range of its statistical straggling;

∙a list of available nuclear material quantities.

The basis of the IAEA safeguards

The purposes of the IAEA safeguards are clearly stated under paragraph 28 of INFCIRC/153 as “timely detection of diversion of significant quantities of nuclear material from peaceful nuclear activities to the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or for purposes unknown, and deterrence of such diversion by the risk of early detection”. The words “for purposes unknown” are of importance for practical application of the safeguards as they imply that the IAEA should not try to find out the nature of the intended use of the diverted material, nor should it determine whether the material was diverted to the “manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear ex plosive devices”.

The key principle of the Agency’s system of safeguards lies in comparison of the information submitted by the entity under inspection with the results of independent verifications and observations made by the IAEA.

Keeping to this principle in attaining the objectives of the safeguards, the Agency pursues its monitoring activities along the following three lines:

∙study of the data submitted by a state as part of the information on the design of national facilities, in its reports to the IAEA, and in preliminary notifications concerning international transfers;

∙collection of information during inspections to verify the states’ declarations, during routine and special inspections;

∙assessment of the information submitted by a state and collected during inspections to check it for completeness, accuracy and validity.

It should be emphasized that the IAEA safeguards are applied in a way to avoid impediments to the economic and technological development of countries, to their international cooperation for peaceful use of nuclear energy. The Agency avoids unjustified intervention in peaceful nuclear activities of states and operation of their facilities.

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