This House Believes the IAEA is not effective at preventing proliferation

At the end of the Cold War, believing that the nuclear threat had finally receded, much of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. Victory in the Cold War, however, sowed the seeds of a new threat: that of nuclear proliferation (the spread of nuclear weapons). In recent years this topic has never been far from the headlines. In 2003, Iraq's nuclear program was given as one justification for the second Gulf War. In the 2004 US Presidential election campaign, both President Bush and Senator Kerry identified nuclear proliferation as the single biggest security threat facing the United States. In 2005 the international body set up to prevent proliferation, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) and its Director, Mohamed ElBaradei, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their work.


The cornerstone of the international law concerning nuclear weapons is the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Every state in the world except India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea are signatories. North Korea was a member but withdrew in 2003. Under the NPT, five states (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US) are recognized as having the right to possess nuclear weapons. These states are known as the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS). The other states, the non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS), have promised not to acquire nuclear weapons. In return, they have 'the inalienable right' to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. One cause of proliferation is that civilian nuclear programs can be used to make the fuel for a nuclear bomb (the hardest part of any nuclear weapons program). Specifically, there are two routes for making reactor fuel: uranium enrichment (in which uranium ore is refined) and plutonium reprocessing (in which plutonium is separated from used reactor fuel). However, exactly the same processes can be used to refine the product still further and make weapons-grade material.
The IAEA was set up to monitor civilian nuclear programs and ensure that they are used for legitimate purposes. The IAEA inspects nuclear facilities and, if it believes that a state is using them to build a nuclear weapon, then it must report this to the United Nations Security Council. The usual objection to IAEA effectiveness is its inability to access states that haven’t signed the NPT. The US has recently become frustrated with IAEA efforts and has started to work outside the framework of the NTP. In particular, President Bush had proposed that enrichment and reprocessing facilities should be denied to states that do already possess them. He has also started the Proliferation Security Initiative, an informal arrangement between the US and its allies to share intelligence and intercept suspect cargoes at sea. Note that the US essentially views these actions as a supplement, rather than an alternative, to the NPT and IAEA. Nobody would deny that the IAEA has had some successes, and few in the US are keen to abandon the NPT entirely; rather this debate is about whether it is effective for the US to take additional action to prevent nuclear proliferation. A very current issue is the question of Iran and the chances of it acquiring nuclear weapons, where IAEA sanctions and warnings have been ignored by Iran or considered ineffective by some countries, like the USA.