The proposal for an FMCT is one of the most
important items on the multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation
agenda. FMCT would cap fissile material
available for weapons, as it would prohibit production of fissile material for
nuclear weapons. Production of fissile material
for civil purposes, and for non-explosive military purposes such as naval
propulsion, would be permitted, but only under verification to ensure the
fissile material is not diverted to weapons.

Australia accords a high priority to the
commencement of FMCT negotiations, and it is disappointing that little progress
has been made, even though the US, Russia, UK and France have ceased production
of fissile material for nuclear weapons, and it is understood that China has
also done so. It is essential to extend
this freeze to India, Israel and Pakistan.
The delay is due to the failure of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) to
reach agreement on its program of workof which FMCT would be a major
element. The Final
Declaration of the 2000 NPT Review Conference urged the CD to agree to
the immediate commencement of negotiations on an FMCT with a view to conclusion
within 5 years.

Effective and
cost-efficient verification, to provide credible assurance that all
participants are honouring their treaty commitments, will be fundamental to the
establishment and successful implementation of the FMCT regime. In preparation for the negotiations,
ASNO has carried out a considerable amount of work in the development of
verification concepts appropriate for the FMCT, an area where we are recognised
as being at the forefront of international thinking. Some of the key points of this work are outlined below.

Verification principles

The
negotiating mandate agreed by the CD for the FMCT is
for a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and
effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for
nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosive devices. Thus there is the need to develop an appropriate multilateral
verification mechanism.

In considering what form this might take,
of course it is not necessary to start with a clean slate. There is already a highly developed
verification regime for nuclear material, namely, IAEA safeguards. In the case of non-nuclear-weapon States
(NNWS) Party to the NPT, the comprehensive safeguards that apply to them
already fully meet FMCT objectives. In
principle therefore the FMCT should not involve any additional commitments from
States that have in place both an NPT safeguards agreement and the Additional
Protocol for strengthened safeguards.

However, in the
case of the nuclear-weapon States (NWS) and the non-NPT States (essentially
India, Israel and Pakistan), it is apparent that comprehensive NPT safeguards
are not an appropriate model for verification under the FMCT:

• truly comprehensive safeguards
  covering all nuclear material cannot apply in the NWS while those States have
  nuclear weapons and therefore will retain, outside verification, nuclear
  material existing when the FMCT enters into force;
• the cost of verification on the
  comprehensive model in the NWS and the other States concerned would be
  prohibitive;
• another major factor will be the concern of
  those States to protect national securityand proliferation-sensitive
  information relating to their past nuclear weapons programs and to their
  ongoing stockpile stewardship activities.

Taking these and
related considerations into account, ASNO has proposed a focused
approach, involving the monitoring of enrichment and reprocessing activities,
coupled with verification of separated plutonium, U-233 and HEU (high enriched
uranium) produced after the FMCTs entry-into-force (EIF). The focussed approach is described in
greater detail in ASNOs 1998-99 Annual Report and in our publications listed
at page 108.

Verification of declared nuclear material and
activities

Separation of plutonium, HEU or U-233 from
irradiated material, and production of HEU for non-explosive purposes, would
not be proscribed by the FMCT. However,
monitoring would have to be applied to all enrichment and reprocessing
activities to ensure there is no undeclared production of separated fissile
material after EIF.

On-site verification is an essential part
of IAEA safeguards and also CWC verification, which
both involve routine inspections of declared activities. It is clear that the FMCT will
require a similar mechanism. FMCT Parties would be required to declare fissile material
production facilities, and fissile material produced after EIF, and routine
verification would apply to provide assurance that this fissile material is not
produced for nuclear weapons use.

Measures against possible undeclared activities

Here, there are two broad forms of
verification activity: ongoing
activities aimed at evaluating the completeness and correctness of States'
declarations; and on-site inspections based on suspicion of a breach of treaty
commitments.

As
discussed elsewhere in this Report, the IAEA is
involved in both forms of verification activity. The possibility of special inspections initiated by the IAEA to
resolve suspicions about particular locations is a long-standing feature of
safeguards agreements. Now the
safeguards system is undergoing substantial development, with the objective of
establishing credible assurance of the absence of undeclared nuclear material
and activities. A whole suite of new
measures is being established, including more effective information collection
and analysis, andthrough the Additional Protocolwide-ranging complementary
access within a State to apply verification measures such as environmental
sampling.

By contrast, the routine CWC verification
system does not extend beyond declared sites.
To deal with suspected undeclared activities, the CWC provides for a
challenge inspection mechanism, under which a challenge inspection may be initiated
by a State Party, rather than by the verification agency.

The CWC
approach reflects practical realities, such as the scale of the worlds
chemical industries. For the FMCT, ASNO
suggests it would be preferable to follow the IAEA model here, and provide for
the verification agency to carry out measures aimed at detection of possible
undeclared production of fissile material after EIFalong the lines already
accepted under the Additional Protocol.
Some of these ongoing measures could include:

• analysis of satellite imagery that could reveal some characteristic
  structures of a production plant and trigger verification measures such as
  location-specific environmental sampling;
• wide-area environmental sampling, e.g. measures aimed at capturing
  characteristic gaseous effluents and particulates that may be deposited at
  significant distances from the facility; and
• acquisition and analysis of open
  source information, supported by information provided to the verification
  agency by States.

Just as
under the Additional Protocol, the verification agency would have the right to
request access to locations, or to the vicinity of locations, to resolve
questions and inconsistencies arising from the information available to the
agency. Managed access provisions
would be essential, probably elaborated in greater detail under the FMCT than
in the Additional Protocol.

In addition, the FMCT will require a mechanism for right of
entry to a specific location if there are serious grounds for suspicion of a
breach of treaty commitments. While
the special inspection mechanism would be an appropriate model, it is possible that FMCT Parties may wish to have a
verification mechanism that they can initiate directly, rather than relying on
the verification agency to do so. Thus
the FMCT may incorporate a challenge mechanism, perhaps in addition to the
special inspection (agency-initiated) mechanism.

Conclusion

In sum, there is the
need to develop for the FMCT a new verification regime, drawing not only on
experience from IAEA safeguards, but also looking at procedures and mechanisms
from other verification regimes, particularly the CWC. Specific aspects that may be useful include
managed access and possibly challenge inspections. In view of the substantial amount of work done in developing
verification concepts, it is to be hoped that when the FMCT negotiations do get
under way they can progress very quickly.

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