Creation of a new multilateral contact group and plans to continue nuclear security discussions at international conferences were rolled out last week as means of building upon the progress made in four Nuclear Security Summits in protecting dangerous materials from misuse.
The two-day summit in Washington, D.C., which brought together over 50 heads of state to offer country commitments to prevent an act of nuclear terrorism, was the last of four held under the Obama administration.
“Today we agreed to maintain a strong [nuclear security] architecture . . . to carry out this work,” President Barack Obama said at a press briefing at the close of the summit. He announced the creation of a new Nuclear Security Contact Group made up of senior-level experts from more than 30 countries “who will meet regularly to preserve the networks of cooperation we’ve built, to institutionalize this work, and to keep driving progress for years to come.”
According to the White House, the Nuclear Security Contact Group will convene annually at the IAEA General Conference to discuss implementation of commitments made at the summits and maintain nuclear security cooperation. A few dozen nations and two international organizations committed themselves to participate in the group, including Belgium, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Ukraine, the U.K., the U.S., and the United Nations.
The most important outcomes from the summit “were those designed to sustain momentum and attention on nuclear security after the summits,” according to Samantha Pitts-Kiefer, director of the Global Nuclear Policy Program at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. In an email, Pitts-Kiefer highlighted creation of the contact group as one such initiative that will “ensure continuity and accountability on nuclear security” and that reaffirms the “acknowledgment that the job of securing and eliminating weapons-usable nuclear materials is not yet finished.”
One of the summit’s most welcomed milestones was ratification by a number of nations last week of a 2005 amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM). The amendment, which the IAEA announced today will enter into force May 8, expands the convention’s authority from covering material in international transport to material used for peaceful purposes in domestic storage, use, and transport. “With these results, the summit has put in place both a mechanism to sustain momentum after the summits and agreed to establish a long-term, regular, institutional mechanism for nuclear security progress,” Pitts-Kiefer said.
William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, hailed the “long overdue achievement” of the upcoming entry into force of the CPPNM amendment. Potter said by email that other positive news from the summit included the creation of the Nuclear Security Contact Group, as well as the removal of a large quantity of fissile material from Japan and China’s decision to join nuclear security initiatives.
Even so, the summits have “not yet gone far enough to build a truly effective and comprehensive global nuclear security system” by failing to address the defense of military nuclear material, which makes up 83% of global stocks of weapon-usable HEU and plutonium, Pitts-Kiefer said. “The United States and the United Kingdom separately made statements describing the steps they are taking to strengthen the security of their military nuclear materials,” she said. “Apart from those two statements, however, neither the communiqué, the Action Plans, nor any of the other summit results addressed this gap.”
In Potter’s perspective, the failure to address global military stocks “for meaningful nuclear security to be achieved” was a discouraging development. Other discouraging news included Russia’s decision not to attend the summit and “the failure of the NSS to embrace the creation of legally-binding HEU free zones in different regions, including Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe,” he said.
Country and International Organization Commitments
At the summit, countries joined together to offer commitments, known as “gift baskets,” to advance their nuclear security work. A gift basket on the minimization of highly enriched uranium (HEU) use in civilian applications, signed by countries including Canada, Mexico, Poland, Sweden, and the U.S., called for the conversion or shutdown of HEU-fueled civilian reactors, the development of high-density low-enriched uranium fuels, and HEU fuel repatriation. Twenty-two participating states expect to establish by the end of this year a voluntary reporting mechanism through the IAEA that will track progress on these activities. These states will also convene at an international conference in 2018 to review progress, the statement said.
A cybersecurity gift basket committed 29 states and the United Nations to participation in two international workshops on the topic sometime this year, the findings of which will be presented at the IAEA International Conference on Nuclear Security this December. A consolidated reporting gift basket, supported by 17 countries including Australia, Belgium, Indonesia, and Japan, promoted voluntary information sharing on initiatives that lack explicit reporting requirements. The gift basket offered a consolidated national nuclear security report mechanism as a template for states to fulfill reporting requirements under agreements such as the CPPNM.
One of the gift baskets, supported by countries including China, Japan, Canada, and South Korea, aims to help strengthen the IAEA’s Nuclear Security Training and Support Centers network, which includes Centers of Excellence like the one recently opened in China. The gift basket offered the establishment of regional networks of such centers, and collaboration with educational institutions on the promotion of nuclear security culture throughout the network.
Over 30 nations joined a gift basket that involves designating a national team to bring together law enforcement, intelligence, and technical experts to investigate nuclear trafficking. Another gift basket brought together 30 countries to incorporate nuclear forensics into their national nuclear security response frameworks. A maritime supply chain security gift basket committed states with radiation detection systems at their seaports to sharing technical information and best practices to enhance nuclear material detection. A nuclear terrorism preparedness and resilience gift basket encouraged interagency coordination and bilateral information sharing for the development of national-level preparedness and response capabilities.
Summit participants also released five action plans for international institutions and initiatives meant to advance this work. An action plan in support of the United Nations called for increased efforts by 2021 to implement security obligations under the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540, which requires member states to take measures against weapons of mass destruction proliferation, and to submit voluntary reports on the resolution’s implementation. The action plan in support of the IAEA called on the agency to continue coordinating international security activities and conduct information exchange meetings with international institutions, and encouraged states to work with the agency on HEU minimization and the development of guidance documents on nuclear incident response. The action plan supporting the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) highlighted transnational information exchanges between law enforcement agencies worldwide and called for greater cooperation between Interpol and the IAEA in countering nuclear and radiological material trafficking.
An action plan for the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, a partnership of over 80 countries and five organizations, called for greater technical capacity among the initiative’s participating nations. The plan encouraged more workshops for member state capacity building, particularly for nuclear detection, forensics, and response and mitigation, as well as information sharing on multilateral activities. An action plan for the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction called for the implementation and funding of expanded cooperation on projects involving nuclear and radiological security. It encouraged member states to assist with programs on insider threat reduction, transportation security, the disposition and conversion of nuclear materials, and best practices information exchanges.
