The House late last week passed the “Nuclear Terrorism Conventions Implementation and Safety of Maritime Navigation Act of 2012,” a bill necessary for U.S. implementation of two international treaties aimed at curbing nuclear terrorism. The bill makes it a crime to possess radioactive or nuclear material with the intent to use it for harmful purposes and do damage to a nuclear facility, filling in holes between U.S. law and the guidelines set by the 2005 International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the 2005 amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. The treaties were approved by the Senate in 2008. The International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism went into effect in 2007; the amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material has been approved by 56 of 145 of the agreement’s signatories. To enter force, 97 countries are needed to adopt the agreement, and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation said U.S. action is essential to getting other countries to act. “Many other countries have indicated that they are waiting for the United States to complete ratification of the two treaties before moving ahead with their own ratification processes,” Kingston Reif, the center’s director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation, said in a statement. “If the United States, the country generally perceived as most threatened by nuclear terrorism doesn’t care enough to act, other countries are unlikely to do so.” The Senate must still approve the legislation before President Obama can deposit the articles of ratification for the two pacts, Reif said.
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