With the expected expansion in nuclear programs, the IAEA will face many safeguardschallenges in the coming decades due to increasing numbers of facilities and new types offacilities. Change and expansion will require the IAEA to plan carefully, both to ensure its effortis focussed on areas of greatest proliferation risk and to make optimal use of scarce safeguardsresources.The IAEA’s safeguards system has evolved considerably since the 1960s, but some elementshave remained unchanged. Continuing some of these traditional safeguards practices andapproaches in a new and resource constrained safeguards environment may not be practicable oreven desirable.It is important to recall the technical objective of safeguards, i.e. “… the timely detection ofdiversion of significant quantities of nuclear material from peaceful nuclear activities to themanufacture of nuclear weapons or of other nuclear explosive devices or for purposes unknown,and deterrence of such diversion by the risk of early detection.” (INFCIRC/153, paragraph 28).While nuclear materials accountancy is a key safeguards measure, it is not the only, or even anecessary, measure for the IAEA to fulfil its technical objective.It is important that process (i.e. nuclear materials accountancy) not be a distraction from the goal(i.e. achieving the technical objective). For example, the current safeguards system maintains astrong reliance on independent verification of declared inventories, a verification concept thatarose in a time when inventory verification was the entirety of the IAEA safeguards effort. Aback to basics review of the allocation of IAEA safeguards effort may determine that thesemeasures are not the best way to achieve the technical objective.This paper will revisit the concepts contained in the standard form comprehensive safeguardsagreement and explore possibilities for achieving the technical safeguards objective withoutdepending on detailed nuclear materials accountancy in its current form.
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