Deferred Verification: Verifiable Declarations of Fissile Material Stocks

摘要

A ban on the production of fissile material for weapons would play a key role in nuclear disarmament. The discussions on a fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT) have been hindered by the difficulty of addressing the existing stocks in a verification regime. Researchers Pavel Podvig and Joseph Rodgers note that verifying a nuclear-armed state's declaration of its fissile materials would be challenging because of the size and long history of most nuclear programs and because of the problem of covering fissile material in active military use. The authors posit that it is possible to design a verification arrangement that includes all existing fissile materials. The arrangement they outline, called "deferred verification," involves confining | materials in weapons to a separate "closed" segment of a state's nuclear complex. The verification involving this segment would be deferred to the time when it enters the elimination or disposition process.