INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE HENRY J. HYDE UNITED STATES-INDIA PEACEFUL ATOMIC ENERGY COOPERATION ACT OF 2006 (P.L. 109-401)

摘要

On Dec. 18, 2006, President George W. Bush signed into law legislation that creates an exemption for India from key provisions of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), as amended in 1978, in order to facilitate a future U.S.India civilian nuclear cooperation agreement. The legislation overturns nearly three decades of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy designed to deny states pursuing nuclear weapons outside of the nonproliferation system with the full benefits of peaceful nuclear cooperation. The passage of the Henry J. Hyde Peaceful Atomic Cooperation Act of 2006 ("Hyde Act") is the first of four major steps necessary to expand civil nuclear cooperation with India. The three additional steps are: 1) India and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must conclude, and the IAEA Board of Governors must approve, a safeguards agreement covering India's declared "civilian" nuclear facilities; 2) the U.S. and Indian governments must negotiate and the U.S. Congress must approve a formal agreement for nuclear cooperation; and 3) the United States must obtain the consensus approval from the 45-nation Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) for changes to its guidelines to accommodate civil nuclear trade with India. The NSG currently restricts trade in dual military-civilian technologies and materials with India and other states that do not allow full-scope international safeguards (i.e. covering all of nuclear facilities.) Safeguards are designed to detect and deter the diversion of nuclear material for weapons. To date, none of these three additional steps have been achieved.