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Title: Some thoughts about assurance and deterrence in international safeguards

Conference · · J. Nucl. Mater. Manage.; (United States)
OSTI ID:5366025

In the past few years, discussions have taken place in several international forums on how to make a better allocation of IAEA's resources to cope with both more and larger industrial bulk handling facilities. These must be safeguarded in the future while a high level of confidence in these safeguards is maintained. As mentioned in paragraph 28 of INFCIRC/153 (corrected), ''assurance'' and ''deterrence'' are two key words in the discussions and it could be interesting to come back to their meaning. What is ''assurance''. Is it only the mathematical assurance with a high probability of detection of diversion and a low level of false alarm of quantified goals for significant quantities and timeliness. Is this assurance of detection the only objective for international safeguards. Concerning the concept of ''mutual assurance'' of non-diversion which is obtained mainly through a large ''cooperation'' between states and IAEA, it seems important to determine the limits of this cooperation as far as an excessive cooperation could be prejudicial to this ''mutual assurance''.

Research Organization:
Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, Paris
OSTI ID:
5366025
Report Number(s):
CONF-850765-
Journal Information:
J. Nucl. Mater. Manage.; (United States), Vol. 14:3; Conference: 26. annual meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Albuquerque, NM, USA, 21 Jul 1985
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English