Nuclear safeguards are a set of technical, legal and institutional measures, used to verify that nuclear materials, facilities and technologies are adopted only for peaceful purposes and not directed towards developing nuclear weapons in accordance to the legal obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).acc Safeguards measures are designed for the early detection of diversion of nuclear material from declared facilities, undeclared processing or production of nuclear material, and undeclared nuclear material or activities in member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Safeguards operate at overlapping levels which include national systems of accounting and control by individual states, regional verification organizations, and the international safeguards system implemented by the IAEA. Safeguards form one of the central pillars of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime. The NPT is the foundational tool of this regime and is built around three pillars: achieving non-proliferation, moving towards nuclear disarmament, and allowing for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Article III of the NPT requires all non-nuclear-weapon states party to the treaty to accept verification, in the form of safeguards, from the IAEA on all peaceful nuclear materials, to ensure they are not diverted to non-peaceful applications. In addition to comprehensive safeguards agreements concluded under the NPT, safeguards are also implemented in states that are not party to the NPT, such as India, Pakistan, and Israel, on the basis of item-specific agreements concluded with the IAEA. While the IAEA is the principal international verification authority, safeguards are not implemented by the organization alone. At the international level, nuclear safeguards are implemented by the IAEA, but regional organizations also play a major verification role. Such regional organizations include the Euratom in the European Union and the Brazilian–Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) in South America and treaty-based nuclear-weapon-free zones that impose their own regional safeguards obligations. These regional and bilateral arrangements operate alongside, and in coordination with the IAEA, providing an additional layer of assurance between neighbouring or allied states. In practice, safeguards rely on a combination of verification techniques rather than a single method. These include nuclear material accounting, advanced non-destructive assay technologies such as neutron counting and gamma-ray spectroscopy, containment and surveillance measures and environmental sampling.
International safeguards: The IAEA system
Internationally, nuclear safeguards are primarily implemented by the IAEA, under the authority granted to it by the NPT and the IAEA's own Statute. States that have joined the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states are required to conclude a comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA) with the IAEA, under which the IAEA verifies that all nuclear material in the state's nuclear activities are free from diversion to weapons purposes. Many states have also adopted an additional protocol (AP), which extends the IAEA's access to information and areas beyond the scope of the CSA, and a smaller number of states outside the NPT have adopted facility-specific safeguards agreements. As of 2024, the IAEA have applied safeguards in 190 states with agreements in force, carrying out thousands of inspections annually across nuclear facilities worldwide.
Regional safeguards systems
Euratom safeguards
The Euratom treaty which established the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), is the foundation for the peaceful use of nuclear materials and technologies in the European Union and establishes a system, known as "Euratom safeguards”. The legal basis for Euratom safeguards is found in Chapter 7 of the Euratom Treaty, and Article 77 requires the Commission to ensure that there is no diversion of nuclear materials from peaceful uses. All users of nuclear materials within the EU are expected to provide information on their installations and report on the flows and inventories to the Commission, as outlined in Commission Regulation. The Commission verifies the correctness, completeness, and coherence of these declarations through documents review and physical on-site inspections at nuclear installations, after which it draws annual safeguards conclusions. Nuclear material accountancy and physical verification are the two main pillars of the Euratom safeguards system, with non-destructive assay techniques as a main verification method applied. Euratom safeguards and IAEA safeguards are agreed within the scope of trilateral agreements involving member states, the Commission, and the IAEA. Because all EU member states are IAEA members and NPT parties, two multilateral safeguards agreements have been concluded: one between EU non-nuclear-weapon member states, Euratom, and the IAEA; and a separate agreement between France, Euratom, and the IAEA, reflecting France's status as a nuclear-weapon state. In implementing these agreements, the Commission and the IAEA collaborate closely by performing joint inspections and using common instruments and tools, while maintaining the ability to draw independent conclusions. The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) provides research and development activities to provide assurance that nuclear safeguards is implemented and nuclear materials are used for civilian purposes as declared. The scientific activities of the JRC focuses on developing new concepts, tools and approaches for safeguards verification and to deliver education and training to safeguards inspectors and students.
Brazilian–Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
