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Multinational alternatives and nuclear nonproliferation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Lawrence Scheinman
Lawrence Scheinman
Affiliation:
The author, currently Professor of Government at Cornell University, was Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary and Deputy to the Deputy Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology during the first two years of the Carter administration. As one of the artisans of U.S. nonproliferation policy he was an advocate of multinational strategies and his contribution to this volume should be read with this involvement in mind.
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Extract

The use of multinational institutional arrangements to control sensitive nuclear fuel cycle activities has interested policymakers since the dawn of the nuclear age. Several such ventures have been tried during the past several decades, largely for economic, commercial, or technical reasons, and they have enjoyed varying degrees of success. More recently, with the spread of sensitive nuclear technologies, multinational arrangements have received increasing attention as a means of reinforcing international safeguards which, together with political commitments on peaceful use, have been the principal components of the nonproliferation regime.

The political acceptability and efficacy of multinational arrangements is related to the historic experience with multinational ventures, the changed political circumstances of the 1970s, and the probable requirements for constructive future cooperation. As part of a comprehensive regime covering the development of sensitive nuclear activities, multinational arrangements can reinforce the regime in a manner that is widely acceptable. A political effort to win support for such arrangements is thus worthwhile.

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Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , Winter 1981, pp. 77 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1981

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References

1 For a general overview of the evolution of nonproliferation policy and the strategy of the Carter administration see Nye, Joseph S., “Nonproliferation: The Long-Term Strategy,” Foreign Affairs (04 1978): 601–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Scheinman, Lawrence, “Towards a New Nonproliferation Regime,” Nuclear Materials Management VII, 1 (Spring 1978): 25–29Google Scholar. See also Goldschmidt, Bertrand, “A Historical Survey of Nonproliferation Policies,” International Security II, 1 (Summer 1977): 69–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Wonder, Edward, “INFCE and International Institutions,” in Next Steps After INFCE: U.S. International Nuclear and Nonproliferation, Jones, Rodney W., ed. (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 03 1980).Google Scholar

3 International Atomic Energy Agency, “Communications Received from Certain Member States Regarding Guidelines for the Export of Nuclear Material, Equipment, and Technology,” INFCIRC/254 (Vienna: IAEA, 02 1978).Google Scholar

4 IAEA, “Assurances of Long-Term Supply of Technology, Fuel, Heavy Water and Services in the Interest of National Needs Consistent with Nonproliferation,” INFCE/PC/2/3 (Vienna: IAEA, 01 1980).Google Scholar

5 This approach is examined and endorsed in Kratzer, Myron B., Multinational Institutions and Nonproliferation: A New Look, Occasional Paper No. 20 (Muscatine, IA.: The Stanley Foundation, 1979).Google Scholar

6 For a useful discussion of multinational nuclear arrangements see Horst Mendershausen, “The Multinationalization of Reprocessing and Enrichment: How and Where?” a Paper Presented to the International Conference on Reconciling Energy Needs and Nonproliferation, Bad-Godesburg (May 1979). See also Chayes, Abram and Lewis, W. B., eds., International Arrangements for Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Press, 1977).Google Scholar

7 EUROCHEMIC's experience is discussed in Goldschmidt, Bertrand, Le Complexe Atomique (Paris: Fayard, 1980) and more extensively in International Energy Associates Ltd (IEAL), “Institutional Arrangements for the Reduction of Proliferation Risks,” Report to the Department of Energy, December 1979.Google Scholar

8 On URG see Allday, C., “Some Experiences in Formation and Operation of Multinational Uranium-Enrichment and Fuel Reprocessing Organizations,” in Chayes and Lewis, op. cit., pp. 177–88.Google Scholar

9 This early episode is treated in Scheinman, Lawrence, Atomic Energy Policy in France Under the Fourth Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 177–80.Google Scholar

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11 “There is relatively little information available on EURODIF. A useful if incomplete description is to be found in Pecquer, M., Coates, J. H. and Mezin, M., ”Uranium Enrichment: One of Today's Industrial Realities,“ Revue de l'Energie 25, 265 (08–09 1974): 199–214.Google Scholar

12 See Allday, op. cit.

13 Nuclear News, June 1980, p. 38.Google Scholar

14 The following discussion draws principally on Wonder, Edward, Nuclear Fuel and American Foreign Policy (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1977)Google Scholar and Bertrand Goldschmidt, Le Complexe Atomique, op. cit. See also Scheinman, Lawrence, ”Security and a Transnational System: The Case of Nuclear Energy,” in Transnational Relations and World Politics, Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr., eds. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 276–300.Google Scholar

15 While one could view the URENCO provision for rotation of enrichment contract allocations as an effort to delay as long as possible the construction of an enrichment plant in the FRG, and URENCO itself as a way to divert any autonomous enrichment activity in Germany, it still remains true that the FRG was completely free to develop enrichment technology.

16 On INTELSAT, see Skolnikoff, Eugene, ”Relevance of INTELSAT Experience for Organizational Structure of Multinational Nuclear Fuel Cycle Facilities,“ in Chayes and Lewis, op. cit., pp. 223–30.Google Scholar

17 See references cited in footnote 1 on these points.

18 IAEA, GC(XVIII)/OR. 169(23), (Sept. 1974).Google Scholar

19 U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Documents on Disarmament, 1975, pp. 146–58, esp. p. 151.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., p. 476.

21 See IAEA, Regional Nuclear Fuel Cycle Centers (Vienna: IAEA, 1977), two volumes.Google Scholar

22 House Concurrent Resolution 371, Congressional Record, 30 July 1975, p. 25918.Google Scholar

21 Senate Resolution 221, Congressional Record, 12 December 1975, p. 521961.Google Scholar

24 The Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 (P.L. 95–242), 92 Stat. 210 (1978), 42 U.S.C. s. 2153b(b)(l)and(2).

25 See, Statement of Ambassador-at-Large Smith, Gerard, U.S. Representative to the INFCE,Final Plenary Conference,25 February 1980.Google Scholar

26 On erosion of confidence, see Goldschmidt, Bertrand and Kratzer, Myron B., Peaceful Nuclear Relations: A Study of the Creation and Erosion of Confidence, (New York and London: Rockefeller Foundation and Royal Institute of International Affairs, 11 1978).Google Scholar

27 Press Conference by Valery Giscard d'Estaing,15 February 1979, Press and Information Division 79/25, French Embassy.Google Scholar

28 See Nye, and Scheinman, articles, op. cit., and Thomas Pickering, address before the Atomic Industrial Forum, Altanta, Georgia, 12 March 1979 (mimeo).Google Scholar

29 See INFCE Working Group III, cited in footnote 3.