Planning with clear goals and objectives

1. Planning with clear goals and objectives How the State-Level concept and objectives based safeguards are essential elements of future safeguards developments Russell Leslie – SGOC-OC1

2. Layout of presentation • Review the need to make better use of resources • Look at the information that drives safeguards • Introduce the State Level Concept (SLC). • Explain the safeguards objectives • Explain why it is important for safeguards to be objectives-driven • Look at what we get when we implement safeguards that are information driven and objectives based at the State Level.

3. What are our resource limitations • “Zero-real growth budgets” have been the norm for more than two decades (which is at least better than zero-nominal growth” some UN organisations faced.) • Size and complexity of facilities and the amounts of material subject to safeguards have grown substantially in that time. • Understanding of the Agency’s role has changed. • “Business-as-usual” not a viable approach – must adapt. • Adaptation requires intelligent uses of resources. • Safeguards implementation needs to change.

4. What “information” drives safeguards? • Safeguards have always been “information driven” (e.g. information on the nature of the facilities inspected, their inventories and operations schedules). • The IAEA now has a very wide range of additional information: • Information declared by the state (under CSA, AP, VRS etc); • Collected by inspectors (inspection, DIV, CSA, ES etc.); • Reported by third party states (e.g. AP export declarations); • Scientific, technical and engineering literature; • Trade data (including trade denials and export reports); • Satellite imagery (including verification of declared sites and investigation of possible undeclared sites); …..

5. What is the State Level Concept (SLC) • Information in isolation doesn’t convey meaning. • All information needs context in order to be interpreted. • The IAEA possesses a lot of information about States (declared, retrieved or discovered). • In essence the SLC aims for the optimum context to both examine and use this information. • Older form safeguards broke down information to the level of facilities and locations. • SLC aggregates information and examines it at the level of States.

6. What are safeguards objectives? The technical objective of safeguards is given in INFCIRC/153 – paragraph 28: The Agreement should provide that the objective of safeguards is the timely detection of diversion of significant quantities of nuclear material from peaceful nuclear activities to the manufacture of nuclear weapons or of other nuclear explosive devices or for purposes unknown, and deterrence of such diversionby the risk of early detection.

7. How are the objectives explicitly stated? Objective A – detect undeclared nuclear materials or activities. Objective B – detect undeclared production or processing of nuclear material. Objective C – detect diversion of declared nuclear material. Common – Follow-up on questions, discrepancies, anomalies and inconsistencies identified when performing activities necessary to meet the above objectives.

8. Why objectives based safeguards? • Safeguards criteria (SC) and State Level Approaches (SLA) are simply guidance for how to achieve safeguards objectives. • They are like a road-map to follow to get to a desired destination. • Contents of the SC or SLA do not give a “why” for a safeguards activity – they merely explain “what to do” or “how to do it”. • Objectives lie at the core of these issues – they are the “why” behind every safeguards activity.

9. Why are the objectives important? A clear understanding of the objective of a safeguards activity makes it possible to determine alternative means of achieving the same objective e.g.: • Do I need to physically visit a mine location or can the same objective be achieved by the use of imagery? • Does resolution of an anomaly require re-verification of the affected strata or can reference to an alternative information source achieve the same objective? • Is the explanation given by the State for an environmental sampling result sufficient or is further investigation required?

10. What are State Factors? State Factors (SF) are facts about a State that influence the implementation of safeguards in that state such as: • Is the nuclear infra-structure indigenous or dependent upon international suppliers (independent information)? • Is the electrical power grid integrated with the regional grids (independent information about reactor operation)? • Do atmospheric conditions favour the use of imagery? It is important to emphasise that SF are just relevant matters to consider when planning and implementing safeguards. They are not used to score or rank “good” or “bad” States.

11. State Level, information-based, objective-driven The Agency can significantly optimise resource usage if it is able to: • Use all of the information available from all-sources • Examine that information in the most appropriate State-level contexts (local, national, regional etc.) • On the basis of that information and appropriate State Factors, implement safeguards at the level of the State rather than atomistically at the facility and location level • Keep goals and objectives at the forefront of planning implementation to enable full consideration of alternatives.

12. State Level Concept • SLC is not a revolution but more of step in the evolution of safeguards implementation • Provides the best context in which to examine and use information available to the Agency • Provides opportunities to alternate means of achieving goals when planning with clear objectives • Provides opportunities to improve both the efficiency and the effectiveness of safeguards.