Nuclear Issues

Nuclear safety governance should move towards a more robust regime including elements of international monitoring and verification. This is needed because nuclear energy production is likely to grow and new reactors will have different global dispersal, veering towards less experienced countries. In addition, there is growing interest in international and multilateral collaboration on disposal of mounting nuclear waste.

Despite the nuclear accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant in Japan, a growing number of countries are interested in expanding or introducing nuclear energy. However, nuclear energy production and nuclear waste disposal give rise to pressing ethical questions that society needs to face. This book takes up this challenge with essays by an international team of scholars focusing on the key issues of risk, justice and democracy. The essays consider a range of ethical issues including radiological protection, the influence of gender in the acceptability of nuclear risk, and environmental, international and intergenerational justice in the context of nuclear energy

MTA/ISP Research Fellow Behnam Taebi and former Research Fellow and Associate Kathleen Araújo explore lessons learned from early adopters of consent-based processes in nuclear waste decisions. They argue, whatever waste sites are evaluated, public consent must more fully be taken into account for there to be any chance of durable buy-in.

The decision of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to categorically ban Iranians was not only gross discrimination, but also a violation of academic freedom. A similar policy was adopted in the Netherlands a few years ago and later rebuked by the Dutch Supreme Court. Universities must remain open to people from all races, religions, and nationalities.

"Most Iranians don't care about the right to enrich. Nor do they care how many centrifuges spin in their country. Most are not able to say how many centrifuges are currently operating, or what they think a reasonable number would be in a comprehensive deal. But many Iranians do feel that their country is being treated differently and unfairly by the international community, led by the West."

The Belfer Center’s Eben Harrell and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David E. Hoffman for the first time report the details of one of the largest nuclear security operations of the post-Cold War years — a  secret 17-year, $150 million operation to secure plutonium in the tunnels of Degelen Mountain.

"Although China has every intention of continuing nuclear energy development, in the aftermath of Fukushima it has approved a number of plans to enhance safety standards. All of them emphasize that the pace of growth should be controlled to minimize risk."

This seminar considered how the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reacted to nuclear crises. The IAEA often appears not just to have weathered such crises, but to have successfully leaped through windows of opportunity presented by them. This has resulted in periodic expansions of its mandate, capabilities, and resources. The 2011 Fukushima disaster appears to be a puzzling exception, raising the question of what concatenation of factors needs to be present for the IAEA to take advantage of nuclear crises.

Published along with the report Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA — the result of more than two years of research  and examining all aspects of the Agency's mandate and operations — this policy brief summarizes the report's key findings and policy recommendations for strengthening and reforming the IAEA.