Nuclear Issues

7 Items

Report - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

Plutonium Mountain: Inside the 17-Year Mission to Secure a Legacy of Soviet Nuclear Testing

| August 15, 2013

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.

Presentation

The Evolution of the IAEA: Using Nuclear Crises as Windows of Opportunity (or Not)

| March 13, 2013

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.

Report - Centre for International Governance Innovation

Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA

| June 2012

This report marks the culmination of a two-year research project that examined all aspects of the mandate and operations of the International Atomic Energy Agency, from major programs on safeguards, safety, security, and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy to governance, management, and finance.

May 27, 2011: IAEA fact-finding team members visit the emergency diesel generator at Reactor Unit 6 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Okuma, Japan. The generator was the only one to survive the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

AP Photo

Presentation

The IAEA and Fukushima: Best Laid Plans, Reality Checks, and Doing It Better Next Time

| March 29, 2012

Professor Findlay analyzed the response of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the March 2011 nuclear reactor disaster at Fukushima, Japan. He compared the expectations that the Agency, its member states, and other nuclear stakeholders had of the IAEA's role in such a situation with the harsh reality. Drawing on these insights, he suggested possibilities for strengthening the Agency's capacities for handling the next Fukushima.

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Yukiya Amano of Japan delivers a speech at the beginning of the general conference of the IAEA, at the International Center in Vienna, Austria, Sept. 19, 2011.

AP Photo

Presentation

Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the International Atomic Energy Agency

| October 25, 2011

Professor Findlay presented preliminary findings of his research on how the paramount global governance body in the nuclear field is fulfilling its mandate and how it might be strengthened and reformed. While addressing the confounding political and structural constraints under which the International Atomic Energy Agency operates, the main focus of the talk was on steps that the Agency itself can take to improve its performance.

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Paper - Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Iran's Nuclear Activities: What Might the IAEA Learn?

| Dec. 23, 2002

"Satellite photos published last week showed two sites in Iran that might house a civilian energy program and/or a nuclear weapons program. To determine exactly what purpose these sites serve would require an on-site inspection. Yet, inspections performed by international regulatory agencies are bound by certain limitations. What are the chances that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the organization responsible for verifying compliance to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), will detect clandestine nuclear activities in these two sites or elsewhere in Iran?"