Nuclear Issues

Like its predecessor summits, the recently concluded Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague acknowledged the role that nuclear material accounting can play in securing materials from unauthorized use. The emphasis of this and past initiatives, however, has been on improving national laws and regulations—and primarily in states without nuclear weapons. States have yet to develop comprehensive requirements that address the full scope of nuclear risks and that are meant to be adopted by all states—including nuclear weapons states.

The most significant achievement to emerge from the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit was a pledge by 35 countries to observe the terms of a joint agreement, known as Strengthening Nuclear Security Implementation. This document committed the signatories to incorporate the principles and guidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding nuclear security into their national laws, and to allow teams of international experts to periodically evaluate their security procedures. Promoted strongly by the chairs of all three nuclear summits—the United States, South Korea, and the Netherlands— the 2014 initiative is an important step towards creating a robust global security system designed to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

Since the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, Centers of Excellence have been recognized as an important part of the global nuclear security architecture. Centers of Excellence serve as a mechanism for ensuring individuals, whether facility managers, regulatory staff, scientists, engineers, or technicians, are trained on a wide number of important nuclear security issues. These centers focus on the important “human factor” of the global effort to secure nuclear material.

The tragic news Wednesday about the shooting at Fort Hood highlights again the importance of protecting against insiders.  In the nuclear world, all of the genuine thefts of plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU) appear to have been perpetrated by insiders or with the help of insiders.

In what one Dutch official called the “most important deliverable from the Summit,” thirty-five nations, led by the host governments of the Nuclear Security Summits in Washington, Seoul, and The Hague, announced today their commitment to strengthen nuclear security implementation.

In the lead-up to the nuclear security summit, Advancing Nuclear Security: Evaluating Progress and Setting New Goals outlines what was accomplished in a four-year effort launched in 2009 to secure nuclear material around the globe—and what remains to be done. The effort made significant progress, but some weapons-usable nuclear materials still remain “dangerously vulnerable." The authors highlight the continuing danger of nuclear and radiological terrorism and call for urgent action.

Next month, top leaders from over 50 countries will meet at the 2014 Hague Nuclear Security Summit.  The leaders’ fundamental goal remains to prevent nuclear terrorism by implementing effective security at all sites that store or process nuclear weapons or fissile materials, or which operate nuclear reactors.

Each year, the Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School welcomes new pre- and post-doctoral fellows and visiting researchers to a select team of scholars exploring the critical role that science and technology play in everyday life.

Through structured interviews and a literature review, we assess which approaches to protection against insider thefts in the casino and pharmaceutical industries could be usefully applied to strengthen protections against insider theft in the nuclear industry, where insider thefts could have very high consequences.

This paper analyzes the contribution that best practices can make to the field of nuclear security by doing the following:

• Defining what is meant by best practice
• Specifying a methodology for deriving it
• Understanding the resulting characteristics of the method
• Comparing its pros and cons to other methods contributing to security, such as guidelines and regulations