• While the IAEA is not a party to the NPT, it is entrusted with key verification responsibilities deriving from the Treaty.
• The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to foster the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of disarmament.
• The Treaty establishes a safeguards system under the responsibility of the IAEA, which also plays a central role under the Treaty in areas of technology transfer for peaceful purposes.
• Under the treaty, the IAEA has specific roles as the international safeguards inspectorate and as a multilateral channel for transferring peaceful applications of nuclear technology.
• NPT Article III: The IAEA administers international safeguards to verify that non-nuclear weapon States party to the NPT fulfill the non-proliferation commitment they have made, "with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."
• NPT Article IV: The Agency facilitates and provides a channel for endeavours aimed at "the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world."
• In practical terms, the IAEA is the agency that is involved in the verification of nuclear-weapon-free zones and ex-nuclear weapon material.
• The NPT entered into force in 1970. With over 190 Parties, it is the most widely adhered to treaty in the field of non-proliferation and disarmament.
• Under the NPT, non-nuclear-weapon States parties commit themselves not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices while nuclear-weapon States parties commit not to in any way assist, encourage or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State party to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
• Nuclear-weapon States parties under the Treaty are defined as those that manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device before 1 January 1967, which includes the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China.
• Four other states are known or believed to possess nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, and North Korea have openly tested and declared that they possess nuclear weapons, while Israel is deliberately ambiguous regarding its nuclear weapons status. India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and South Sudan are not parties to NPT.

When does the IAEA come into play?

• The IAEA serves as an intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology and nuclear power worldwide.
• The programs of the IAEA encourage the development of the peaceful applications of nuclear technology, provide international safeguards against misuse of nuclear technology and nuclear materials, and promote nuclear safety (including radiation protection) and nuclear security standards and their implementation.
• The mandate of the Agency involves five inter-related tasks:
• to act as a catalyst for the scientific community and as a hub for state-of-the-art technology;
• to act as a centre for the transfer of nuclear technologies so as to ensure their accessibility to Member States in general, and to developing countries in particular;
• to assist Member States to make informed and appropriate choices concerning the energy mix by conducting comparative assessments of nuclear and other technologies;
• to strive for the highest level of safety in all areas of the use of nuclear energy; and
• to assure, through its verification system, that pledges to use nuclear energy exclusively for peaceful purposes are fulfilled - that is, the role of "nuclear watchdog".
• The IAEA is generally described as having three main missions
• Peaceful uses: According to Article II of the IAEA Statute, the objective of the IAEA is "to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world."
• Its primary functions in this area, according to Article III, are to encourage research and development, to secure or provide materials, services, equipment and facilities for Member States, to foster exchange of scientific and technical information and training.
• Safeguards: Article II of the IAEA Statute defines the Agency's twin objectives as promoting peaceful uses of atomic energy and "ensuring, so far as it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose."
• To do this, IAEA is authorised "to establish and administer safeguards designed to ensure that special fissionable and other materials, services, equipment, facilities, and information made available by the Agency or at its request or under its supervision or control are not used in such a way as to further any military purpose; and to apply safeguards, at the request of the parties, to any bilateral or multilateral arrangement, or at the request of a State, to any of that State's activities in the field of atomic energy."
• Nuclear safety: The IAEA classifies safety as one of its top three priorities.
• The IAEA itself says that, beginning in 1986, in response to the nuclear reactor explosion and disaster near Chernobyl, Ukraine, it redoubled its efforts in the field of nuclear safety.

• The IAEA has no enforcement authority and compliance with IAEA inspections is voluntary; the United Nations Security Council must mandate enforcement actions.
• Scientists also criticize the fact that IAEA leadership is composed of former civil servants or diplomats rather than scientists.
• Despite an expert staff of scientists, political forces have sometimes thwarted IAEA inspectors.
• IAEA has suffered notable failures, including the discovery of Iraqi nuclear weapons development facilities in the early 1990s after declarations by the then IAEA chief, Hans Blix, that Iraq had no viable nuclear weapons program.
• The IAEA monitors selected industrial processes, namely enrichment plants, fuel-fabrication facilities, and reprocessing facilities; but military nuclear materials are not tracked by the IAEA.
• Accordingly, the civil inventories of the largest nuclear-power states (i.e., the United States, United Kingdom, China, France, and Russia) are not subject to IAEA safeguards.
• Approximately 24 tons of weapon-grade plutonium and uranium - less than 1% of the world stock - is safeguarded by the IAEA.
• Although a small percentage, this material is critical because it could produce hundreds of nuclear weapons.
• Moreover, intelligence experts consider the IAEA monitored sites to be among those sites most vulnerable to potential diversion of nuclear materials.
• Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreev is critical of the response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011 in Japan, and says that the IAEA did not learn from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
• He has accused the IAEA and corporations of "willfully ignoring lessons from the world's worst nuclear accident 25 years ago to protect the industry's expansion”.
• The IAEA's role "as an advocate for nuclear power” has made it a target for protests”.
• The journal Nature has reported that the IAEA response to the Fukushima I nuclear accidents in Japan was "sluggish and sometimes confusing", drawing calls for the agency to "take a more proactive role in nuclear safety".
• But nuclear experts say that the agency's complicated mandate and the constraints imposed by its member states mean that reforms will not happen quickly or easily, although its INES emergency scale is very likely to be revisited given the confusing way in which it was used in Japan.
• Some scientists say that the 2011 Japanese nuclear accident (Fukushima) revealed that the nuclear industry lacks sufficient oversight, leading to renewed calls to redefine the mandate of the IAEA so that it can better police nuclear power plants worldwide.
• The IAEA recommends safety standards, but member states are not required to comply; it promotes nuclear energy, but it also monitors nuclear use; it is the sole global organisation overseeing the nuclear energy industry, yet it is also weighed down by checking compliance with the NPT.
• Nature has also stated that “the world must strengthen the ability of the International Atomic Energy Agency to make independent assessments of nuclear safety" and that "the public would be better served by an IAEA more able to deliver frank and independent assessments of nuclear crises as they unfold".
• The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was an energy accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima (Japan), initiated primarily by the tsunami following the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011.
• Immediately after the earthquake, the active reactors automatically shut down their sustained fission reactions.
• However, the tsunami disabled the emergency generators that would have provided power to control and operate the pumps necessary to cool the reactors.
• The insufficient cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns, hydrogen-air explosions, and the release of radioactive material in Units 1, 2, and 3 from 12 March to 15 March.
• Loss of cooling also caused the pool for storing spent fuel from Reactor 4 to overheat on 15 March due to the decay heat from the fuel rods.
• The Fukushima disaster was the most significant nuclear incident since April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl disaster and the second disaster to be given the Level 7 event classification of the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).
• INES was introduced in 1990 by IAEA in order to enable prompt communication of safety-significant information in case of nuclear accidents.
• The scale is intended to be logarithmic, similar to the moment magnitude scale that is used to describe the comparative magnitude of earthquakes.
• There are seven nonzero levels on the INES scale: three incident-levels and four accident-levels. There is also a level 0.

Who have been at the receiving end of IAEA action?

• Following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union (now Ukraine) IAEA inspectors and technical teams helped stabilize the damaged reactor. IAEA continued its role at Chernobyl to include the ongoing decommissioning of the facility. IAEA inspectors took a lead role in controversial inspections programs in Iraq, North Korea and Iran.
• In 1991, IAEA's Iraq Action Team began inspecting suspect sites in Iraq under U.N. Security Council mandate.
• IAEA's mandate in Iraq was two-fold: uncover and dismantle Iraq's clandestine nuclear program, and manage an ongoing monitoring and verification plan (OMV).
• Prior to the invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led Coalition forces in March 2003, Mohamed El Baradei, the then Director General of IAEA, reported to the U.N. that Iraq had apparently been unable to successfully reconstitute its nuclear weapons program following its destruction and dismantling in the early 1990s.
• IAEA inspectors have been consistently frustrated in their attempts to deal with North Korea. In 1999, IAEA officials reported to the United Nations Security Council that "critical parts" of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon had been unaccounted for since 1994.
• Missing parts included those needed to control nuclear reactions and/or those that would be needed to construct another nuclear reactor.
• Special requests for inspections continued to be rejected by North Korea and in April 1993, the IAEA reissued its early 1990s ruling that North Korea was in "non-compliance" with its agreements regarding nuclear inspection and safeguards.
• IAEA inspectors further concluded that their limited inspections could not provide "meaningful assurance" that North Korea was using its nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes (e.g., only for energy generation or authorized research).
• Of course, North Korea went on to successfully produce nuclear weapons and earn a seat at the negotiation table with the United States.
• Concerned that Iran was attempting to accelerate its nuclear programs in such a way as to facilitate nuclear weapon development, in late 2002, IAEA inspectors requested additional access to inspect Iranian facilities.
• IAEA requests were initially denied. In February 2003, however, IAEA inspectors, including IAEA chief inspector El Baradei were permitted to visit several new nuclear sites in Iran.
• Since 1993, the IAEA has reported more than 400 cases of trafficking in nuclear materials.
• While 18 cases involved plutonium or weapons-grade uranium, most cases involved low-level medical and industrial radioactive waste, the kind used in dirty bombs.
• In recent years, the IAEA has played a commendable role in the forging of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
• Known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA is an international agreement on the nuclear program of Iran reached in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States — plus Germany), and the European Union. As requested by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the IAEA is verifying and monitoring Iran’s implementation of its nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA.
• Former President Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to withdraw the United States from the JCPOA, which lifted international sanctions against Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, left the 2015 accord hanging dangerously in the balance.
• In retaliation, Iran has now crossed past limits of uranium enrichment set out in the accord. European leaders scrambled to keep the accord intact – and are still trying to revive the JCPOA under the current President, Joe Biden.
• Iran insists that it is a member of NPT and conducts its nuclear activities in accordance with IAEA regulations.
• Despite all the reports of the IAEA which approved Iran’s adherence to its commitments, Trump pulled his country out of the deal and unilaterally imposed harshest sanctions against Iran in defiance of the international law.
• This was a blow to the IAEA’s credibility as well. International monitors are watching Iran’s fast-expanding nuclear program with growing alarm, as Tehran refuses to extend an expired inspections pact and insists the experts must trust that it’s accurately documenting uranium-enrichment activities.
• It may sound incredulous now, but Iranian’s nuclear technology began in the 1970s, when the U.S. Atoms for Peace program began providing assistance to Iran, which was then led by the Shah of Iran.
• Iran signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1968 as a non-nuclear weapons state and ratified the NPT in 1970.
• In 1979, the Iranian Revolution took place, and Iran's nuclear program, which had developed some baseline capacity, fell to disarray as "much of Iran's nuclear talent fled the country in the wake of the Revolution."
• Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was initially opposed to nuclear technology; and Iran engaged in a costly war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988. Iran restarted its nuclear program in the late 80s, with assistance from Pakistan (which entered into a bilateral agreement with Iran in 1992), China (which did the same in 1990), and Russia (which did the same in 1992 and 1995), and from the A.Q. Khan network.

• The world's first nuclear weapons were tested on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico, when the United States tested its first nuclear bomb. Less than three weeks later, the world changed.
• On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
• It killed or wounded nearly 130,000 people.
• Three days later, the United States bombed Nagasaki - of the 286,000 people living there at the time of the blast, 74,000 were killed and another 75,000 sustained severe injuries. Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945; it resulted in the end of World War II.
• In subsequent years, the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom conducted several nuclear weapons tests.
• In 1954, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India called for a ban on nuclear testing. It was the first large-scale initiative to ban using nuclear technology for mass destruction.
• In 1958, nearly 10,000 scientists presented to United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold a petition that begged, “We deem it imperative that immediate action be taken to effect an international agreement to stop testing of all nuclear weapons.” France exploded its first nuclear device in 1960 and China entered the "nuclear arms club" in October 1964 when it conducted its first test.
• The United States, Soviet Union and some sixty other countries signed NPT to seek the ends of the nuclear arms race and promote disarmament on July 1, 1968.
• The treaty bars nuclear weapons states from propagating weapons to other states and prohibits states without nuclear weapons to develop or acquire nuclear arsenal.
• It permits the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It entered into force in 1970 and was extended indefinitely and unconditionally on May 11, 1995.
• In 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test: a subterranean explosion of a nuclear device (not weapon). India declared it to be a "peaceful" test, but it announced to the world that India had the scientific know-how to build a bomb.
• At this time, the five declared nuclear weapons states were the USA, USSR, UK, France and China. In December 1986, The South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone was put into effect.
• American and North Korean delegations met in Geneva in autumn 1994 to establish a framework to resolve nuclear issues in the Korean peninsula.
• Though North Korea became a party to NPT, it withdrew in 2003, blaming US aggression for its decision.
• The country’s nuclear program is moving ahead at a brisk pace today.
• The United Nations, on December 12, 1995, decreed an immediate ban on all nuclear testing and urged disarmament with the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.
• Later that month, ten Southeast Asian countries signed the Bangkok Treaty, establishing the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. In spring 1996, 43 African nations signed the Pelindaba Treaty establishing the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone.
• On September 10, 1996, the United Nations, in a landslide vote, adopted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and two weeks later, the United States was the first to sign it. (The U.S. Senate, however, rejected the treaty three years later.)
• On May 11, 1998, India shocked the world by exploding three nuclear devices amounting to about six times the destructive power of the American bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The next day, it tested two more nuclear explosions.
• The world was stunned again when Pakistan responded with six nuclear tests of its own.
• The U.S. imposed strict economic sanctions against both countries and lobbied for the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other countries to do the same.
• The sanctions were lifted in 2001 when the U.S. needed Pakistan and India's support to fight al Qaeda and other terrorist cells in Afghanistan.
• In 2002, American President George W. Bush named Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as the Axis of Evil, in part due to U.S. suspicions of those countries having weapons of mass destruction.
• On October 9, 2006, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon with the approximated power of the Hiroshima bomb. North Korea announced to the world that it has become the world's eighth declared nuclear weapons state.
• The United States is the only country to have missiles with range long enough to attack any target on earth, but over thirty countries have unmanned planes that are undetected by missile defense systems, and can carry nuclear, biological or other weapons of mass destruction.
• The world has enough nuclear bombs to destroy itself many times over.