Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
1/10/2014
Countries around the world are making progress in securing nuclear material within their borders, according to a report released this week by the Nuclear Threat Initiative that continued to push for a global system governing all nuclear materials. The report, released in advance of the third Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands in March, noted that seven countries since NTI released its first Nuclear Materials Security Index in 2012 had given up their nuclear materials, lowering the list of countries with more than one kilogram of weapons-usable material to 25.
However, the report notes that “much work remains to be done” in the effort to secure nuclear material around the world, highlighting the lack of an international system and deficiencies among some of the 25 countries that continue to maintain quantities of nuclear material. “Dangerous problems and challenges remain,” said former Senator Sam Nunn, the Co-Chairman of NTI. “The NTI Index underscores that we must develop an effective and accountable global system for how nuclear materials should be secured. This job is far from achieved, and must be on the global front burner.”
Nunn: Strengthen IAEA
Nunn said the ideal situation would be strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency to give it more authority and a clearer mandate for nuclear security. He noted that there are international regulations for civil aviation that are in place to protect the public, and he suggested a similar system for nuclear security should be created. “If the same standard was used in civil aviation as is used in protecting nuclear materials, there’d be very few of us that would feel comfortable getting on an airplane,” he said.
The index predictably singles out North Korea, Iran, India, and Pakistan as having the worst commitment to nuclear security, ranking the countries as the four worst on the index, though it lauded Pakistan for updating its nuclear security regulations. Australia retained the top spot among the 25 countries with more than one kilogram of weapons-usable material, improving its score from 90 to 92 on the index’s 100-point scale by scaling back the amount of nuclear materials it possesses and ratifying a key international treaty that criminalizes nuclear terrorism.
U.S. Drops to 11th on Index
Belgium, Canada, and Japan made the most strides since 2012, while the United States dropped a point because it hasn’t ratified two key treaties—the Convention for the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism—and has excluded a key nuclear facility from international inspection. It was tied with the United Kingdom at 11th on the index. Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, Sweden, Ukraine, and Vietnam were recognized for giving up their nuclear materials over the last two years.
NTI officials noted that the Nuclear Security Summit process has helped jumpstart work on nuclear security around the world, and they were hopeful that more progress could be realized at the 2014 summit coming up in March in the Netherlands. “Clearly, we are still lacking the global will to tackle this challenge with the urgency it deserves,” NTI President Joan Rohlfing said. “Even as we make progress, the job remains far from complete. Every few weeks, we read news about nuclear security incidents around the world. We learned just last week about an Indian terrorist organization seeking a nuclear weapon from sympathetic Pakistani sources, and reportedly being told by the source, ‘Anything is possible.’ “
