Nuclear Commerce (PDF)

prevent such a possible transfer.
The United Nations Security Council in its 4956th meeting in April 2004 discussed further co-operation in the field of export controls and affirmed that the proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as their means of delivery, constitutes a threat to international peace and security. The conclusions made at this specific meeting will be further investigated at a later stage of this work. However, the preamble of the text states its support for the multilateral treaties already established in the context of nuclear proliferation and affirms the need for effective collectivistic actions.
A Security Council resolution is quite often a good indicator for what can be seen as of an urgent security matter. Legal frameworks established to prevent the above mentioned proliferation attempts, have only intermittently produced good results. The number of states which possess nuclear weapons has increased since the conclusion of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), but it has remained at a comparatively low level. With up to 40 countries possessing the technical know-how to produce nuclear weapons, this can indeed be seen as a qualified success. Nevertheless, the inequalities and loopholes within the existing treaties remain and are continuously causing debate. The new power equilibriums emerging in our world, with developing nations such as China and India on the rise, will mean that those treaties will have to be reexamined and possibly renegotiated. This point of debate will have to be postponed for a little while, though and for now, a look at the existing texts has top priority. The central authority for nuclear affairs, the IAEA will be the starting point thereof.

The International Atomic Energy Agency:

It will be the aim of this sub-chapter to bring to the readers’ attention what the agency that is frequently called the world’s nuclear watchdog, actually is, how it evolved, in which fields it is engaged and finally how its decisions are made. The way the IAEA works is crucial for the understanding of treaties and groups that will be discussed later on. This is especially true for the governments which operate under its umbrella, but through the results of the policies and guidelines issued, the whole market in turn is shaped. The exploration of this interdependence constitutes the basic motivation for this work.
The IAEA, according to its own definition, is an independent intergovernmental, science and technology-based organization and part of the United Nations family with the status of a related organization, which serves as the global focal point for nuclear cooperation. The 143 nations that have become members are a clear sign that there was and still is a wish for such an authority. In fact the IAEA authority has expanded over the years. Consequently, member states have willingly accepted its role in fields as important as issues related to the nuclear arms race, an area that is not included in the statute. The history and the start of the evolution of the IAEA can all be tracked down to one important event in the past.

The Atoms for Peace speech:

The circumstances of the time during and after WW II shaped the idea for and the intention of the speech delivered by the then American President Dwight D. Eisenhower before the UN General Assembly on 8th December 1953. Particularly the famous series of four Einstein letters sent to President Roosevelt between 1939 and 1945, indicating the need for a coordinated government policy approach, has created new dynamics in the process. Already during the development of the nuclear bomb, there were major concerns about possible proliferation leaks within the system. For this reason the Manhattan project was kept at such a high security level that not even Vice-President Truman was informed about is establishment. However, it was at this time that the world saw or rather did not see its first nuclear proliferation accord, a secret agreement concluded in Quebec 1943 between the closest war allies, namely the United States, Great Britain and Canada. The main aim was not to communicate any atomic information or share any sensitive technology with third parties without mutual consent.
The measures were successful and prevented a dissemination of crucial data about the undertaking. As a result of their efforts, the Americans managed to build the first nuclear bomb and consequently, after destroying the two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, finally won the Pacific war. This did not solve the nuclear dilemma however. A commission was established to design an international control plan. The result of it was the Acheson-Lilienthal report which recognized the interchangeability and interdependence of atomic energy and atomic weaponry and concluded that trust in other countries should not be of an implicit nature, as even a primarily peaceful program could be used to construct nuclear weaponry. This version was revised under the proctorship of Bernard Baruch and was presented to the United Nations in June 1946. The plan known as Baruch-Plan suggested the following arrangements and thereby established the basis for many strategies which are still being followed today:

-international managerial control or ownership of all potentially dangerous atomic energy activities,
-an international organization which would have the power to control, license, and inspect all peaceful atomic energy activities,
-an international organization which would have the duty of fostering the beneficial uses of atomic energy,
-an organization which would perform research and development tasks in order to keep it in the technical vanguard of atomic energy, so as to enable it to recognize misuse of atomic energy.

However, the Soviet Union rejected the proposal due to irreconcilable differences between the parties and therefore negotiations ceased. The US reaction of implementing a rigid system of export controls and buying up all available uranium and thorium in order to restrict worldwide proliferation ultimately could not be kept up continuously. The Soviet Union had caught up in the development of their nuclear capabilities and was also about to catch up on its ability to manufacture weapons grade uranium. The change of thought in the US was incorporated in the Atoms for Peace Speech and formed the starting point for the first successful international agreement to control the spread of nuclear weapons. The vision presented was not a disarmament plan but much rather a way to exploit the peaceful use of nuclear technology. The corner stones were to:

-encourage a global study of the most beneficial uses of atomic energy for peaceful purposes,
-foster the view that the spread of nuclear weapons could be contained more appropriately by international cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy under an international safeguards system, and
-reduce the destructive capacity of the existing nuclear weapon stockpiles and promote positive dialogue on the central issues confronting humankind.

The response to the speech was considerable. The subsequent institution of the IAEA, but also the greater emphasis on the positive aspects of nuclear power, meant a reform of the way the topic was handled. Even though the agency did not come into life exactly as planned in the speech, mostly due to political reasons, it was this set of ideas which still reflect the agency’s fundamental ambitions