A Cutoff in the Production of Fissile Material

ProductionOf IT h e United Nations Oleg Bukharin, Harold Feiveson,and Conference on Disarmament (CD)in Geneva is now considering a convention to prohibit the production of fissile material for weapons. While the UN General Assembly has consistently supported resolutions calling for such a cutoff' since 1978, the recent discussions are principally the result of a proposal by President Clinton on September 27, 1993, for a "multilateral convention prohibiting the production of highly enriched uranium or plutonium for nuclear explosive purposes or outside of international safeguards."2 ("International safeguards" refers to verification measures by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEAI to assure that nuclear material is not being used for weapons or other explosive purposes.) Such a convention would allow states which already have stocks of unsafeguarded fissile material to maintain them outside of safeguards, but it would allow future production of fissile material only if the material is safeguarded. Besides the cutoff of production of fissile material, the international community is grappling with other major nonproliferation initiatives. These include determining the terms of extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),which must be decided upon at the NPT Extension Conference scheduled to begin in April 1995; negotiating a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT);preventing states with suspect commitmentsto non-proliferation, such as North Korea, from acquiring nuclear weapons; insuring that the large Frans Berkhout is at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex; Oleg Bukharin and Harold Feiveson are at the Program on Nuclear Policy Alternatives of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Princeton University; and Marvin Miller is at the Department of Nuclear Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The authors wish to acknowledge contributions by Liu Yong, now at the Union of Concerned Scientists,Edwin Lyman of the Program on Nuclear Policy Alternatives, and Shen Dingli of Fudan University. 1. United Nations General Assembly, "General and Complete Disarmament: Prohibitions of the Production of FissionableMaterial for Weapons Purposes," First Committee, Agenda item 71 (c), 48th Session, November 8, 1993, New York. 2. United Nations, September 27,1993, text in New York Times,September 28,1993,p. A16. See also "Nonproliferation and Export Control Policy," Fact Sheet, The White House, September 27, 1993. The United States also stated that it wished to "encourage more restrictive arrangements to constrain fissile material production in regions of instability and high proliferation risk." International Security, Winter 1994/95 (Vol. 19, No. 31, pp. 167-202 0 1995by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 167 International Security 19:3 1 168 amounts of fissile material recovered from nuclear weapons being dismantled in the United Statesand Russia are secured and disposed of safely; implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention; and strengthening the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention. Unfortunately, in this crowded agenda, negotiations on a fissile cutoff are in danger of being pushed onto a very slow track. A cutoff is central to any effective international effort to minimize the accessibility of weapons-usable fissile materials to states, terrorist groups, and black marketeers. No task is more urgent. The nuclear weapon states have accumulated over 250 tons of weapon-grade plutonium and 1500 tons of highlyenriched uranium. Although much of this material is incorporated into nuclear warheads, substantial amounts in other diverse forms are spread throughout the nuclear weapons production complexes of the nuclear states. The leakage of even the smallest fraction of this material could have catastrophic consequences .The dangers are most vividly illustrated by recent seizuresby German authorities of plutonium possibly smuggled out of the former Soviet Union and targeted for sale on the black market.3 The highest priority must be to place the existing weapons-usable materials under stringent control, and eventually under international safeguards. But measures to do this will be undermined if they are not accompanied by an agreed cutoff on future production of unsafeguarded weapons-usablematerials and by the submission of all potential production facilities to international verification. Unless the flows of new unsafeguarded weapons-usable material can be staunched, the development of comprehensiveand effective systems for the control and accounting of such materials will be virtually impossible to achieve. Overall,a cutoff would make irreversiblethe drawdown of nuclear weapons...