Abstract
The chapter addresses the post-Cold War opportunities for non-proliferation and multilateral arms control negotiations. The author analyses the new verification technologies, mechanisms, and procedures at our disposal to ensure compliance with the obligations undertaken by sovereign states. Special emphasis is also placed on the “democratization” of verification, that is, on the important role that civil society, non-governmental organizations, academia and think tanks, and the media can have in combating the spread of nuclear weapons and promoting their complete elimination.
Originally published in Alessandro Pascolini and Dieter Schroeer, eds., The Weapons Legacy of the Cold War (Aldershot: Ashgate-Dartmouth, 1997): 147–162.
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Notes
- 1.
United Nations, Verification in All its Aspects: Study on the Role of the UN in the Field of Verification (New York: UN General Assembly A/45/372, 28 August 1990).
- 2.
Michael Herman, “Intelligence and Arms Control Verification,” in Verification Report 1991, ed. John B. Poole (New York: The Apex Press for VERTIC, 1991): 187.
- 3.
Article 10 of the United States Draft of the CWC, Conference on Disarmament Document CD/500, Geneva, 1984.
- 4.
Sidney N. Graybeal, United States Commissioner to the United States-Soviet Union Standing Consultative Commission, 1973–7, quoted in Richard A. Scribner, Theodore J. Ralston, and William D. Metz, The Verification Challenge: Promise and Problems of Strategic Nuclear Arms Control Verification (Boston, MA: Birkhauser, 1985): 21.
- 5.
See, for example, Gordon M. Burck, “The Chemical Weapons Convention Negotiations,” in Verification Report 1992, eds. John B. Poole and Richard Guthrie (London: VERTIC, 1992): 126–128.
- 6.
Dennis Sammut, “The CSCE and Russian Peacekeeping,” in Verification 1995: Arms Control, Peacekeeping and the Environment, eds. John B. Poole and Richard Guthrie, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press for VERTIC, 1995): 291.
- 7.
John Lanchbery, “Reviewing the Implementation of Biodiversity Agreements,” in Verification 1995, 330.
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Appendix: Treaties and Technologies
Appendix: Treaties and Technologies
Non-Proliferation Treaty
IAEA safeguards , based on IAEA Information Circular 153 (Vienna, IAEA, 1972), designed to detect the loss of a “significant quantity” of nuclear material within a “conversion time.”
Significant quantities are plutonium : 8 kg; HEU: 25 kg; LEU: 75 kg; uranium-233: 8 kg.
Conversion times are: plutonium: 7–10 days; HEU: 7–10 days; oxides: 1–3 weeks; nitrates: 1–3 weeks; spent fuel: 1–3 months; LEU : 12 months; natural uranium: 12 months.
Nuclear weapons states do not have to accept safeguards.
Verification is carried out by on-site inspections, data verification and locks, seals and recording equipment.
IAEA membership is not the same as NPT membership.
“93+2” Strengthened Safeguards
Environmental sampling is a powerful tool for detecting traces of material. It is done in two ways: bulk sampling which allows the presence of illegal quantities to be detected but does not always provide a “smoking gun;” and particle sampling which allows tiny traces of illegal material to be detected unambiguously and thus does provide a “smoking gun.”
Export Controls
Zangger Committee (nuclear technologies); London Suppliers Club (nuclear technologies); Australia Group (chemical technologies); Wassenaar Agreement (conventional technologies); Missile Technology Control Regime (missile technologies).
Trigger lists; common export controls; reliance on sharing intelligence.
Nuclear Test Monitoring
Seismic detection; radioactive debris monitoring; hydro-acoustic detection; infrasound detection; on-site inspections; aerial over-flight; satellite images;
data transmission; international data centres; remote sensing satellites.
Nuclear Weapon Reductions (INF and START)
On-site inspections; national technical means (particularly satellites) ; radiation detectors; imaging techniques; seals; linear measuring devices; portal perimeter monitoring; infra-red profiler; x-ray cargo scanner; closed-circuit television.
Chemical Weapons Convention
Sampling equipment—leak-proof; portable analytic equipment; x-ray equipment; ultrasonic equipment; mobile mass spectroscopy; real-time x-ray fluorescence; protective clothing/masks; tags, seals, locks; data transmission; laboratory analysis; gas-liquid chromatography; high-performance liquid chromatography; mass-selective detectors; infra-red spectroscopy; nuclear magnetic resonance; mass spectroscopy; neutron activation analysis.
Open Skies
Cameras, 30 cm resolution; video recorders, 30 cm resolution; sideways-looking synthetic aperture radar (SAR) , 3 m resolution; infra-red line-scanning devices, 50 cm resolution.
Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and Stockholm Accord
Training: language, and so on; binoculars; tape recorders; communication equipment;
cameras—still and video; helicopters for overflying exercises and CFE sites.
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Lewis, P. (2018). The New Verification Game and Technologies at Our Disposal. In: Foradori, P., Giacomello, G., Pascolini, A. (eds) Arms Control and Disarmament. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62259-0_18
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