Strategic Assessment

Every state that is a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is obligated to conclude a safeguards (verification) agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Following the Gulf War, and largely because of the previously undetected facilities and activities that were discovered in Iraq, the traditional form for this agreement was deemed inadequate. The IAEA then proceeded to draft a more comprehensive agreement form, the so-called Additional Protocol. Among other measures, the Additional Protocol requires the states to provide many new details in their declarations to the IAEA, enhances the access rights of the inspectors, and allows additional permissible technologies for the implementation of verification.