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Safeguards in wartime situation

Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on December 9 “The [NPT] safeguards agreement was not designed for wartime situations and therefore a new legal understanding is needed.” He said that articles 20–22 of the NPT safeguards agreement permit amendments in exceptional circumstances. 
        Let’s see what Kamalvandi referred to in INFCIRC/153. 
20. The Agreement should provide that the parties thereto shall, at the request of either, consult about any question arising out of the interpretation or application thereof. 
21. The Agreement should provide that the State shall have the right to request that any question arising out of the interpretation or application thereof be considered by the Board…
22. [procedure to deal with a dispute arising from a Board finding] 
        So, accepting that safeguards implementation under a ‘wartime situation’ is a ‘question arising out of the …application’ of Iran’s NPT safeguards agreement, para 20 calls for Iran and IAEA to consult, and para 21 allows for Iran to bring the matter to the IAEA Board, if they so decide. 
        It has been reported that Iran and IAEA have been consulting and hopefully are continuing to do so. Kamalvandi presented Iran’s view as follows: “When a country is attacked, it cannot be expected to immediately allow inspectors into damaged sites, because that could mean handing sensitive information to its enemies.” Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, has stated that “There must be a protocol in place for inspections of nuclear sites that have been attacked before permission can be given,” adding that attacks on safeguarded nuclear sites could happen to any country and that IAEA should clarify what procedures it has in place for such circumstances. 
        IAEA Director General Grossi recently said that “We are only allowed to access sites that were not hit,” which he called important but insufficient. “These other three sites – Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow … contain substantial amounts of nuclear material and equipment, and we need to return there.” 
        It was reported that IAEA has requested Iran to submit a ‘special report’, as provided in INFCIRC/153 para 68, “if any unusual incident or circumstances lead the State to believe that there is or may have been loss of nuclear material…” That special report should provide information on which the ‘protocol’ called for by Iran could be developed. 
        There is an urgent need for the IAEA Secretariat to propose an appropriate approach for the situation in Iran. In my view, inspections should not be suspended, but special measures to ensure confidentiality of inspection results (and the location of nuclear materials) are appropriate. 
        To follow up, the matter of safeguards in a wartime situation could be brought to the Board, following a careful Secretariat study that could involve Member State experts, perhaps through SAGSI or an experts committee.

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