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Sharing the Atom, a special podcast from the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and Argonne National Laboratory, takes you on a journey from the discovery of nuclear fission to the development of global commitments and systems to also use that discovery for good.
Sharing the Atom tells the story of how world leaders came together to develop a political and legal framework that enables the pursuit of nuclear technologies for peaceful use and how that framework is needed more than ever today.
At the center of this story is an international treaty: The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. Though seen by some as primarily a measure to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to hasten nuclear disarmament, the treaty also created the economic and security conditions for countries to access nuclear technologies for use in agriculture, energy, industry, and, of course, medicine. As demand for various peaceful uses of nuclear technology increases in response to numerous global challenges, the NPT is as relevant as ever in supporting a peaceful and prosperous world.
Voices included in the series: Ghanaian Ambassador Kwaku Aning, Canadian Ambassador John Barrett, Former Canadian official Jim Casterton, Dutch Ambassador Piet de Klerk, Brazilian Ambassador Sérgio Duarte, Doctor Guiseppe Esposito, NNSA Associate Deputy Administrator Rich Goorevich, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, Former U.S. official Lisa Hilliard, NNSA Assistant Deputy Administrator Corey Hinderstein, U.S. Ambassador Laura Holgate, Former President of Urenco USA, Inc.; current NNSA Assistant Associate Deputy Administrator Melissa Mann, ABACC Secretary General Marco Marzo, Former Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz, Nigerian Ambassador Charles Oko, Former Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman, Author Richard Rhodes, NNSA Deputy Administrator Frank Rose, Former IAEA official Laura Rockwood, Economist Geoffrey Rothwell, Scholar Scott Sagan, U.S. Ambassador Adam Scheinman, Economist Tom Wood
DAN PONEMAN: The NPT is rooted in the Atoms for Peace vision articulated by President Eisenhower. I invite everybody to reread that speech. It's really good.
Daniel Poneman, a former Deputy Secretary of Energy, and currently CEO of a nuclear fuel cycle company.
And Eisenhower rewrote the speech himself, I believe, circling in a plane above New York City where he was about to deliver his address to the UN General Assembly.
Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz.
Then we move forward several years to President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace speech, which in many ways set a foundation for subsequent establishment of the IAEA with that agenda of peaceful uses. After that came of course the NPT, all of which should be viewed, I think, as a system.
Welcome to Sharing the Atom, a special podcast from the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and Argonne National Laboratory, that takes you on a journey from the discovery of nuclear fission, to the development of global commitments to use that discovery for good.
In the first episode of the podcast we examined the efforts to promote and establish international nuclear cooperation from the end of World War II to the early 1960s and we explored the rationale underpinning those efforts.
In this second episode, we are taking a look at the creation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or the NPT, which was negotiated in the mid-1960s and entered into force on March 5, 1970. Specifically, we will examine the reasoning behind it, the considerations around it, and how the NPT enabled the evolution of the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
After World War II, nations realized that in order to reap the benefits of nuclear technology, they needed to put in place a framework to protect against the potential misuse of that technology for the development of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Some countries required peaceful use commitments and bilateral verification requirements as conditions for nuclear cooperation. But it soon became apparent that a more uniform standard was needed.
Jim Casterton, a former Canadian government official who has worked on nonproliferation policy for more than 40 years, has a strong sense of this initial desire to do more to protect against misuse and nuclear weapons proliferation.
…the seeds of what was to become the NPT, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they were sown in, primarily, by Ireland at the end of the '50s and in the early '60s. [00:53:30] Ireland had introduced various resolutions, at the United Nations, to try to address the threat of the spread of nuclear weapons. At that time, that was a very real threat. It still is a threat today, but there were I think at that time 2 nuclear weapon states, and soon to be 5. The concern was about the spread of nuclear weapons beyond the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union. The idea was that there would be an international agreement, where the nuclear weapon states would commit not to relinquish control over the nuclear weapons and non-nuclear weapon states committed not to manufacture nuclear weapons.
Rich Goorevich, the associate deputy administrator in the Office of Nonproliferation and Arms Control at the National Nuclear Security Administration, reminds us of the dedication and effort that went into developing this treaty, and the foresight that went into making these important nonproliferation commitments that remain as vital today as they were then.
I for the life of me am in awe of the people that were in that room to draft the NPT and thinking about, "Here we are putting something in place, a global treaty that we are going to put in place, that is going to be..."
I mean, did they know that the treaty was going to go... How many years are we looking at now? How many decades has it been in place without us really making any major changes to it, any changes at all to it? Did they know that what they were putting in place was going to last as long as it did? And how did they come about it in looking that far into the future? I mean, what magic eight ball did they have to say, "This is how we want to frame this, because this is the future that we want to build?"
In 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis had occurred.
Scott Sagan is a Stanford professor and scholar of nuclear nonproliferation.
The United States and the Soviet Union came much closer than [00:06:00] anyone felt comfortable with, to engage in a conflict that would have quite easily led to nuclear weapons being used. Once nuclear weapons are used on a large scale, the prospect of total devastation was raised.
The defense department and the intelligence agencies in the U.S. prepared a top-secret document for President Kennedy that outlined the number of states that they believed had the potential to acquire nuclear weapons in the next 10 to 25 years. That's when Kennedy issued his famous speech in which he discussed this. His prediction of the number of countries getting nuclear weapons was a conditional prediction. He was saying that if we don't do something about this, there could be up to 25 states getting nuclear weapons in the future. He didn't say that, "I predict that that's going to happen." He said, "I predict that if we don't have some kind of arms control agreement that can limit this capability, this is the potential dangerous world that we see."
Again, Jim Casterton.
The negotiations that took place, beginning of 1964, changed some of the thinking here and also introduced new elements. So for instance, several states, including developing states, said, "Okay, if we're going to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, and I'm going to ensure that I don't undertake our commitments, not to produce nuclear weapons or manufacture nuclear weapons, I want to have something in there that deals with the promotion of cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy."
Sergio Duarte is a retired Brazilian diplomat who was actually in the room when the NPT negotiations were taking place. He was a young diplomat and came into diplomacy almost by chance.
I was assigned to the Brazilian mission to the United Nations in Geneva back in 1966. I was the second secretary, which is the second rank from the bottom in the service. There are six ranks. I was second from the bottom so I was a quite young diplomat at that time and I was assigned to the mission in Geneva. And the mission dealt with all the issues that were before the United Nations in Geneva at that time, including the then called Eighteen-nation Disarmament Committee in 1966. And the ambassador, my boss, assigned me as the youngest member of the Brazilian delegation to the ENDC, which I worked in that for almost three years that I spent in Geneva at that time.
Duarte remembers the feeling in the room during the negotiations.
It was my first time in a gathering like that. It was very formal. People came. Ambassadors came with their written speeches. There was very little debate, very little give and take. They came with written speeches. They delivered their speech and that was that. It was a very interesting experience for me to see those ambassadors discussing and making their points. There was very little vivid discussion. It was basically written text that they read. You did not improvise in what you said, so it was really very formal, very, very serious ambience.
Jim Casterton.
The negotiations were tense. I would suggest that some states, for instance, the United States and the Soviet Union, who were nuclear weapon states, and perhaps the UK as well, were concerned about the kinds of commitments that other states wanted them to undertake, in order to conclude this treaty.
Corey Hinderstein is Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration.
COREY: There are no bigger and more sensitive issues for countries than their fundamental and foundational national security questions. These are existential questions in real ways for a lot of countries. And I don't think that's changed since the first review conference, and the negotiation reflected it. There are some really interesting oral histories of the actual NPT negotiation. And not all of the foundational elements that we assume or take for granted were necessarily going to make it in to the first cut. But they did.
Laura Holgate serves as U.S. Ambassador to the Vienna Office of the United Nations and to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The negotiation of the NPT, she observes, was made possible by a negotiation process that was different than it is today.
HOLGATE: I think there was a lot more tolerance for... I don't want to call it backroom deals, but some of the hardest deal making to be done in smaller groups, and then brought back out to a larger group. And to have those understandings be seen as not only acceptable but in fact legitimate by the larger group.
I think that's part of the tension that is different in today's politics, is a perception by some countries that if they're not at the table, the table isn't meaningful. What happens at that table is not legitimate. And so the more participants act, the more active participants in any negotiation complexifies that negotiation, it does make it better or worse, but it's certainly more complicated and makes it more challenging to come to an understanding.
Duarte points out that in reference to the negotiations.
I always hesitate to call what happened in Geneva really a negotiation. I think the NPT was negotiated really between the United States and the Soviet Union and perhaps a little bit Germany in some aspects, and then the result of that was brought by the two co-chairs. They were the Americans and the Russians.
Negotiation is not easy or straightforward, especially when security and development are at stake.
[W]hat the treaty represents it's being able to listen to the needs, to the views, to the arguments of all countries around the table, of all states around the table, and to discern where consensus could be achieved.
I think the value of the NPT is that it provides that framework, it provides a multilaterally agreed framework for the pursuit of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
For the NPT to come to fruition, there had to be a benefit beyond just limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. Each country had to believe that by signing the treaty, they would get something out of it. Everyone was looking to their neighbor and needing reassurance that they will follow the rules. And these were baked into the Treaty itself. Scott Sagan.
"I wouldn't mind helping my friends, but I don't want you to help your friends. So if you don't help your friends, I won't help my friends and we'll be both better off." That's Article I of the treaty. Article II of the treaty is what the non-nuclear weapon states agreed to. They say that, "We will not seek or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons." And that was similarly a solution to a collective action problem. One country might want nuclear weapons, but knowing that they say, "Well, my neighbors are going to get them." And the neighbors say, "Well, if my neighbor gets it, I need it too, so let's all get nuclear weapons. Wouldn't we be better off if none of us did?"
So Article II of the NPT treaty could be considered to be a deal between the non-nuclear weapon states. "I won't get nuclear weapons if you won't get nuclear weapons." And the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, part of their role ... Not their only role, but part of their role, is to monitor nuclear power, nuclear energy facilities, to ensure that they are not stealing materials or hiding materials that could be used for nuclear weapons. That's important for the non-nuclear weapon states to know that their neighbors are keeping their side of the treaty. Knowing that, they have an incentive to keep their side of the treaty as well.
Article IV is typically called the nuclear power or the nuclear energy article in the NPT. It says that nothing in this treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all parties to the treaty to develop, research, production, and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination, and in conformity with Articles I and II of the treaty.
[T]he vast majority of countries who signed the treaty wanted Article IV because they wanted to make sure that they had cooperation from the nuclear states and the IAEA to facilitate the production of nuclear energy from reactors that they thought might otherwise be restricted.
The final piece of the Treaty’s grand bargain obligated the countries with nuclear weapons to work toward disarmament. These three elements–nonproliferation, peaceful uses, and disarmament–have become known as the three pillars of the treaty. Again, Jim Casterton.
I think that this idea of a grand bargain that non-nuclear weapons states will forgo the possibility of developing or requiring nuclear weapons, but they needed something in return. They needed commitments to facilitate the fullest possible exchange of nuclear energy, be it scientific and technological information or equipment or materials for the development of nuclear energy peaceful purposes. And they needed the commitment of nuclear weapon states to pursue [01:01:00] nuclear disarmament.
People talk about the three pillars of the NPT.
John Barrett is the former head of the Canadian Nuclear Association.
What I like to look at and try to understand is what is the actual interaction of the three pillars? Sometimes you have to isolate one to really understand it, but don't lose sight of the fact that it is part of this ensemble.
Frank Rose is the Principal Deputy Administrator of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration.
Frank Rose: The NPT has been a key enabler of peaceful nuclear cooperation by providing nuclear powers like the United States, the confidence that any nuclear technology it exports won't be used to develop nuclear weapons, which is again, giving us the confidence to export these technologies.
And these technologies are critical to people all over the world in a couple of areas. First, it provides power, and that is becoming increasingly important for a variety of reasons. And secondly, and this is something I did not know until I took this job, is just how critical nuclear technology is to healthcare around the world. Furthermore, and a lot of people don't think about [00:03:00] it this way, but I would argue nuclear power is going to become even more important as we try to address the challenge of climate change. Indeed, I have seen a number of studies that we will not be able to reach our carbon neutral objectives unless we continue to use, [00:03:30] and I would argue, expand nuclear energy.
The treaty created the opportunity for countries that had nuclear technology and those that wanted it to cooperate consistent with the obligations in the treaty. By making international nuclear safeguards an obligation for all countries that wanted nuclear technologies, the NPT led to the creation of a more robust international safeguards system, which in turn provided more credible assurances that countries wouldn’t develop nuclear weapons with shared technology.
Corey Hinderstein.
So the IAEA predates the NPT, and the safeguards system actually predates the NPT. To me, this is actually reassuring because it shows that the global community recognized the need for building confidence in the peaceful uses of nuclear technology even before the NPT created the obligation for the member states to do so. [00:16:30] In the end, by recognizing the IAEA as the responsible authority and the IAEA safeguard system as the verification system of the NPT, the NPT states parties empowered the IAEA to be that nuclear watchdog that we see today and that we rely on today.
Daniel Poneman [need to re-record, name is pronounced Pa-nuh-men] is a former Deputy Secretary of Energy and is currently the CEO of a nuclear fuel cycle company.
[T]he treaty is the sine qua non of peaceful uses, right? Because the only way that people will feel safe in terms of using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is if you have both the legal, and I would even say moral imperative of the treaty, which is itself implemented through a very effective... I'm really impressed by the work over the years done by the International Atomic Energy Agency. And of course the IAEA has both regulatory responsibilities for IAEA safeguards but also promotional responsibilities for the use of the atom. And I don't believe in the very common, it's really the haves versus have nots. I never thought that was how the treaty actually works. But I do believe that it's important that the international community through the IAEA does make the benefits of the peaceful use of the atom available. And I think you can't do that safely unless you have a strong NPT and a safeguard system to support it.
In addition to safeguards requirements, the NPT also introduced the concept of multilaterally agreed controls on the export of nuclear materials and related equipment. The first iteration of what nuclear items had to be controlled was undertaken by the NPT Exporters Committee, also known as the Zangger Committee. Subsequently, in 1975, The Nuclear Suppliers Group (or NSG) undertook discussion on expanding the scope and nature of multilaterally agreed export controls to support the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Dutch Amb. Piet De Klerk helped lead the NSG for a number of years.
[I]t turned out that the NPT, useful as it was for countries that had become parties to the NPT, was not enough because so many countries were not parties including, of course, India, and what to do with that category of countries? So the American proposal was to bring leading exporters together, including the Soviet Union, but in particular also France that at that point was not a party to the NPT.
And there were many discussions, as you suggested first in 1975, in London, that's why the Nuclear Suppliers Group was called the London Club for a number of years until the British made clear that they didn't like that name. Because the London Club came in for a lot of criticism because it was seen as a group of countries that tried to dictate which nuclear exports would be allowed and which were not. Because the essential difference between the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the NPT was that the countries in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, initially seven and later 13, decided that the export of sensitive nuclear facilities should be restrained. As an exporting state, you should exercise restraint in exporting sensitive facilities, sensitive facilities being enrichment facilities and reprocessing facilities because that are the facilities that give you nuclear weapons material.
And that was a very different philosophy from the NPT, because the philosophy behind the NPT is you can export whatever you want as long as in the recipient country, there are safeguards. And here, so you restrict exports for sensitive installations. And that made the Nuclear Supplier Group unpopular in a number of countries, in particular countries in the South.
The reinforced assurances that came with the NPT also significantly helped to grow the nuclear market. Tom Wood is a nuclear fuel cycle economist who has been involved in evaluating many dimensions of commercial nuclear power. And he’s closely watched the ups and downs of the nuclear industry for decades.
[T]he so-called grand bargain in the Non-Proliferation Treaty really rests on the fact that there is an economic benefit from nuclear power. If there's no economic benefit from nuclear power, then one of the legs of the grand bargain becomes null and void. And so, I think to the extent that there was perceived to be a very strong economic gain from nuclear power in that early era, really made the grand bargain, a very viable, a very attractive bargain for a lot of people.
[T]here was a lot of motivation on the part of vendors and on the part of the countries within which those vendors were based to showcase their new technology, to get their technology out on the global stage, as it were, and to get it exposed to a global audience.
Ambassador Holgate.
It's also the case that countries that want to have access to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy are also undertaking responsibilities to have that verified and confirmed, so that peaceful ambition isn't diverted to proliferation of weapons. And so the peaceful uses and non-proliferation aspects are also deeply intertwined.
Kwaku Aning, a Ghanaian diplomat and the former head of Technical Cooperation at the IAEA, understands first hand the NPT impact on peaceful nuclear use.
The technology would've gotten to developing countries anyway, just like IT or any other this thing. But the nature of this technology, the NPT was important because it set the boundaries within which this changes will take place. You don't have such a thing for IT, for example, or for that matter hydro dam or anything like that. But for this particular technology, it was important that it's transferred and used to avoid problems going forward. The NPT became, especially the various article from two going down, was important, has been important for the peaceful users of this technology so that people don't get ideas because it's a treaty. It is a treaty and the signatories are bound by its contents. So that is important.
I think it's the basis or the big framework within which, especially the agency does its work, within which the agency provides services and support for member states.
Ambassador Adam Scheinman, Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation, considers what international nuclear cooperation would have looked like in absence of the NPT.
Well, it's hard to say with any great certainty. I can say it would not look like what we have today. There's absolutely no question about that. It's likely that we would not have the same rules that we have in place for nuclear trade. We would not have an International Atomic Energy Agency that has a big role in this area functioning as it does today. We would likely see riskier technologies having been exported, particularly those for nuclear fuel production that can also be used for nuclear weapons.
We'd probably see countries competing for market share, which would drive nuclear trade policies and conditions to the lowest possible common denominator instead of trying to raise them as we've done with the NPT.
Jim Casterton.
The NPT is an essential precondition for peaceful nuclear energy, use of peaceful nuclear energy.
It provides a multilaterally agreed framework for the pursuit of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. That takes away consideration of having nuclear suppliers compete for business on the basis of nonproliferation requirements,it's a very high bar that is set, and that high bar provides a very high level of confidence that exports for peaceful purposes are indeed used for peaceful purposes. Now, there are a few exceptions to the rule that have occurred over the years, but by and large, all of the states, most of the states, the majority of the states that have signed on to the NPT have lived up to their non-proliferation and peaceful use commitments.Former Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman.
I would just say I believe the NPT is as important today as it ever was. I think we should kind of all step back. I think many of us in this conversation are students of history.
I think that it's the nonproliferation commitments that are embedded in the NPT. I think, for the most part, they have stood the test of time. It provides treaty level commitments to nonproliferation and nuclear weapons. It puts obligations on non-nuclear weapon states to accept verification of peaceful use by an independent body, the International Atomic Energy Agency. It puts obligations on all states to control the export of nuclear material and equipment, and to ensure that those exports are only made to states, under safeguards, that have safeguards agreement with the agency. It provided the opportunity for strengthening nonproliferation considerations by improving vastly the IAEA safeguard system, by facilitating multilateral consultation, [01:06:30] amongst supplying countries of what nuclear materials and equipment should be controlled in terms of export.
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi, is a diplomat and was the president-designate of the 2020 NPT Review Conference.
We should not forget that peaceful uses of nuclear energy and applications existed before 1968 or 1970 when the NPT was recruited and then when it entered into force. But it is at this point where all these activities gained this extraordinary expansion, extraordinary expansion, while not bringing, at the same time, diminishing securities for the international community.
Again, Daniel Poneman:
I think we should use the year that we have between now, December, 2022 and December 8th, 2023, to really review the bidding [00:50:00] of where we are, how we got here, what we've done well, where we've fallen short, and how to make sure that the NPT in the next half century can perform the same incredible public service in keeping people all over the world safe as it has served since 1970.
In the next episode of Sharing the Atom, we will dive deeper into the nuclear cooperation that followed the NPT’s creation and how the nuclear capabilities enabled by the treaty have positively impacted humanity.
Thank you for listening. Stay informed about the NPT and peaceful nuclear cooperation, visit sharingtheatom.com, where you can also listen to other episodes. Sharing the Atom is a production of the Department of Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and Argonne National Laboratory, in collaboration with SOUND MADE PUBLIC, with Tania Ketenjian, Philip Wood, Sarah Conlisk, and Alesandro Santoro.