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Verification and security of transformation to a

nuclear-weapon-free world: the framework of the
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Jürgen Scheffran

To cite this article: Jürgen Scheffran (2018): Verification and security of transformation to a
nuclear-weapon-free world: the framework of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,
Global Change, Peace & Security, DOI: 10.1080/14781158.2018.1472565

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GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY
[Link]

Verification and security of transformation to a nuclear-

weapon-free world: the framework of the Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Jürgen Scheffran
Institute of Geography, Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN), University of Hamburg,
Hamburg, Germany

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Received 14 January 2018
presents complex challenges, including issues of verification and Accepted 1 May 2018
security. Verifying the transformation to a nuclear-weapon-free
KEYWORDS
world (NWFW) is an adaptive, multi-stage process, involving International law;
various mechanisms and tasks for nuclear and non-nuclear international relations;
weapon States, and monitoring a wide range of items and nuclear disarmament; nuclear
activities for increasing or decreasing nuclear weapons capability. weapons; security;
Whether States find the Treaty verifiable depends on the available verification
capabilities, but also on political assumptions and requirements.
Verification plays an important role in the transformation towards
a NWFW to diminish the role of nuclear weapons in a hostile
environment where uncertainties are seen as threatening.
Verification also helps to establish a viable international security
landscape based on cooperation and trust that is able to address
the complex implementation issues of nuclear weapons
prohibition and elimination.

Introduction
After decades of arms races and little progress on nuclear disarmament, many States and
non-governmental organisations challenge the continued existence of nuclear weapons
and the status of the nuclear weapon States (NWS). While the globalised world order is
under pressure and new risks are emerging, nuclear disarmament is becoming more
urgent. The movement calling for a nuclear-weapon-free world (NWFW) has created
new momentum since 2010 through closer cooperation between States and civil
society on the humanitarian dimensions of nuclear weapons. This resulted in the Open
Ended Working Groups (OEWG) in 2013 and 2016 and proposals to activate multilateral
nuclear disarmament negotiations leading towards a world without nuclear weapons.1
On 23 December 2016, the UN General Assembly decided to convene in 2017 a United
Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear
weapons, leading towards their total elimination.

CONTACT Jürgen Scheffran [Link]@[Link]

1
Open-ended Working Group (OEWG), Taking Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations (2016). [Link]
[Link]/oewg-ndn (accessed January 10, 2018).
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 J. SCHEFFRAN

In two rounds of negotiations chaired by Costa Rica, the Treaty on the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was finalised, adopted at the UN in New York on 7 July 2017
by 122 States and opened for signature from 20 September 2017.2 The Treaty bans the
last weapon of mass destruction, following the ban on biological and chemical
weapons. It was celebrated as a breakthrough in the attempt to outlaw and stigmatise
nuclear weapons. The persistent activities of civil society for the abolition of nuclear
weapons were awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to
Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).3
Rapid progress was possible because the Treaty establishes a framework that focuses
on those elements that are practically feasible for the State Parties, all of them non-
nuclear weapon States (NNWS) which confirm their obligations under the Non-Prolifer-
ation Treaty (NPT) and the world’s Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZ) within one agree-
ment. Despite its limits, the TPNW facilitates an adaptive and flexible process to address
future challenges, progressively expand its scope and over time include more member
States, ultimately leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons.4
Although the Treaty does not initially involve the five nuclear-weapon States under the
NPT (USA, Russia, China, France and UK), other States possessing nuclear weapons (India,
Pakistan, Israel, North Korea), NATO allies and three Asian-Pacific countries (Japan, South
Korea and Australia), it keeps the door open to their participation. Ultimately, substantial
nuclear disarmament and the NWFW cannot be reached without the nuclear-armed
States. The US and Russia are opposed, while other States in the nuclear club, such as
India or China, do not rule out nuclear disarmament negotiations when others join. The
challenge is to find negotiation fora and legal mechanisms to include these States,
either within the TPNW framework which could then be transformed into an abolition
treaty (also called Nuclear Weapons Convention), or in parallel bilateral and plurilateral
negotiation fora to find separate legal instruments that address and resolve the complex-
ities of moving to the NWFW.
The TPNW prohibits activities leading to the capability and use of nuclear weapons. Other
provisions concern the preamble, reporting obligations, costs, international conferences
and potential authorities, dispute resolution and entry into force, as well as better protection
for victims of nuclear weapons missions and tests, with specific requirements for victim
assistance and environmental rehabilitation. The question is whether and how the Treaty
is able to move from prohibition to elimination of nuclear weapons. Can it serve as a frame-
work for future nuclear disarmament negotiations leading to the elimination of nuclear
weapons? Under which conditions will the NWS join this agreement, with regulations on
their accession and obligations for elimination? What are the required stages of a control
regime and how important is an effective verification system? What role does the global
and regional security environment play in blocking or facilitating a verifiable legal
regime? Addressing these questions, the conditions and requirements for verification are
analysed and their linkages to international security on the road to Global Zero.

2
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, 7 July 2017, [Link] (accessed January 10,
2018). The Treaty enters into force 90 days after ratification by 50 States. In this article, short names will be Prohibition
Treaty, Ban Treaty, Treaty or the acronym TPNW.
3
ICAN, [Link] (2017).
4
For a legal interpretation see: Daniel Rietiker, ‘New Hope for Nuclear Disarmament or “Much Ado About Nothing?”’,
Harvard International Law Journal (Online) 59 (Fall 2017).
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 3

Adaptive framework and tasks of verification

Verifying the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons is a complex and challenging
task, with a range of requirements for the different stages of the nuclear weapon lifecycle.5
To be effective, the TPNW needs to be adequately verified to build confidence, assure
compliance of the State Parties and provide timely warning of non-compliance. Precondi-
tions in the verification process are to define the goals, indicated by legal requirements
regarding treaty-limited items and activities, and to identify the means to monitor
states and activities. Goals and means of verification need to be balanced in terms of its
benefits, costs and risks. The question is whether an intolerable deviation from treaty-
limited items and activities can be detected with reasonable efforts. Since a few nuclear
weapons can make a significant difference, violations must be detected as early and as
reliably as possible to allow for responses to breakout and discourage State Parties from
non-compliance. While punishment may be applied in exceptional cases, verification
requires and contributes to confidence building and cooperation, creating incentives to
keep the agreement functional and undercut a clandestine nuclear weapons capability.6
Verification systems for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons should be
designed to assure early detection of prohibited nuclear weapons capabilities and permit
timely responses to minimise security risks. Nuclear weapons capability includes here a
wide range of nuclear-weapons items (nuclear warheads and components, nuclear
materials, equipment, facilities, delivery systems, command and control) and nuclear-
weapons activities (research, development, testing, production, acquisition, finance,
deployment, stockpiling, maintenance, transfer, use, threat of use, destruction, disposal
and conversion).7 The verification challenge is to separate and draw a line between pro-
hibited and permitted activities. An analytical approach for a ‘nuclear firewall’ has been
developed in a 2017 report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ‘to help
distinguish between activities and programs that are purely peaceful and those that
merit definition as nuclear weapons–related’.8 The nuclear firewall would9

. identify those activities, materials and equipment that should be inhibited because they are
purely or strongly associated with nuclear weapons programs;
. distinguish activities that should be facilitated because they are fully consistent with peace-
ful applications of nuclear technology and know-how; and
. assess in-between activities depending on transparency and reassurance measures that
states would undertake.

5
Since the 1990s a number of publications have studied the verification of nuclear weapons abolition, for instance: Chris
B. Paine, Tom B. Cochran, and Robert S. Norris, Techniques and Procedures for Verifying Nuclear Weapons Elimination (Can-
berra Commission Background Papers, August 1996), 167–78; Richard Guthrie, The Transition to a Nuclear-Weapon-Free
World: A New Model for the Verification Framework (Verification Matters, Briefing Paper 97/1, April 1997); Jonathan
B. Tucker, ‘Verifying a Multilateral Ban on Nuclear Weapons’, INESAP Information Bulletin no. 14 (November 1997): 16–
20; David Fischer, ‘Safeguards for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons’, INESAP Information Bulletin no.14 (November
1997): 30–2; Annette Schaper, ‘Verifying Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament’, in Verification Yearbook, ed. Trevor
Findlay (London: VERTIC, 2000).
6
Merav Datan et al., Securing Our Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention (Cambridge, MA: IPPNW, IALANA,
INESAP, 2007).
7
Datan et al., Securing Our Survival, 158.
8
Toby Dalton et al., Toward a Nuclear Firewall: Bridging the NPT’s Three Pillars (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, March 2017) 1, [Link]
(accessed January 10, 2018).
9
Dalton et al., Toward a Nuclear Firewall, 1.
4 J. SCHEFFRAN

The firewall framework combines technical indicators and contextual factors:

The indicators are categorized under four technical domains: (1) fuel-cycle and reactor oper-
ations, (2) nuclear weapons research and development (R&D) and weaponization, (3) weapons
delivery and systems (payload) integration, and (4) militarization. The contextual factors reflect
state policy and conduct, mostly in aggregate; and they include, for example, a state’s track
record of compliance and cooperation with the IAEA, sequencing of nuclear decisions,
implementation of international norms, and preparation for military utilization of nuclear
capabilities.10

Technical indicators of nuclear weapons capabilities help to separate prohibited and

permitted items and activities, Contextual factors depend on the political and security
environment. In the following, an adaptive verification framework is developed, including
four tasks and stages to verify prohibition and elimination of a nuclear weapons capability.
Each stage translates into different verification requirements11:

(1) Do not have access to any nuclear weapons, nuclear materials or other components rel-
evant for a nuclear weapons capability. Baseline information exchange and data gath-
ering identify the current status of the nuclear-weapons capability with reasonable
accuracy without proliferating sensitive information. This includes declarations, on-
site inspections and remote monitoring of status and location of nuclear materials,
nuclear facilities and delivery systems.
(2) Prevent and detect any activities advancing a nuclear weapons capability, increasing the
probability of breakout from the prohibition of nuclear weapons. To prevent (re-)arma-
ment, all State Parties need to be observed to detect prohibited items and activities
potentially leading to a nuclear weapons capability and ensure that legitimate and
dual-use capabilities are not converted for such prohibited purposes.
(3) Disarm and disinvent existing nuclear weapons and their capability to the degree possible.
Disarmament verification monitors agreed pathways to reduce and eliminate nuclear
weapons and related capabilities which involve: active dismantlement of nuclear
weapons; disposal of nuclear materials; conversion or destruction of nuclear facilities.
(4) Remove intentions to acquire nuclear weapons capability and discourage reasons for their
reemergence by creating a favourable security environment. Implement political, organ-
isational and societal mechanisms to improve contextual factors of verification, includ-
ing national ratification and implementation, conflict resolution and institutional
regulations, security, public discourses, education and societal participation.

These four stages are not necessarily successive steps but are overlapping and can run
in parallel. In a chronological order verification would focus on: declarations; destruction of
weapon stocks, materials and delivery systems; peaceful uses of nuclear material; compli-
ance against violation and breakout. Requirements differ for non-nuclear and nuclear
10
Ibid., 13–14.
11
For a discussion of verification tasks in the context of a Nuclear Weapons Convention see: Merav Datan, Jürgen Schef-
fran,‘Principles and Means for Verification of a Nuclear Weapons Convention’, INESAP Information Bulletin no. 14 (Novem-
ber 1997), 21–5; Martin B. Kalinowski, ‘Beyond Technical Verification’ INESAP Information Bulletin no. 14 (November 1997):
25–7; Jürgen Scheffran, ‘Content and Verification of a Nuclear Weapons Convention’, in Remember Your Humanity, ed.
Joseph Rotblat (Singapore: World Scientific, 1999), 318–34; Martin B. Kalinowski, Wolfgang Liebert, and Jürgen Scheffran,
‘Beyond Technical Verification. Transparency, Verification, and Preventive Control for the Nuclear Weapons Convention’,
in Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, ed. Martin B. Kalinowski (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2000), 61–8.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 5

weapon States, whether their task is to stay below the nuclear firewall (1), prevent crossing
it (2), move below it (3) or define the firewall (4). Contributing to all four tasks, verification
may significantly reduce the risks of non-compliance and the likelihood of breakout
through a combination of detection, warning, deterrence and countermeasures. Any
nuclear weapons capability or activity leaves traces which can be detected by verification
measures. These include remote sensing in the visible, infrared and radar range of the elec-
tromagnetic spectrum; seismological, radiological, hydroacoustic and infrasound detec-
tors; sensors for close-up observation; cooperative verification (exchange of information,
inspections, preventive controls, joint overflights). Technical barriers prevent diversion
and illegal acquisition of nuclear-weapon-usable material from stocks and flows. Non-tech-
nical measures include societal verification, confidence-building measures, organisational
procedures and institutional mechanisms that strengthen the socio-political context.12
There is a competition between capabilities related to nuclear weapons and capabilities
relevant for verification to detect relevant items and activities. The verification tasks and
challenges progressively increase during the transformation to the NWFW, in particular
if NWS would join. Within this framework, key verification issues of the Ban Treaty will
be discussed.

Verification elements of the ban treaty

The TPNW focuses on those aspects that are most feasible but does not yet fully
implement the process to the NWFW, leaving the complex details to future negotiations.
How to treat verification has been debated in the Ban Treaty negotiations.13 To minimise
complications in the fast track to prohibition the most basic verification approach was
accepted by the class of established NNWS that immediately joined the Treaty and
adapted their compliance to already existing commitments. Many States and NGOs
wanted to leave open the possibility that the nuclear-armed States with more demanding
commitments for elimination would join at a later stage. In addition to the first class of
NNWS members, transitional NWS would commit to eliminate their nuclear weapon stock-
piles when joining the treaty (class 2), and the legacy NWS abandon latent capabilities
after having joined the treaty (class 3).14 For the latter two classes, more demanding ver-
ification arrangements are expected to adjust to future transformation pathways and final
stages of nuclear disarmament.
An adaptive approach selects the most practical steps first to open the door to long-
term solutions. The negotiations avoided contentious issues causing delays and accepted
the lowest possible standards of verification based on language and obligations similar to
the NPT and the NWFZ treaties, while more stringent and complex verification require-
ments were left to future negotiations and protocols when NWS would join the Treaty
with their specific conditions.
12
The specific capabilities and limits of the different verification approaches will not be further discussed here. Some
aspects will be addressed in the following sections in the context of TPNW verification. For an overview of verification
means see Datan et al., Securing Our Survival, Chapter 4; and INESAP Information Bulletin no. 27, December 2006.
13
Oliver Meier, Sira Cordes, and Elisabeth Suh, ‘What Participants in a Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty (Do Not) Want’, Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists (June 9, 2017). [Link]
want10829.
14
Zia Mian, Tamara Patton, and Alexander Glaser, ‘Addressing Verification in the Nuclear Ban Treaty’, Arms Control Today
(June 2017), 14.
6 J. SCHEFFRAN

In its preamble, the TPNW ‘constitutes an important contribution towards the achieve-
ment and maintenance of a world free of nuclear weapons, including the irreversible, ver-
ifiable and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons’. While the general obligations for
prohibition are defined in Article 1, the prescriptions for implementation are given in
Article 2 (Declarations), Article 3 (Safeguards), Article 4 (Towards the total elimination of
nuclear weapons) and Article 5 (National implementation). These define the guidelines
and commitments for verification along the tasks and stages explained above.

Verification of the non-nuclear weapon status (task 1)

Baseline obligations and declarations
The main focus is to verify Article 1 of the TPNW which prohibits the following activities
under any circumstances: develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire,
possess or stockpile; transfer, receive and control (direct or indirect); use or threaten to
use; assist, encourage or induce to engage; seek or receive any assistance; allow any sta-
tioning, installation or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive
devices in the territory of State Parties or at any place under their jurisdiction or control.
For NNWS the TPNW monitoring and safeguards obligations build upon the existing
disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation regime, which creates a solid baseline
for the evolution and improvement of the new Treaty verification regime. This applies
to the NPT and the NWFZ treaties in Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, Mongolia,
Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, which are confirmed by the TPNW preamble.
Similar safeguards are accepted without establishing a competing norm or duplicating
existing obligations. Under Article II of the NPT the NNWS undertake ‘not to manufacture
or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek
or receive any assistance in the manufacture’.
An important precondition for the verification system are the initial declarations of
State Parties which serve as the baseline for any diversion, either into prescribed or pro-
hibited directions. Article 2 commits each State Party to submit within 30 days a declara-
tion on their state of ownership, possession or control (past and present) of nuclear
weapons or nuclear explosive devices and whether its nuclear-weapons programme is
eliminated and converted, including all related facilities. To minimise the risk of breakout
from prohibition, nuclear-weapon-useable materials should be neither produced for
weapon purposes nor removed from existing stocks and diverted to weapons develop-
ment throughout the civilian nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mining and milling to dis-
position, which is to be detected by nuclear safeguards.

The future of nuclear safeguards

During the negotiations on the Ban Treaty there were diverging opinions on whether
NNWS that join the Treaty should accept the safeguards of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA). While Brazil and other developing countries wanted no additional
verification beyond comprehensive safeguards, Sweden supported the Additional Proto-
col to IAEA Safeguards as a ‘cost effective and non-duplicating form of verification’, and
Algeria argued for a stand-alone treaty verification instrument, which could be inspired
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 7

from other regimes.15 The Draft Convention on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons of 22
May 2017 resulting from the first round of talks suggested the same full-scope safeguards
that are mandatory for NNWS parties to the NPT – or conclude a safeguards agreement
that is ‘equivalent in its scope and effect’.16
According to Article 3 of the TPNW each State Party that by 7 July 2017 did not own,
possess or control nuclear weapons shall at a minimum, maintain its IAEA safeguards obli-
gations in force ‘without prejudice to any additional relevant instruments that it may adopt
in the future’. If the State Party has not yet done so it shall conclude with the IAEA and ‘bring
into force a comprehensive safeguards agreement (INFCIRC/153) (Corrected)’. Negotiations
shall commence within 180 days and conclude no later than 18 months. Since the TPNW is
complementary to the NPT and NWFZ treaties for NNWS, these countries have adopted IAEA
safeguards for the verification regime of both the NPT and the TPNW, strengthening the lin-
kages between both treaties.17 This does not exclude that States in the future may shift their
attention more to the NPT (NWS) or the TPNW (NNWS), deepening their division.18
The NPT’s nuclear safeguards regime is the primary model for accountancy, containment
and surveillance of special nuclear materials. To verify compliance and detect illegal activi-
ties, under Article III.1 of the NPT, each NNWS in the NPT is obliged to accept safeguards
through monitoring and inspections negotiated and concluded with the IAEA. Extending
this to the TPNW is in accordance with the IAEA’s statute to further ‘the establishment of
safeguarded worldwide disarmament and in conformity with any international agreements
entered into pursuant to such policies’.19 The main purpose is to inspect facilities to timely
detect and deter diversions of significant quantities of these materials after they have
occurred to allow for timely reactions before a bomb is produced, i.e. they are not designed
to prevent diversion of such materials which remains a technical possibility.
To improve the impact and efficiency of IAEA safeguards, critical issues have been
addressed.20 The dual function of the IAEA – promotion of ‘peaceful uses’ and ‘timely
detection’ of diversion – is often mentioned as a challenge for nuclear disarmament ver-
ification, even more for expanding nuclear power. The capability for timely detection of
diversion of nuclear materials for military purposes needs to adjust to the technical capa-
bilities to turn fissile materials into weapons, including mined uranium ores, refined
uranium oxides, uranium hexafluoride and uranium conversion facilities, prior to enrich-
ment or fuel fabrication stages. Safeguards in NWS also need new capabilities to effectively
prevent the proliferation and control the disarmament of nuclear arms.21 Detecting critical
quantities is essential to minimise relevant material unaccounted for at large bulk handling

15
Meier et al., ‘What Participants in a Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty (Do Not) Want’.
16
Draft Convention on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (United Nations, A/CONF.229/2017/CRP.1, 22 May 2017), http://
[Link]/library/[Link] (accessed January 10, 2018).
17
172 non-nuclear-weapon States have comprehensive safeguards agreements with the IAEA, and 124 States have in place
additional protocols with more extensive reporting and increased rights of IAEA access. See IAEA, Status List: Conclusion of
Safeguards Agreements, Additional Protocols, and Small Quantities Protocols (October 7, 2016), [Link]
default/files/16/10/sg_agreements_comprehensive_status_list.pdf (accessed January 10, 2018).
18
Tom Sauer, ‘Crossroads: Why the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Could Become Obsolete’, The National Interest (Decem-
ber 8, 2017); Jorge Morales Pedraza, ‘Are Nuclear-Weapon States Not Parties to the Nonproliferation Treaty Ready to
Renounce to the Possession of Nuclear Weapons?’, Public Organization Review 17 (2017): 335–52.
19
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Statute of the IAEA (Art. 3.B(1)), [Link] (accessed
January 10, 2018).
20
Datan et al., Securing Our Survival, 165.
21
Suzanna van Moyland, ‘Programme 93+2: Evolution in IAEA Safeguards’, in Verification 1997: The Vertic Yearbook, ed.
Richard Guthrie (Perseus, 1997).
8 J. SCHEFFRAN

facilities of nuclear materials.22 Clandestine nuclear weapons programmes are difficult to

detect without remote monitoring. The experiences in Iraq and North Korea, which con-
verted civilian capabilities to military purposes, and doubts about Iran’s nuclear ambitions,
call for stronger and more efficient verification.
Recognising the limits of the IAEA safeguards regime since the 1990s there have been
activities to expand the scope and improve the conditions for IAEA safeguards.23 IAEA’s
93 + 2 programme developed strengthened and more cost-effective safeguards measures
that provide assurance against undeclared activities. In May 1997, the IAEA Board of Gov-
ernors approved the Model Additional Protocol contained in INFCIRC/540 (Corrected),
which expanded safeguards authorities and activities. As of May 2017, Additional Protocols
are in force with 129 States and Euratom, and have been signed by another 19 States.
Improvements include extended declaration obligations, inspections and environmental
monitoring procedures. Additional Protocols increase the verification powers of the
IAEA, expand transparency and verifiability for the whole civilian nuclear fuel cycle, and
allow the IAEA to redirect saved verification resources towards States of greater concern.24
In UN Security Council resolution 1540 of April 2004 all States, including the non-NPT
parties, India, Israel and Pakistan, adopted national implementation measures to
prevent non-state actors from acquisition and proliferation of weapons of mass destruc-
tion. The Trilateral Agreement, negotiated 1996 to 2002 between Russia, the US and
IAEA, involved the Agency in verifying disposal of excess fissionable material and
suggested a role in multilateral global nuclear disarmament. No material has been
offered by the US and Russia for the purpose, and there was no agreement over the
period and costs of IAEA monitoring. In 2005 the IAEA Board of Governors has established
a Special Committee on Safeguards and Verification to examine further improvements, e.g.
on environmental and other samples from Iran.25
The case of Iran demonstrated that despite improvements over decades, the safeguards
regime was not perfect regarding detection and reporting of undeclared nuclear material,
activities, and facilities.26 The IAEA confirms that ‘although IAEA safeguards had worked
well with regard to verification activities on declared nuclear material and facilities, it
was not well-equipped to detect undeclared nuclear material and activities’.27 The
Additional Protocol did not provide sufficient means to detect clandestine activities
from a distance. Satellite imagery is used mainly for investigations on known facilities28
and is not capable to prove clandestine production.
As the number of facilities increases, technology can help to improve productivity and
efficiency and maintain the quality and credibility of verification, despite a constrained

22
Department of Energy, Plutonium – The first 50 years (Washington, DC, February 1996).
23
Trevor Findley, ‘Verification and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’, INESAP Information Bulletin no. 27 (December
2006): 67–70; IAEA, Strengthened Safeguards System: Status of Additional Protocols (2004); Thomas E. Shea, ‘Potential
Roles for the IAEA in a Warhead Dismantlement and Fissile Materials Transparency Regime’, in Transparency in
Nuclear Warheads and Materials, ed. N. Zarimpas (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 229–49; George Perkovich
et al., Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, 2005).
24
Datan et al., Securing Our Survival, 166.
25
IAEA, Safeguards Statement for 2005 (2005), [Link] (accessed January 10,
2018).
26
Justin Stephanie Young-Stewart, How effective Are IAEA Safeguards? The Case of Iran 2003–2006. Major Research Paper
(University of Ottawa, 2017), [Link] (accessed April 24, 2018).
27
IAEA, Additional Protocol (2017), [Link] See further Ibaraki Tokaimura, Hand-
book of International Nuclear Safeguards (Japan Atomic Energy Agency, October 2016).
28
Sven Nussbaum et al., International Safeguards and Satellite Imagery (Berlin: Springer, 2009).
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 9

budget. There is considerable progress in modernising the technical safeguard capabili-

ties, involving information technology, video surveillance and analytical services in
environmental sampling at inspected locations.29 The risks of clandestine activities are
to be further reduced and the costs to violators increased by a wide range of techniques
uncovering the bomb-making process by detecting signatures of clandestine nuclear-
weapons-usable materials production, including technologies for remote environmental
monitoring, and for exploring the usability of atmospheric krypton and xenon measure-
ments as indicators for plutonium separation.30 Other measures include more intrusive
and unannounced inspections, overflights, ground-penetrating radar and tightened
nuclear accountancy.
Activities to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of nuclear safeguards and more
funding for research in advanced nuclear verification techniques, benefit from the
additional need for compliance and verification of the Ban Treaty, moving beyond
timely detection towards prevention of diversion of materials. Although the Ban Treaty
does not specify the facilities subject to verification, they would most likely include all
nuclear materials in reactors, stockpiles or extracted from dismantled weapons. Conse-
quently, the safeguards system would cover a considerably higher amount of material
and a larger number of facilities than today, including facilities that produce nuclear
materials, handle or fabricate nuclear components or transform components back into
fissile materials; fabricate fissile materials into fuel; and assemble/disassemble com-
ponents into warheads.31
Although possession of fissile material is a necessary condition for a nuclear weapon
capability, its existence is not sufficient and needs to be complemented by work in
other fields. The Carnegie firewall project explored six areas relevant to fuel-cycle and
reactor operations: reactor design and operation; metallic fuels; uranium enrichment;
fuel production and fabrication; reprocessing; fissile material storage.32 Allowing the use
of HEU in naval propulsion requires special safeguards arrangements. Strengthening safe-
guards may need more intrusive inspections and declarations, lowering admissible quan-
tities, and advanced intelligence and data-handling capacities.33

Verifying the process of making nuclear weapons (task 2)

Nuclear weaponisation is a complex process, from nuclear materials to an operational
nuclear weapons capability, involving several stages such as research, development and
testing to enhance the explosive yield of a nuclear chain reaction, and production, deploy-
ment, delivery and use of nuclear weapons. An effective Prohibition Treaty monitors the
existence or emergence of observable traces as early warning indicators against nuclear
weapon capabilities and establishes a firewall against (re-)invention of nuclear weapons.
29
Nicole Jawerth, Enhancing Effective Nuclear Verification: Upgrading IAEA Safeguards Capabilities. IAEA (Vienna, 2015).
[Link]
(accessed April 24, 2018); James Doyle, Nuclear Safeguards, Security and Nonproliferation (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2008).
30
See report by the independent Group of Scientific Experts (iGSE), documented in the special issue: ‘Detection of Clandes-
tine Production of Nuclear-Weapons-Usable Materials’, INESAP Information Bulletin no. 27 (December 2006).
31
Datan, Securing Our Survival, Chapter 4.
32
Dalton, Toward a Nuclear Firewall, 14.
33
Steve Fetter, Verifying Nuclear Disarmament, Occasional Paper No. 29 (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, October
1996).
10 J. SCHEFFRAN

Article 1 of the TPNW prohibits most activities, excluding some (knowledge, research,
design, finance, transfer). Related verification issues are discussed in the following,
drawing from existing experiences.
Fissile Material Cutoff: The access to nuclear weapons-usable fissile material, such as
highly enriched uranium (HEU with a fraction of U-235 defined as weapons-grade) and
plutonium (with a specified fraction of Pu-239), is the main barrier to reconstitute a
nuclear weapons capability. A critical issue is the ‘significant quantity’ of weapons-
usable material required for nuclear weapons production. While standard numbers of
8 kg plutonium and 25 kg HEU were identified as significant, 3–4 kg were mentioned, or
smaller amounts of weapons-grade plutonium, depending on the sophistication of
weapons. There is an inverse tradeoff between the quantity of weapon material needed
und the effort to design more advanced warhead types. Another tradeoff exists
between the number of nuclear weapons and related fissile material a State needs to
build a nuclear arsenal and the time and effort to build it. Critical issues concern the
inclusion of other weapons-usable nuclear materials and the lowering of the standard
for timely detection from months to weeks which would address the risk of rapid diversion
from former NWS.34
Production of nuclear weapons materials requires large facilities such as reactors and
enrichment plants, which are difficult to conceal. Even if they release only small
amounts of fissile material, they can be detected with sensors and allow conclusions
from their fingerprints. An important element of the TPNW to prevent weaponisation is
a prohibition on the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons-usable materials for
any purpose. For the existing stockpiles of fissile materials – about 1,350 tons of HEU and 510
tons of separated plutonium – the Treaty could make recommendations for a framework to
deal with the disposition and elimination of these materials and, for the interim period, envi-
sion their international custody.35

Such elements could be either negotiated within the TPNW process or run as a separate
cut-off for fissile materials to prohibit the production of materials for nuclear explosive
devices, while the production of nuclear material for non-weapons purposes is not prohib-
ited. Since the early 1990s negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) have
been proposed. The Conference on Disarmament (CD) agreed on 23 March 1995 to nego-
tiate ‘a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty
banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive
devices’.36
Although substantive negotiations did not take place, the verification requirements
have been explored.37 Advancements in weaponisation of nuclear materials are partly
compensated by emerging verification technologies, including satellite images, radioiso-
tope monitoring, portal monitoring and control, sampling techniques, real-time data

34
Trevor Findlay, ‘Verification of a Nuclear Weapon-Free World’, VERTIC Briefs (May 2003).
35
Mian, ‘Addressing Verification in the Nuclear Ban Treaty’, 18.
36
Conference on Disarmament, Shannon Report (CD/1299, March 24, 1995); [Link]
[Link] (accessed January 10, 2018).
37
Victor Bragin, John Carlson, and John Hill, ‘Verifying a Fissile-Material Production Cut-Off Treaty’, The Nonproliferation
Review (Fall 1998): 97–107; Tatsujiro Suzuki, ‘Ending Fissile Materials Production: A Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty and
Beyond’, Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Policy Brief no. 49 (December
2017).
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 11

communications and monitoring by governmental and non-governmental entities.38 Con-

straints or even a phaseout of nuclear power could stop the growth of nuclear materials
and facilitate the verification task of ‘unmaking the bomb’39 but would probably be inac-
ceptable for many States, About 7 tons of weapon-grade HEU are used annually for non-
weapon uses, including as fuel in over 150 nuclear-powered submarines and ships, in
about 100 research reactors, tritium production and breeder reactors, and medical
isotope production. A complete international ban of HEU production could be pursued
since for all applications alternatives exist or existing stockpiles in NWS are more than suf-
ficient during a transition period.40 A ban on plutonium production, reprocessing and
stockpiling would make verification easier.
Nuclear Test Ban: One of the first efforts to prevent or slow down weaponisation was
the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) to prohibit nuclear testing except for
underground explosions. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) followed
in 1996. The Ban Treaty preamble recognises the vital importance of the CTBT and its
verification regime as a core element of the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation
regime. The CTBT prohibits nuclear weapon test explosions and inhibits nuclear
weapons development. During the TPNW talks, some States suggested that a test
ban should be covered. Costa Rica and Cuba even suggested including simulations
and subcritical testing. Article 1 confirms the CTBT by the prohibition of ‘any nuclear
weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion’. The verification provisions of
the CTBT-Organization are based on the International Monitoring System under the
supervision of the Technical Secretariat, which includes facilities for seismological, radio-
nuclide, hydroacoustic and infrasound monitoring and stores and processes information
through its International Data Centre. These elements could be applied to the TPNW,
including a monitoring system for data gathering to strengthen security and transpar-
ency of the nuclear weapons infrastructure.
Research and development (R&D) constraints are another hurdle to the acquisition of a
nuclear weapons capability. The TPNW prohibits development but not research or
expert knowledge or design of nuclear weapons, which deserve some form of
control. This is different from the African NWFZ Treaty which contains an explicit con-
straint on research.41 The question is whether a verifiable threshold between research
and development can be drawn and dual-use technology be controlled without
banning legitimate civilian uses. The firewall project explored several areas relevant to
nuclear weapons development42: detonators; high explosives; plutonium/uranium
shells; neutron generators; tritium technology; hydrodynamic codes coupled with
neutron transport calculation; hydrodynamic experiments; weaponisation (physical prep-
aration for systems integration). Verifying the development of such techniques and
related breakout scenarios raise several complex and unresolved issues.
Nuclear weapons development does not stand still and is accelerated by scientific-
technical progress. Laboratory testing, laser enrichment and computer simulations

38
Datan et al., Securing Our Survival, Chapter 4.
39
Harold Feiveson et al., Unmaking the Bomb: A Fissile Material Approach to Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014).
40
Frank von Hippel, Banning the Production of Highly Enriched Uranium (International Panel on Fissile Materials, 2016).
41
African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Pelindaba), [Link]
(accessed January 10, 2018).
42
Dalton et al., Toward a Nuclear Firewall, 17.
12 J. SCHEFFRAN

reduce the chances to constrain the knowledge about nuclear weapons development. An
example is Iran’s nuclear programme where an IAEA report identified research and testing
activities ‘relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device’, including computer
modelling, hydrodynamic experiments, neutron initiation and detonators, triggering
devices and high explosives, as well as contextual factors, such as secrecy and military
involvement.43 The report noted that States with such R&D activities should be subject
to greater monitoring. With improved theoretical understanding and simulation technol-
ogy, undesirable developments can obstruct the TPNW goal, supporting the case for an
effective Iran nuclear deal framework.
It is difficult to reconstruct a complicated technical device from its blueprints without
knowledge of the experts who designed and constructed it. Nuclear weapons can be ‘dis-
invented’ to some degree by retirement of experienced weapon designers and by destruc-
tion of technical devices and design information. However, hidden information and
knowledge about nuclear weapons could help to reconstitute nuclear weapons and main-
tain a ‘virtual nuclear deterrence’ among former possessor states and industrialised
nations.44 As suggested by Jonathan Schell, disinventing nuclear weapons may be
neither fully feasible nor desirable, and may not speak against nuclear abolition, but
could rather enable it. To consider problems of instability, feasibility and security criteria,
the ban treaty ‘could give guidance that all nuclear R&D activities should be able to
demonstrate they meet such criteria for a peaceful purpose’.45
Weapons delivery, systems integration and militarisation: The final stages to weaponisa-
tion are concerned about connecting nuclear explosive devices to delivery vehicles,
systems integration with command and control, and military operationalisation. Much
of the required technology for delivery systems is available in commercial dual-use
items and conventional arms, notably space launch vehicles (SLVs), which can be con-
verted to nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Observable indicators of nuclear weapons
orientation in key areas of delivery vehicle development include: missile specifications
exceeding commercial requirements and conventional military uses; special software, gui-
dance, navigation and control; certain features of testing equipment, reentry vehicles, pro-
pellants and facilities. Missile activities capable of exceeding 500 kg payload and 300 km
range (as defined by the Missile Technology Control Regime) would raise concern. The
Firewall report defines the militarisation of nuclear activity as ‘steps intended to induct
nuclear weapons for use by armed forces or to make them militarily useful’.46 Possible indi-
cators of militarisation are ambiguous and hard to detect but have contextual diagnostic
value. Examples include military involvement in administration, coordination, employ-
ment; construction, training, delivery systems; existence of ballistic missiles, nuclear-
capable forces, doctrines, command and control. Although delivery systems are not
addressed by the Ban Treaty, this may change with the involvement of NWS or talks in
other fora, from MTCR to START and beyond. The effectiveness of TPNW verification

43
IAEA Director General, Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues Regarding Iran’s Nuclear Programme (IAEA
GOV/2015/68, December 2, 2015): 2. [Link] (accessed January 10,
2018).
44
Jonathan Schell, The Abolition (1984), reprinted in: The Fate of the Earth and the Abolition (Stanford University Press, 2000):
118; Sukeyuki Ichimasa, ‘The Concept of Virtual Nuclear Arsenals and “a World without Nuclear Weapons”’, NIDS Journal of
Defense and Security, 13 (December 2012): 23–37.
45
Mian et al., ‘Addressing Verification in the Nuclear Ban Treaty’, 19. Also Datan et al, Securing Our Survival.
46
Dalton et al., Toward the Firewall, 19–20.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 13

could be greatly enhanced by a ban of certain delivery systems, notably by banning bal-
listic missiles beyond a certain range, as realised in the INF Treaty 1987 or suggested for
ICBMs between Reagan and Gorbachev in Reyklavik 1986. Both could be multilateralised.47

Verifying nuclear weapons disarmament and elimination (task 3)

The main focus of the TPNW is the prohibition of nuclear weapons and related capabilities,
which goes together with the elimination of nuclear weapons. Prohibition requires elimination,
which in turn completes prohibition. Nuclear-armed States that want to join the Treaty need to
eliminate their nuclear arsenals. This was already represented in the UN resolution stressing that
‘the irreversible, verifiable and transparent destruction of nuclear weapons would be needed in
order to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons’.48
Among the contested issues was whether the Prohibition Treaty should specify
measures on the elimination of existing nuclear-weapon-stockpiles or leave this to a
later stage. Egypt, for example, proposed that the treaty text should set the ‘timeframes
for verifiable nuclear disarmament, [including] … total and irreversible elimination of
nuclear weapons under effective multilateral verification and control’. Ireland, the Philip-
pines and Sweden called for specific disarmament obligations of nuclear weapon posses-
sors, including the monitoring of nuclear warhead destruction which could be elaborated
in the treaty itself or in separate protocols. Others, like Malaysia, suggested that ‘compli-
ance would not have to require detailed procedures at this stage’.49
The Ban Treaty includes commitments for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Accord-
ing to Article 4.2 a State Party that
owns, possesses or controls nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices shall immedi-
ately remove them from operational status, and destroy them … in accordance with a legally
binding, time-bound plan for the verified and irreversible elimination of its nuclear-weapon
programme, including the elimination or irreversible conversion of all nuclear-weapons-
related facilities.

According to Article 4.1 State Parties that have eliminated their nuclear-weapons shall
cooperate with the competent international authority for the ‘purpose of verifying the irre-
versible elimination of its nuclear-weapon programme’ and conclude a safeguards agree-
ment with the IAEA ‘to provide credible assurance of the non-diversion of declared nuclear
material from peaceful nuclear activities and of the absence of undeclared nuclear material
or activities’. Besides joining safeguards agreements, the TPNW has no specific provisions
about the verification of elimination. General considerations, existing agreements and
model treaties can serve as background how to realise and verify nuclear disarmament.

(1) Article VI of the NPT defines disarmament obligations for NWS ‘to pursue negotiations
in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an
47
Jürgen Scheffran, ‘Elimination of Ballistic Missiles’, in Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World, ed. Joseph Rotblat and
Michiji Konuma (World Scientific, 1997), 310–26.
48
UN General Assembly, Taking Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations (UNGA, A/RES/71/258, January 11,
2017).
49
See the discussion in Meier et al., ‘What Participants in a Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty (Do Not) Want’. For a summary of
positions in the first round of ban treaty talks, see Allison Pytlak, ‘News in Brief’, Nuclear Ban Daily (March 30, 2017): 10–
13, [Link]
(accessed January 10, 2018).
14 J. SCHEFFRAN

early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete
disarmament under strict and effective international control’. Regarding verification,
the concluding documents of the NPT review conferences in 2000, 2010 and 2015
state ‘that comprehensive safeguards and additional protocols should be
universally applied once the complete elimination of nuclear weapons has been
achieved’.50
(2) Valuable experiences have been gained from bilateral arms control and disarmament
between the US and Russia. The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START) provide examples of bilateral verification
for nuclear disarmament applied to delivery vehicles rather than warheads (there
was no verification for the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, SORT). Steps to
prepare for eliminating nuclear weapons would be provisions and guidelines for ver-
ification of warhead dismantlement, removal of warheads from deployment and de-
alerting.51 Several studies have explored the verification of deep reductions in
nuclear arsenals,52 incorporating the other NWS through proportional or gradual
reductions down to very low levels. Important in a multilateral context are confi-
dence-building and the ability to balance security, transparency and confidentiality
concerns.53
(3) The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) establishes a comprehensive multilateral
framework for elimination of all chemical weapons. Following the declaration of
chemical weapons, States provide access to systematic verification and a general
plan for destruction not later than two years to finish not later than 10 years
after entry into force.54 Verification is to be implemented through the Organisation
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and includes a system of intrusive
on-site inspections. The CWC experience can serve as a case to test the relationship
between compliance, inspections, confidence and intrusiveness needed for elimin-
ation of nuclear weapons and related delivery systems under the TPNW.
(4) Recognising the public appeal for a complete ban, a Nuclear Weapons Convention
(NWC) has been proposed as an abolition treaty for the prohibition and elimination
of nuclear weapons. Here the comprehensive goal of a world without nuclear
weapons with concrete measures and practical steps for achieving this goal is concep-
tualised, bridging the division between incremental and comprehensive approaches.
A group of experts drafted a Model NWC, which was presented to the NPT Conference
in April 1997 and submitted by Costa Rica to the UN, as a legal framework for nuclear
abolition. A revised version was presented at the NPT conference in April 2007, on the

50
NPT, 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document
(NPT/CONF.2000/28, Parts I and II, 2000), 4.
51
See for instance: Chris Paine, Tom Cochran, and Robert Norris, Practical Interim Steps Toward Nuclear Weapons Elimination
and a Fissile Material Control Regime for Nuclear Weapon States, Canberra Commission Issue Paper (New York: NRDC,
January 4, 1996).
52
Edward M. Ifft, Verification Lessons Learnt from Strategic Arms Reductions (Deep Cuts Working Paper #2, January 2014);
Greg Thielmann and Andrei Zagorski, INF Treaty Compliance: A Challenge and an Opportunity (Deep Cuts Working
Paper #9, February 2017). See the reports of the Deep Cuts Commission at [Link]
53
Patricia M. Lewis, Laying the Foundations for Getting to Zero: Verifying the Transition to Low Levels of Nuclear Weapons
(Vertic Research Report No. 1, September 1998); Patricia Lewis, ‘Verification, Compliance, and Enforcement’, in Abolishing
Nuclear Weapons, ed. George Perkovich and James M. Acton, Adelphi Papers 396 (2009): 233–49.
54
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production,
Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, [Link]
CWC_en.pdf (accessed January 10, 2018).
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 15

occasion of the foundation of ICAN.55 Since 1996 the majority of States voted for multi-
lateral negotiations on the NWC. In October 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
presented a five-point plan for nuclear disarmament, based on a ‘framework of separ-
ate, mutually reinforcing instruments’ or ‘negotiating a nuclear-weapons convention’.
NWC negotiations in different fora were suggested as an ‘adaptive, multi-level process
for assembling and coordinating the various elements and building blocks in the
transformation to the NWFW, with the NWC as the integrative mechanism between
ultimate goals and practical steps’.56 It remains to be seen whether the TPNW
realise the full scope of the NWC or both will merge in the transformation towards
a legal framework implementing both prohibition and elimination along the phases
suggested. The Model NWC can provide some guidance on the verification require-
ments and opportunities of this transformation, building on a combination of
elements (technical monitoring, on-site inspections, preventive control, International
Agency, societal verification, cooperation and transparency).57

Rather than setting up specific, common and multilateral measures to eliminate nuclear
weapons, the TPNW has adopted a flexible approach, adapting to the emerging challenges
and opportunities. In principle, any nuclear-armed State on a case-by-case basis reflecting
its particular history, circumstances and capabilities could join through separate arrange-
ments and protocols agreed with the conference of parties to the Treaty. ‘It could declare
its weapons holdings, and accept international monitoring of the process of taking its
weapons off deployment, disabling them, and placing them in secure storage pending
their verified elimination as part of an agreed, time-bound plan.’58 If the nuclear-armed
States are not yet ready to join the multilateral Ban Treaty, they may start their own bi- or plur-
ilateral negotiations on elimination, coordinated within or outside of the TPNW.59 The task is
demanding, given the number of nuclear weapons, although they declined significantly from
a peak of approximately 70,300 in 1986 to a still significant 14,550 in late-2017.60 Around 7000
weapons belong each to the US and Russia, while France, China and the UK have between 200
and 300 each, India and Pakistan are slightly above and Israel below 100. North Korea owns
the fissile material equivalent of perhaps 10–15 weapons. Roughly 9450 weapons are in the
military stockpiles (the rest awaiting dismantlement), of which more than 3900 warheads are
deployed with operational forces, nearly half on alert and ready to use on short notice. All NWS
continue to modernise and are not willing to abandon their nuclear forces.
It is quite demanding to verify the destruction of the infrastructures which have pro-
duced nuclear weapons over the past 70 years, mostly in the US and Russia. This will
require monitoring of around 100 nuclear warhead storage sites, a task that could be sim-
plified by consolidating and reconfiguring the nuclear weapons complexes into fewer
55
The 2007 Model NWC is published in Datan et al., Securing Our Survival, and was submitted by Costa Rica as a Working
Paper to the UN: [Link] (accessed January 10, 2018).
56
Jürgen Scheffran, The Nuclear Weapons Convention as a Process – Umbrella Negotiations as a Framework for a Nuclear-
Weapon-Free World (Paper presented at Middle Powers Initiative, Atlanta, January 20–22, 2010). [Link]
[Link]/sites/default/files/imce/oewg/scheffran_the_nwc_as_a_process.pdf (accessed January 10, 2018).
57
Datan et al., Securing Our Survival. The Model NWC outlines five phases over three decades beginning with short-term
stability measures and ending with long-term elimination of all nuclear weapon capabilities.
58
Mian et al., ‘Addressing Verification in the Nuclear Ban Treaty’, 16.
59
Similar to the umbrella negotiation framework outlined in Scheffran, The Nuclear Weapons Convention as a Process.
60
Data based on Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, Status of World Nuclear Forces (updated December 2017), https://
[Link]/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces (accessed January 10, 2018).
16 J. SCHEFFRAN

sites, accessible to international inspectors.61 Using ‘nuclear archaeology’ to reconstruct

past nuclear activities, member States would give a more detailed inventory of their
remaining weapons and weapons-grade fissile materials, document warhead assembly,
refurbishment, and dismantling and pursue joint efforts to develop and demonstrate
inspection systems for verified warhead storage and dismantlement, as well as the move-
ments of warheads and warhead components. A pioneering role has been played through
the UK–Norway Initiative of scientists and technical experts from the UK (a NWS) and
Norway (a NNWS), working together on practical issues of a future nuclear disarmament
verification regime. It sheds light on impediments to verification and methods to over-
come them, such as managed access, information barriers and confidence in verification.62
Once the locations of treaty-limited items and facilities are known, they can be checked and
tagged by on-site inspections, continuously and on-demand, allowing for a nearly complete
verification record of the dismantlement and destruction of remaining declared weapons,
production and maintenance facilities. Affixed with tamper-proof tags and seals, these
would be stored in sealed containers and stored at secure locations, well away from potential
delivery systems. Warhead pits would be removed to internationally monitored storage facili-
ties to await final disposition. Keeping records of all relevant transactions involves modern
cryptographic techniques, such as blockchains, to ensure and protect their authenticity.63
Since verification of declared stocks and facilities is relatively easy, the main purpose of
verifying elimination is to detect breakout from elimination, i.e. producing enough
weapons-grade fissile material to develop or manufacture nuclear weapons, and control
all relevant facilities in the nuclear fuel cycle to make sure that the existing capabilities of
nuclear weapons (warheads, materials) are disarmed, disinvented and unmade to the
degree achievable. One key issue of breakout is to make nuclear disarmament irreversible
through concerted and sequenced measures leading to a world in which nuclear weapons
capability and production are destroyed, converted or eroded. Nuclear weapons develop-
ment would have to start from scratch and become increasingly difficult to conceal. The like-
lihood of breakout will decrease, as progress is made on nuclear disarmament and reliance
on nuclear weapons is stigmatised. Some breakout potential will remain as long as the
nuclear materials exist. Breakout risk can be contained by a wide range of measures, includ-
ing individual responsibility and whistleblowing, sanctions and enforcement, collective
security, and preventive controls that contain misuse of nuclear materials and facilities.64
Once NWS are disarmed, their remaining legacy capabilities need to be contained and
controlled to prevent breakout, which is particularly challenging for the most advanced
nuclear powers US and Russia. A 2005 National Academies of Science (NAS) report con-
cludes that in view of the size and age of its stockpile ‘Russia probably could conceal unde-
clared stocks of several hundred weapon.’65 Other countries ‘could conceal undeclared

61
Mian et al., ‘Addressing Verification in the Nuclear Ban Treaty’, 17. See further International Panel on Fissile Material
(IPFM), Global Fissile Material Report 2013: Increasing Transparency of Nuclear Warhead and Fissile Material Stocks as a
Step Toward Disarmament (October 2013), [Link]
62
Elin Enger, The Challenge of Verification: The UK-Norway Initiative on Non-Nuclear-Weapon States’ Participation in the Ver-
ification of Nuclear Disarmament, Working Paper (Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, 2013).
63
Aaron Arnold, ‘Blockchain: A New Aid to Nuclear Export Controls?’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (October 19, 2017),
[Link] (accessed January 10, 2018).
64
Datan et al., Securing Our Survival, Chapter 4.
65
Committee on International Security and Arms Control, Monitoring Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear-Explosive Materials,
National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC, 2005), 13.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 17

stocks equivalent to one or two dozen weapons in the case of China, and at most one or
two weapons in the cases of Israel, India, and Pakistan’. However, success would depend
on a ‘monitoring program over a period of years in an environment of increased transpar-
ency and cooperation’.
An illuminating case is South Africa, which in 1989 terminated its nuclear weapons pro-
gramme with HEU for up to seven weapons. After the destruction of key weapons com-
ponents, including documents on weapons design and manufacturing, South Africa
joined the NPT in 1991 and signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. By comparing
calculations with physical inventory measurements, discrepancies indicated an amount of
uranium-235 unaccounted for. Although extensive investigations could not remove all
uncertainties, the IAEA found no indications that the nuclear weapon programme was
not completely terminated or converted to legitimate usage.66 This conclusion became
possible because of the openness of South African authorities for transparency and
cooperation in access to information. The experience in verifying South Africa’s nuclear
inventory, terminating its weapons programme and decommissioning of related facilities
is instructive to develop the verification of complete nuclear disarmament. It became clear
that verification is more complicated, uncertain and time consuming if a state dismantled
its nuclear weapons before joining a treaty.

Transformation of the security environment (task 4)

The verifiability of the Ban Treaty depends on technical and economic capabilities as well
as societal, political and security conditions. A viable verification regime requires a high
level of confidence in compliance and the ability to reduce the risk of breakout to tolerable
levels, without jeopardising legitimate security interests and commercial activities.67 Ver-
ification depends on security and also contributes to it. It seems paradox that in a hostile
environment of mistrust effective verification is more needed but also more difficult, in a
cooperative environment verification demands and concerns are more relaxed as
countries trust each other. The transformation to the NWFW goes hand in hand with estab-
lishing new security landscapes that diminish incentives for acquiring nuclear weapons
and develop alternative security conceptions. Comparing the current global crisis with a
future more favourable to nuclear disarmament, the question is at which level of security
and verification a mutually enforcing transition occurs.

The current security landscape

The Ban Treaty is currently facing and running against a security landscape in which the
relevance of nuclear weapons is growing. Although the number of nuclear weapons
declined with the end of the Cold War, the five established NWS have not abandoned
the nuclear arms race, despite their NPT obligations. They are modernising nuclear
weapons, together with an arms race between missiles, missile defence, space
66
Olli Heinonen, ‘Verifying the Dismantlement of South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Program’, in Nuclear Weapons Materials
Gone Missing: What Does History Teach?, ed. Henry D. Sokolski (Carlisle Barracks, PA: United States Army War College Press,
November 2014), 174.
67
Jürgen Scheffran, ‘Verification and Security in a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: Elements and Framework of a Nuclear
Weapons Convention’, Disarmament Forum 3 (2010): 51–64.
18 J. SCHEFFRAN

weapons, cyberwar and conventional arms. Hundreds of tons of nuclear weapons-grade

materials exist and may increase with the expansion of nuclear energy, potentially contri-
buting to nuclear proliferation and terror risks. The danger of nuclear war remains virulent,
not to mention talk of a new Cold War and a potential global nuclear winter threatening
the future of humanity.68 New nuclear crises and arms races add to other phenomena,
from climate change to armed conflict and refugee movements.
The Ban Treaty cannot easily reverse this trend without support by NATO countries
which still see a prohibition of nuclear weapons as incompatible with their alliance inter-
ests which rely on nuclear deterrence. Against this background, the TPNW operates in a
world in which the majority of States abandons nuclear security conceptions and a min-
ority promotes nuclear deterrence doctrines. Under these conditions the Ban Treaty
may not escape the security dilemmas and threats of nuclear weapons, and nuclear pro-
grammes may raise suspicions about their military relevance. Besides continuation of safe-
guards among NPT members, NWS can take practical arms control measures in the coming
decade, such as improved accounting and protection of fissile materials; threat reduction
in nuclear weapons research, testing and production; monitoring the nuclear weapons
infrastructure; preventing destabilising activities such as de-alerting and no-first-use,
removing weapons from deployment, removing nuclear warheads from delivery vehicles.
The security impact of breakout scenarios largely depends on military capabilities, includ-
ing the state of readiness and deliverability of weapons, defences and deterrence doc-
trines and the willingness to respond.69

Verification and alternative security conceptions for the ban treaty

In contrast to the current situation, the Ban Treaty is an attempt by the non-nuclear Global
South to take the lead and move away from a world order based on nuclear weapons to
alternative security conceptions without these weapons. The Ban Treaty envisions a new
security regime based on international law and mechanisms of verification. In its preamble
the Treaty highlights the security gains: since the ‘risks posed by the continued existence
of nuclear weapons, including from any nuclear-weapon detonation by accident, miscal-
culation or design, concern the security of all humanity, all States share the responsibility
to prevent any use of nuclear weapons’. Furthermore, ‘the catastrophic consequences of
nuclear weapons cannot be adequately addressed, transcend national borders, pose
grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development,
the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations’. By
avoiding these consequences, the NWFW and the Ban treaty aim to serve collective and
cooperative security interests for all of humanity.
In a collective security system, all member states accept that the security of one is the
concern of all, offering an insurance to protect victims of an aggression and act together to
deter, punish or repel an aggressor.70 The implementation of collective responses has
been hampered by partial interests and dominance by major powers, as expressed in
the division of the UN Security Council. To take collective action to enforce the Ban
68
Alan Robock, ‘Nuclear Winter’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 1, no. 3 (May/June 2010): 418–27.
69
Findlay, ‘Verification of a Nuclear Weapon-Free World’.
70
Inis L. Claude Jr., ‘Collective Security as an Approach to Peace’, in Classic Readings and Contemporary Debates in Inter-
national Relations, ed. Donald M. Goldstein, Phil Williams, and Jay M. Shafritz (Thomson Wadsworth, 2006), 289–302.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 19

Treaty against a breakout, a reform of the global security mechanisms is required, shifting
to a more powerful UN, international peacekeeping and peaceful means of crisis
management.
During the end of the Cold War, the concept of cooperative security dealt with nego-
tiated confidence-building measures to restrain offensive operations, prevent surprise
attack and strengthen stability. After the Cold War, cooperative security was part of recon-
ceptualisation of security policy to ‘establishing higher standards of managerial control
over the large arsenals of nuclear weapons and stockpiles’ which found its representation
in the Nunn-Lugar programme. Between 1991 and 2007, collaborative projects were
undertaken to manage Russian nuclear forces and jointly deactivate approximately
2500 delivery systems. NATO’s programme of cooperative security creates a network of
‘security partnerships’ which could serve as a basis for regional arms control and
disarmament.71
In the transition to a global regime, regional security dynamics can be major
obstacles as well as drivers. Nuclear-weapon-free zones can be role models for regional
security regimes that can be expanded to other regions. Security cooperation is most
needed in the Middle East, where disorder and violence have reached unprecedented
levels, nuclear power demands and proliferation risks are growing, and accidents or
attacks could be devastating. The mitigation of and protection against threats by
radiological and nuclear materials is a logical place for regional security cooperation.72
This could support attempts for a Middle Eastern NWFZ which have so far
failed. Similar points could be made for South Asia or Northeast Asia where nego-
tiations on confidence-building could be connected to a regional NWFZ and the
global TPNW.
The effectiveness of the TPNW depends on its verifiability, provided the costs of verifi-
cation are not prohibitive and the risks of undetected activities are acceptable. The lin-
kages between verification and security are relevant in each stage of the verification
frame. As long as the TPNW only covers the NNWS (stage 1), verification tasks deal with
concerns over the dual-use of civil technologies below the firewall. Security concerns
become more relevant once NWS join the Treaty with verification tasks on stages 2 and
3 across the firewall. With progressing transformation to nuclear abolition the incentives
for nuclear weapons and their reemergence are at stake on stage 4 (resembling the con-
textual factors in the firewall concept) until the world experiences the expected security
gains of a NWFW, diminishing the need for comprehensive verification and reducing
the likelihood of breakout.
Verification would aim for the best possible security but not give the illusion of perfect
security. As the world moves toward complete nuclear disarmament, and as warhead
numbers decline, uncertainties and risks of breakout tend to become more important. A
few hidden nuclear weapons can be significant and may not be detected, questioning a
foolproof multilateral verification system:

71
Ashton B. Carter, William J. Perry, and John D. Steinbruner. A New Concept of Cooperative Security (Brookings Institution,
1992). Cooperative Security: NATO’s Partnership Policy in a Changing World, DIIS Report (Danish Institute for International
Studies, 2014).
72
Bilal Y. Saab and Milsu Goren, Atomic Bonds in an Age of Entropy: The Pursuit of a Nuclear Security Framework in the Middle
East (February 28, 2018), [Link] (accessed April 24, 2018). Bernd
W. Kubbig and Sven-Eric Fikenscher, eds., Arms Control and Missile Proliferation in the Middle East (Routledge, 2012).
20 J. SCHEFFRAN

even if every nuclear warhead were destroyed, the current nuclear weapons states, and a
growing number of other technologically advanced states, would be able to build nuclear
weapons within a few months or few years of a national decision to do so.73

But this does not preclude verifiability: ‘the production of a hundred lightweight thermo-
nuclear bombs or warheads equipped with modern safety and security devices might take
several years, even if special efforts had been made to maintain the capability to produce
such weapons’.74 Any illicit nuclear weapons capability in breakout scenarios ‘would be
untested, could not be deployed until the last minute, could probably not be delivered
by conventional means, and overt training for use would have been impossible’.75
Responding to the initial questions, the transition from prohibition to elimination will
require progress in both verification and security:
Complete nuclear disarmament will require continued evolution of the international system
toward collective action, transparency, and the rule of law; a comprehensive system of verifi-
cation, which itself will require an unprecedented degree of cooperation and transparency;
and safeguards to protect against the possibility of cheating or rapid break-out.76

As an adaptive approach, it can be expanded to future negotiations on the elimination of

nuclear weapons by incorporating additional members and mechanisms. To convince
NWS to join, an effective verification regime is essential, based on a combination of tech-
nical verification mechanisms to detect clandestine nuclear-weapon-related activities,
together with political, organisational and societal elements, including societal and insti-
tutional verification, dispute settlement and enforcement. Integration of these elements
into a coherent and effective verification framework needs to be further developed. Ulti-
mately the future of nuclear abolition will depend on whether the world is safer from the
risks of nuclear war in today’s non-proliferation regime or in a future regime of complete
nuclear disarmament.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Jürgen Scheffran is professor at the Institute of Geography of Universität Hamburg and head of the
Research Group Climate Change and Security (CLISEC) in the Excellence Initiative ‘Integrated Climate
Systems Analysis and Prediction’ (CliSAP) and at the Center for Earth System Research and Sustain-
ability (CEN). He is Associate Member of the Center for Science and Peace Research (ZNF) and Faculty
Affiliate of the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security (ACDIS) at the Uni-
versity of Illinois.

73
CISAC, The Future of US Nuclear Weapons Policy (National Academies Press, 1997), 9.
74
Ibid., 97.
75
Findlay, ‘Verification of a Nuclear Weapon-Free World’, 9.
76
Ibid.