The Arms Control Association claims that:
"Through its public education and media programs and its magazine, Arms Control Today, ACA provides policymakers, the press, and the interested public with authoritative information, analysis, and commentary on arms control proposals, negotiations and agreements, and related national security issues."
Authoritative?
Then how to explain this recent posting on their Web site by “research analyst” Paul Kerr?
"On Nov. 24, following an anticipated report from Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors is set to evaluate Iran’s cooperation with a Sept. 24 resolution that found Tehran in “noncompliance” with its agency safeguards agreement.
"Under the IAEA statute, the board is required to notify the Security Council if a state-party to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is found in noncompliance with its agency safeguards agreement."
Those “authoritative” statements are – at best – misleading.
In the first place, the IAEA statute doesn’t even mention the NPT.
How could it?
The agency’s genesis was President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” address to the UN General Assembly. The resulting IAEA statute was unanimously approved by the General Assembly in October 1956.
According to which:
“The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world.
"It shall ensure, so far as it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose."
Hence the primary mission of the IAEA is to facilitate the safe and secure transfer – and subsequent application – of “atomic energy.”
The IAEA statute effectively establishes a mechanism – the IAEA Safeguards and Physical Security regime – for accomplishing its corollary mission: to ensure that “special fissionable and other materials” are “not used in such a way as to further any military purpose.”
If and when the IAEA Board concludes that safeguarded materials are being used in furtherance of a military purpose, then “the agency shall notify the Security Council, as the organ bearing the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”
The objectives of the NPT [.pdf] – which did not enter into force until 1970 – are (a) to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, (b) to foster the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and (c) to further the goal of achieving general and complete disarmament.
The NPT attempted to “freeze” the number of nuclear-weapon states at five (U.S., Russia, UK, France, and China). All other NPT signatories were required to forswear nuclear weapons and to conclude comprehensive safeguards agreements with the IAEA on all their “source” and “special nuclear” materials.
These agreements – “NPT safeguards agreements” – remain in force only so long as the agreement state remains a signatory to the NPT.
When North Korea refused in February 1993 to allow a “special inspection” to determine if all materials and activities that should have been declared had been declared, the IAEA Board concluded that North Korea was “in noncompliance with its safeguards agreement” and referred this “noncompliance” to the UN Security Council.
On March 12, 1993, North Korea gave the obligatory three-months notice that it was withdrawing from the NPT – rendering its NPT safeguards agreement null and void.
What did the Security Council do?
On May 11, 1993, the Council called upon the DPRK to comply with the agreement.
So in June 1993 North Korea temporarily “suspended the effectuation” of its NPT withdrawal.
On Jan. 6, 2003, as a result of Bush-Cheney unsubstantiated charges that North Korea had – unknown to the IAEA – a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the IAEA Board adopted a resolution calling upon North Korea to cooperate fully and urgently or be deemed “in further noncompliance with its safeguards agreement.”
On Jan. 11, 2003, North Korea announced the “effectuation” of its previous withdrawal from the NPT.
Despite repeated referrals by the IAEA Board, at no time has the Security Council concluded that North Korea is a threat to international peace and security.
Now, as a result of Bush-Cheney unsubstantiated charges that Iran has – unbeknownst to the IAEA – a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the IAEA Board has adopted a resolution [.pdf] calling upon Iran to relinquish its “inalienable right” to enjoy the benefits of “atomic energy” or be deemed “in further noncompliance with its safeguards agreement.”
According to Kerr, “there seems to be little chance that the board will refer the matter to the UN Security Council.”
That’s probably not authoritative misinformation.
