information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
20 Janvier 2016
January 20, 2016
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) play the roles of research, advocacy and norm promotion, agenda setting, lobbying public authorities, implementing programs and delivering services and humanitarian assistance, monitoring implementation of international commitments, and direct action. Without their decadeslong efforts on human and labor rights, environmental and consumer protection and other social, economic and political activism, the world would be a far harsher place for all of us today.
NGOs have also long been active on nuclear issues, in relation both to nuclear power and weapons. While several Nobel Peace Prizes have been controversial, one that received general acclaim was to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in 1985. One of the key messages from IPPNW was the shared interests of U.S. and Soviet scientists in averting a nuclear war. They were preceded by the Pugwash Conference founded in 1957 and have been joined by other NGOs like Global Zero and Reaching Critical Will, also animated by grave concerns about the acute risks posed by nuclear weapons.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union the world faced the threat of so-called “loose nukes”: nuclear weapons and materials that were stored in anything but secure locations and conditions across the vast country, as well as a large number of unemployed and badly paid but highly skilled nuclear scientists. Once again visionary Americans worked with Russian colleagues to try to gradually reduce, contain and eliminate the risks. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the world awoke to the new danger of nuclear terrorism. The very notion of deterrence was utterly irrelevant to groups who prided themselves in suicide attacks and held no territory or fixed assets that could be threatened in retaliatory attacks.
U.S. President Barack Obama took office with a vision for a world freed of the threat of nuclear weapons. Curiously, in his final State of the Union address on Jan. 13, with the exception of the Iran deal, he failed to mention nuclear issues. Yet while he may not have succeeded in the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, he did initiate and will preside over the final nuclear security summit whereby all the world’s leaders with relevant nuclear programs signed on to the agenda of securing all civilian nuclear materials and facilities. The first summit was held in Washington in April 2010 and the final one will be held there this year.
In this endeavor, too, NGOs have been active, with the most prominent being the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative. (Disclosure: The Asia-Pacific Leadership Network, of which professor Chung-in Moon from Yonsei University in Seoul and I are the co-convenors, is supported by NTI.) Founded in 2001 by philanthropist businessman Ted Turner and former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, NTI is actively engaged in shaping, developing and implementing nuclear security programs. In 2008, in partnership with others and collaboration with the IAEA, NTI helped to set up the World Institute for Nuclear Security in Vienna. With over 3,000 members from 115 countries, WINS brings together those responsible for looking after nuclear security to swap ideas, share best practices and exchange lessons learned. Last year NTI also helped set up the IAEA-administered, low-enriched uranium international nuclear fuel bank in Kazakhstan to facilitate the peaceful use of nuclear energy with minimal proliferation threats.
The flagship NTI publication is the biennial Nuclear Security Index, the third edition of which was published Jan. 14 in Washington ( ntiindex.org ). Prepared jointly by NTI and the Economist Intelligence Unit with the mission of developing global standards and best practices for securing all nuclear materials, the release of all three has been widely covered by the global media.
The 2016 index tells us a lot that is interesting. Australia maintains its overall top ranking among the world’s 24 states with weapons-useable nuclear materials, but it is joined by six other states with a perfect score of 100. Of the 24, four became parties to key international agreements related to nuclear materials security during the biennium, six made new voluntary commitments (such as contributing to the IAEA Nuclear Security Fund), and eight passed or updated laws and regulations on cybersecurity.
Readers of this newspaper will be pleased to learn that Japan is assessed as the most improved state, bettering its score by 27 from two years ago to join the group at the top with perfect scores. Among nuclear-armed states, France, the U.S. and the United Kingdom score the highest while the U.S., India, Russia and the U.K. are the most improved.
Rankings aside, on the upside, 12 countries decreased their quantities of weapons-usable nuclear materials over the four-year period measured by the index, and Uzbekistan removed all of its weapons-usable nuclear material. On the downside, no improvements have been made in the core protection and control measures assessed by the NTI Index.
More worrying, the current global system for securing nuclear materials has major gaps that prevent it from being comprehensive and effective: No common set of international standards and best practices exists, there is no mechanism for holding states with lax security accountable, and the legal foundation for securing materials is neither complete nor universally observed.
Most worrying, as my center reported in our own state of play on nuclear weapons last year, 83 percent of all fissile stocks are military materials and thus remain outside existing international security mechanisms. Moreover, participation in international peer review — a very effective tool for improving performance and building confidence in others about the integrity of a state’s security remains — limited: only 16 of the 24 states with weapons-usable nuclear materials have had a nuclear security peer review in the past five years, and seven have never had one.
An act of sabotage against a nuclear facility could result in a significant radiological release, similar in scale to the release when a tsunami hit the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011. The 2016 index for the first time assesses nuclear security conditions related to the protection of nuclear facilities against acts of sabotage for 45 countries with nuclear power plants or research reactors.
The index finds troubling shortfalls in how well countries are protecting nuclear facilities against sabotage and the emerging threat of cyberattacks. Twenty states lack even basic requirements to protect nuclear facilities from cyberattacks and score zero. Too many countries remain unprepared to deal with cyberattacks that might lead to sabotage.
Overly sensitive governments will attack the messenger with full “Yes Minister-style” efforts to belittle and discredit the index and NTI, casting aspersions on methodology, motives, bias, data reliability, etc. But sensible states will make full use of the NTI Nuclear Security Index as a global benchmark against which to track and improve their own record.
Ramesh Thakur is a professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy and director of the Center for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Australian National University.
19.01.2016_No12 / News in Brief
Security & Safety
19 Jan (NucNet): Of the 24 countries that had nuclear stockpiles of at least 1kg in 2015, Iran and North Korea are the worst in the world at securing these from theft, according to an index from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Economist Intelligence Unit. Among the safest countries are Australia, Switzerland, Canada and Poland. Globally, progress is being made, but it is slowing, the index shows. A dozen countries have eliminated their stockpiles, but only Uzbekistan has done so since the 2014 index. Several countries have increased their stockpiles in that time, including India, Japan, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, and Britain. Almost 2,000 tonnes of weapons-usable nuclear materials remain stored around the world. There is also a growing risk of sabotage by a number of methods which includes cyberattacks, the index shows. Around 45 countries have some form of nuclear facilities, and would be vulnerable to a radiological leak on the same scale as the Fukushima-Daiichi accident. The most vulnerable nations are, again, Iran and North Korea. Of the countries with nuclear facilities, developing countries with new nuclear programmes such Egypt and Algeria are least secure. Details online: http://ntiindex.org