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Viewpoint
To have and not have nuclear weapons
Taking Africa seriously
06/2005 |
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[ Comment ]
To have and not have nuclear weapons
The international community welcomes efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but there is little agreement on how to do so. Effectively stopping proliferation would, first, require that the nuclear weapon states consistently disarm and, second, that the dual-use character of nuclear technology be taken more seriously. Proliferation-proof transfer of technologies for renewable energy to poor countries is a way of providing for a better future.
[ By Wolfgang Liebert ]
The world generally supports the goals of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of preventing the further spread of nuclear weapons along with disarming arsenals owned by the current nuclear powers. More than 185 nations have joined the agreement. Poor countries are interested in combating the threat both from the current stockpiles and from emerging nuclear powers. The NPT sweetens the deal for countries willing to refrain from developing their own nuclear arsenal by allowing them access to civilian nuclear technologies.
But 35 years after the NPT went into effect, these two promises have not been fulfilled: instead of reducing their stockpiles to naught, the nuclear powers continue to modernise their weaponry. And nuclear power plays a negligible role in the energy supply of developing countries. Critics have therefore coined the term “nuclear apartheid” to describe the feelings this policy has provoked in poor countries. At the NPT Review Conference in May, Malaysia, on behalf of the non-aligned nations, demanded that all nuclear weapons be disposed of completely. Iran’s nuclear program was not mentioned at all.
And yet, the conflict about Iran’s two-faced program to enrich uranium is an indication of another crucial issue of the non-proliferation regime. Nuclear technologies that provide access to fissile material can be used both for civilian purposes and the development of weapon. All of the countries that wanted to launch or succeeded in launching their own nuclear weapons programmes did so by exploiting this dual-use character.
What solutions are there to this problem? Instead of coming up with stricter control systems that are only effective after the fact and only on the political level, the technical design of nuclear power facilities should be changed. For instance, research reactors could be operated with modern high-density fuel, which is not highly enriched, instead of the highly enriched variety that can be used to produce nuclear weapons. While no absolutely proliferation-proof nuclear technology is on the horizon, some technological measures are on the drawing board that would increase proliferation-resistance.
If it were up to the US, the proliferation of all sensitive technology, such as uranium enrichment and plutonium separation, would be strictly limited to the countries that already possess this technology. This strategy will, no doubt, raise the ire of many developing countries. Such an approach would only further increase the asymmetry between the “haves” and the “have-nots”; in contrast, developing countries are demanding equal rights for all countries.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the secretary-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has a different idea. He has proposed a five-year global moratorium on the construction of new, sensitive facilities. This proposal would not only apply to Iran, but also to Brazil, France, and the USA. All these countries also plan to set up new centrifuge facilities. ElBaradei also suggests that individual governments renounce control of sensitive technologies. He believes that allowing multilateral institutions to operate sensitive facilities might help prevent individual states from using that technology for military purposes.
In any case, there will be no effective and stable non-proliferation regime without the haves announcing that they will give up their nuclear arsenals and their exclusive use of civilian energy technology. They must also offer technology transfer to the have-nots. In other words, if the disarmament goals of the NPT are to be met, a nuclear weapons convention would have to match the example set by the current biological and chemical weapons convention: nuclear weapons would have to be banned worldwide. If the second promise in the current NPT – access to civilian nuclear power – is to be met, solutions have to be found going beyond the nuclear technologies capable of dual-use. Modern renewable energy technologies are an excellent option. The Renewable Energy Conference held in Bonn, Germany in June of 2004 needs to be followed-up towards this end.
Dr. Wolfgang Liebert
is a coordinator and spokesperson for the Interdisciplinary Research Group in Science, Technology, and Security (IANUS) at the Technical University of Darmstadt.
liebert@ianus.tu-darmstadt.de
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