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After securing the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) approval, India has signed civilian nuclear cooperation agreements with states as diverse as Britain, France, Russia, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Angola and most recently, Canada. Yet, if US and French civilian nuclear cooperation with India is to be realised an Indo-Japanese pact is essential simply because some the leaders in nuclear-power technology are Japanese joint-ventures like GE-Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse.
So, what is it that links the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) and Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to issues related to civilian nuclear tech-cooperation? The answer - Zangger Committee.
The Zangger Committee, also known as the Nuclear Exporters Committee, sprang from Article III.2 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which entered into force on March 5, 1970. Under the terms of Article III.2 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards must be applied to nuclear exports. It is basically an informal club maintains and updates a list of equipment that may only be exported if safeguards are applied to the recipient facility (called the "Trigger List" because such exports trigger the requirement for safeguards); and allows members to coordinate on nuclear export issues.
NSG members are also Zangger committee members - except for Brazil, New Zealand and Ukraine. I wonder why...
Other interesting questions:
What does the "trigger list" contain?
How have the the NSG members with nuclear weapon stockpiles (US, UK, Russia, China etc.,) managed to persuade the others to toe their line? What were the inducements, incentives or , to quote Don Corleone, "offers which they could not refuse"?
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LINKS -
Beyond the Mushroom Cloud, Harsh V Pant, Indian Express 25 Aug 2010 - http://www.indianexpress.com/news/beyond-the-mushroom-cloud/664501/0
Statement on Civilian Nuclear Cooperation with India - http://www.armscontrol.org/system/files/20080906_Final_NSG_Statement.pdf
Zangger Committee - Mission Statement - http://www.zanggercommittee.org/Mission/Seiten/default.aspx
FAS: Membership of ZanggerC and NSG - http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/nsg/member.htm
IAEA - Treaty for Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (22 April 1970) - http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/infcirc140.pdf
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"NSG members are also Zangger committee members - except for Brazil, New Zealand and Ukraine. I wonder why…"
ReplyDeleteWhile you wonder why Brazil is not a Zangger member, keep in mind that this country made effort to create the first international zone free of nuclear weapons (Tlatelolco Treaty, 1967) and is the very one of the two only countries in the world to submit itself to a four-checked nuclear accountability control (Quadripartite Treaty, with Argentina, ABACC and AIEA).
You should also wonder why Japan, such a developed country, has allowed some incompetent nuclear power plants…
tonyjeff:
ReplyDeletePoint taken. Thanks.
How many N-power plants in the world can withstand sucha similar a double whammy of a 9.0 quake + tsunami?
IMHO, it has nothing to do with the number of treaties signed. We can agree to disagree, of course..