Symposium on International Safeguards: Linking Strategy, Implementation and People - IAEA CN-220

Analysis of Nuclear Relevant Information on International Procurement and Industrial Activities for Safeguards Purposes

23 Oct 2014, 11:00

20m

Room M1 (M Building)

oral Technical Aspects of Information Collection and Analysis

Speaker

Elena Marinova (IAEA)

Description

Through the use of information on trade and industry, analysts in the Department of Safeguards create an understanding of relevant technological capabilities available to States with safeguards agreements in force and the nuclear related equipment and materials they can make use of either through indigenous manufacture or import. This information gives a valuable independent input into the consistency analysis of States’ declarations and may identify inconsistencies or provide indicators of possible undeclared activities. Information on procurement attempts of potential safeguards relevance is made available to the Department through the voluntary support of several Member States. These provide complete and original primary details on enquiries that reach expert suppliers of nuclear relevant goods in the respective Member States, enquiries that may not adequately declare the intended end use of the goods. Information on export/import activities (EXIM) is collected from a variety of publicly available statistical trade databases. These provide details on trade flows of commodities between States. The information is categorized according to the World Customs Organization’s universal product nomenclature: the Harmonized System (HS). Querying relevant HS codes allows analysis of EXIM information for indicators of safeguards relevance, providing insight into potential safeguards relevant capabilities, resources or activities. Surveys of nuclear relevant manufacturing capabilities of States are performed by collecting information from publicly available business directories. Such information is then further refined by identifying the actual activities of the individual manufacturers and suppliers of interest. This survey provides valuable knowledge on the technical capabilities of States. This paper will discuss the most important types of information used, clarify why they are relevant, describe the methodologies now routinely used in the Department of Safeguards to collect, collate and analyse the information, and identify areas where further work can be done to improve the process.