IAEA SAFEGUARDS AGREEMENT

Comments and suggestions on the safeguards agreement and additional protocols (draft):

1. Claims by the mainstream media: Global trade in nuclear materials is vitiated by the highly discriminatory NPT regime and the existence of the NSG which is used as an instrument for enforcing non-trade barriers. No free trade regime exists in nuclear materials, as implied in the claims of Congress and the the mainstream media. In fact, India has always questioned the moral and legal base of these entities that are placed even above the IAEA, thereby compromising on its international authority. We should continue with this principled position and demand the dismantling of all non-tariff barriers in nuclear trade in support of global cooperation in nuclear technologies. Ours will not be a lone voice if our diplomats takes it up in right earnest.

2. India Specific or US Specific? India is an equal member of the IAEA like USA. We are a major non-weapon nuclear power of a billion people, with a substantial program dedicated to the peaceful uses of atomic energy. We have every right to sign safeguards agreements and protocols with IAEA on our own. There is no IAEA rule insisting that, such agreements has to be sponsored by USA or some Super Power. Reference to USA and the India-US joint statement of 18th July 2005 in the first and subsequent paragraphs of the present drat appear to be unwarranted: It concedes to USA a gate-keeping or policing role with regard to India-IAEA relationship and hence humiliating for a country like India. All these US-Specific references should be removed, and in case diplomatic niceties demand it, references should also be made to the reported discussions with Russia, China, France and other major NSG countries.
3. Concerns about IPR: We have an extensive nuclear research program even outside of nuclear power and there are concerns about IAEA inspections trying to snoop over our research projects. We are far above ground zero in number of segments and the concerns of our scientists in this regard are genuine. There have to be protection clauses in the agreement which give India the absolute right to withhold any information from IAEA for reasonable periods of time, in order to protect its Intellectual Property Rights.
4. Freedom to export to member countries: As a major non-weapon nuclear power, India should have unrestricted freedom to expert its technology and nuclear materials to any member countries and IAEA should guarantee this. An additional protocol may be signed in this regard.
5. India's three-stage nuclear power program: Our country has a big stake in this program . We have made huge investments in terms of material and human resources in this massive program which has already crossed the half-way mark. There is only a passing mention about this in the draft agreement. We have to learn nuclear diplomacy that is commensurate with our size and capabilities, and offer to sign a separate cooperation agreement with IAEA on this program, held on high esteem by the world scientific community. Nehru-Bhabha team would have possibly managed such an international agreement with IAEA, under the current international situation.

K Vijayachandran
Chairman, Cochin Centre for Policy Initiatives

11th July 2008