Report Release – Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog

An important report - Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA - the culmination of two-year research project that examined all aspects of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mandate and operations, was presented to the Carleton University community today by the author of the report Trevor Findlay – Chair of the William and Jeanie Barton Chair in International Affairs, Director of the Canadian Centre for Treaty Compliance (CCTC), and Professor of International Affairs at Carleton University. Trevor Findlay is also a CIGI Senior Fellow and he makes multiple recommendations, both strategic and programmatic, for strengthening and reform of the IAEA.

“In spite of the IAEA’s well-deserved reputation, it remains relatively undernourished, its powers significantly hedged and its technical achievements often overshadowed by political controversy,” says Professor Findlay. “The Agency is ripe for strengthening and reform, but this requires not just a willing and proactive Secretariat, but, crucially, enhanced political, technical and financial support from member states.”

Among the paper’s most important recommendations:

•  Hold General Conference every 2 years; reform Board of Governors election process but avoid expansion
• Limit Director General to 2 four-year terms and appoint a true deputy director general
• Commission wide-ranging external management study; produce a Strategic Plan; devise a Resource Mobilization Strategy
• Pursue a Grand Budgetary Bargain: replace automatic zero-real growth with needs-based approach
• Pursue post-Fukushima Action Plan for nuclear safety, including IAEA emergency preparedness and response
• Boost IAEA role in nuclear security
• Fully implement Safeguards Strategic Plan ― especially state-level approach and detection of undeclared nuclear activities
• Standardize terminology and approaches for high-profile non-compliance cases
• Pursue reforms to Technical Cooperation program and wean wealthier countries from it
• Embed modern management and IT in all Agency operations
• Ensure modernization of Seibersdorf labs and other infrastructure
• Develop more effective public diplomacy and media strategies.

“The IAEA is an irreplaceable multilateral organization, yet the crisis in Fukushima and the ongoing crisis with Iran illustrate the need for a close examination of the Agency’s operations and programs. Professor Findlay’s report, well-researched and written, comes at an opportune time for those within and studying the IAEA,” says David Dewitt, Vice President of Programs at CIGI.

To accompany the report, CIGI has launched an interactive, online feature on the agency. It offers insights from the world’s leading nuclear and global governance experts as well as an historical timeline of nuclear energy and the IAEA. It can be accessed by visiting http://www.cigionline.org/interactive/iaea.

In addition to his role at CIGI, Professor Findlay holds a joint fellowship with the International Security Program and the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He also holds the William and Jeanie Barton Chair in International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and is director of the Canadian Centre for Treaty Compliance.