Abstract
After three terms, 12 years, and countless unprecedented challenges, the IAEA can't help but be changed by its outgoing director-general. Three months before mohamed ElBaradei leaves office, he explains how such an evolution is only a start.
When Mohamed ElBaradei became director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1997, no one thought he would emerge as a transformative leader or that he would catapult the narrowly focused U.N. technical agency to international prominence. But 12 years later, as ElBaradei's tenure comes to a close, he leaves the agency with an expanded and assertive mission–in nuclear verification, nonproliferation, and disarmament.
He is a strident internationalist at heart. To wit, in his 2005 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he explained, “[Poverty, disease, terrorism, organized crime, and weapons of mass destruction] are ‘threats without borders,’ where traditional notions of national security have become obsolete. We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops–quite to the contrary. By their very nature, these security threats require primarily multinational cooperation.”
And so, his years as the IAEA's leader have been defined by a push for diplomacy over military intervention and a concern for how poverty and violence contribute to proliferation. Not surprisingly, this worldview hasn't always proved popular among the IAEA's member states–the very constituency that support and fund the agency's activities. So despite ElBaradei's achievements, the IAEA budget has remained stagnant–even with added responsibilities–and an ever-growing schism between its members has made consensus–once an agency hallmark–difficult. From his Vienna office, ElBaradei ruminated on these challenges, his time as director-general, and the ambitious future he envisions for the IAEA.
The current U.S.-Russian arms control talks begin to move us in that direction. As the saying goes, “Just because we can't see the top of the mountain doesn't mean we should stop the climb.” Hopefully, those talks will be quickly supported by ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Because if you're really serious about disarmament, you should stop testing nuclear weapons.
We'll also have to address the linkage between poverty and violence, and between festering conflicts and nuclear weapons. People don't develop nuclear weapons for the sake of developing nuclear weapons. It starts with a lack of good governance and conflicts that are left to fester, which devolves into people feeling marginalized. Soon after, a regional war usually starts, and the warring factions talk about ethnic and other differences. Throughout all of this, frustration builds, and temptation grows to develop nuclear weapons for protection, parity, or dominance. That's exactly what's happened the last 60 or so years in the Middle East, South Asia, and on the Korean Peninsula. So we shouldn't be surprised that some of the countries in those places have developed nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we live in a world where nuclear weapons are regarded as the supreme guarantor of security. Look at NATO's security concept. It glorifies nuclear weapons. I recently told that they're sending the wrong signals.
It's great that [U.S. President Barack] Obama is talking about a nuclear-weapon-free world and new approaches to regional and global insecurity, but the rest of the world has to feel confident that such a policy won't end with his administration. Only then will we be in a different position in terms of nuclear wannabes.
That's why a road map to zero is important. It's great that [U.S. President Barack] Obama is taking these arms control steps and talking about a nuclear-weapon-free world, but the rest of the world has to feel confident that such policies won't end with his administration. Only then will we be in a different position in terms of nuclear wannabes. They're not going to cooperate just because the United States says, “Okay, now we're serious about disarmament and about a new system of security.” They need to see concrete actions that show that Washington actually is dedicated to these new policies.
Today, a multinational approach to the fuel cycle isn't a reality. And it isn't because of technical or legal hurdles. The basic problem is mistrust. The non-nuclear weapon states don't understand why their hands should be tied when it comes to nuclear technology, while the nuclear weapon states continue to have a free hand. But if the nuclear weapon states make a good faith effort to disarm, I don't see why Brazil, Japan, or any other country wouldn't accept new nonproliferation measures.
I envision the regional centers being jointly managed by the participating countries. That helps make them free of politics. Take, for example, the multilateral enrichment facility that [German Foreign Minister] Frank-Walter Steinmeier is proposing. As a partial owner, you would be guaranteed all of the fuel you need and no one country would have control alone over an enrichment facility. Another option is to have the IAEA manage the fuel banks, with the director-general authorized to release material based on apolitical criteria that are agreed to in advance by the states. To me, it's a question of how high governments want to rise above their narrow national policies and understand that they need to work together in an equitable universal system, which, in the end, will provide them with the most security.
It really goes back to a fundamental question: Do governments want international agreements and regimes, or do they want bilateral and regional regimes? I happen to believe that the problems the world faces today–arms control, extremism, climate change, cyber security, avian flu–cannot be dealt with on a national or regional basis. And yet, there's a pervasive feeling among many countries that international problems are best solved nationally. To change this mentality, you need people to lead the way. The problem is that the world currently is short of leadership and vision. We have a glimmer of hope with the Obama administration; hopefully, that will prove contagious, and we'll see similar leaders come forward from the North, South, East, and West.
I think an international organization being told by its members to look for nontraditional modes of financing simply is an example of those members displacing their responsibility.
In terms of building up the capabilities to verify something like the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, we need to receive better satellite imagery, which sometimes I get and sometimes I don't get depending upon the policy objectives. To do it well, you really need to have a U.N. Satellite Agency, something the French proposed 30 years ago. That would allow us to receive satellite imagery in a predictable and objective way. We also need a state-of-the-art laboratory for environmental sampling analyses. Having such tools is crucial to our impartiality, independence, and credibility. We have to be self-sufficient. Otherwise, I can't in good conscience go to the board and say, “These are the facts. These are the conclusions.” Another challenge will be conducting verification in the United States, Russia, China, and the other weapon states. None of those countries are used to the IAEA being there and asking questions. In short, in all of our work, we need more legal authority, more state-of-the-art technology, and more resources.
It would help, too, if states shared their human intelligence with us–and with the country they're accusing of violating its nonproliferation obligations for that matter. In many cases, they say they cannot because they must protect their sources and intelligence-gathering methods. Yet, probably because I'm a lawyer, that goes against my core principles. I don't see how you can accuse someone of something without showing them the evidence. We have to apply due process and not a Kafkaesque process. That's why I'm against the IAEA getting into the intelligence business. Having our own spies going around the world is contrary to our nature. We do our work aboveground; we don't work underground. So I continue to preach transparency.
Now, there are some countries that are increasing their nuclear power capabilities exponentially. Here, I'm thinking of China and India. Yet, I've also seen South Africa slow its ambitious nuclear plans because of the financial crisis. A reactor costs $4 billion or $5 billion–that's a lot of money for smaller countries.
In recent years, a lot of people have talked about a nuclear renaissance, but I've never used that term. Sure, 50 countries were telling us that they wanted nuclear power. But how many of them really could develop a nuclear power program? It's one thing to talk about nuclear power; it's another thing to actually move forward with a program.
What's sad is that many developing countries, such as Nigeria, need all the energy they can get their hands on–hydro, renewables, and yes, nuclear. I've been to Nigeria, and the average Nigerian has only about 70 kilowatt hours of energy available to them. That's less than what you use to power your laptop and is only about 1 percent of the Organisation for Co-operation and Development average. How is Nigeria going to develop with that energy output?
Nuclear energy, of course, isn't a panacea. In fact, I never preach on behalf of nuclear energy. The IAEA says it's a sovereign decision, and we provide all of the information a country needs. But if a country does decide that nuclear is going to be part of its energy mix, then we come in with the full force of the law to make sure that country does so in a way that maximizes the benefits and minimizes the risk in terms of safety, security, and nonproliferation.
That's not a popular position. I'm accused by some of politicizing the evidence. About Iran, I've been told, “Mind your own business; you're a technician.” And yet, at other times, on other matters, I have been told that I'm the custodian of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty–sometimes by the very people who tell me to mind my own business when it comes to Iran. I don't put much stock in either designation. I'm neither a custodian nor a technician; I'm merely someone who is trying to do his job. And I know the world won't be successful in achieving nuclear disarmament unless there's an equitable universal arms control regime in place that deals with the root causes of proliferation such as poverty, conflicts, and violence. So when I tell our member states, “If you want the agency to do a good job at stemming proliferation, you have to work on the root causes,” that's not politicization; that's looking at the big picture and being faithful to my job.
Another lesson is to use sanctions only as a last resort and to avoid sanctions that hurt innocent civilians. As we saw in Iraq, sanctions only denied vulnerable, innocent civilians food and medicine, resulting in some of the most egregious human rights violations I've ever seen–all in the name of the rule of law. So we should try very hard to establish an ongoing dialogue, because sanctions are never a solution.
As for force, I'm not against it. But to me, you have to exhaust all other possibilities for a peaceful resolution until force becomes the last option. You can't jump the gun as the United States did in Iraq. In total, one out of three Iraqis has had his or her life pulverized because of a war that never in my view should have been fought in the first place.