The IAEA’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nuclear safeguards (verification) agreements based on INFCIRC/153 (Corr.) contain a “grey area” or “loophole” allowing non-nuclear-weapon States (NNWS) to exempt naval nuclear fuel and reactors from IAEA safeguards, thus creating for the IAEA a significant gap in safeguards coverage and loss of continuity of knowledge about large quantities of enriched uranium in the naval nuclear fuel cycle. At present Australia and Brazil have approached the IAEA to work out exemption from safeguards of their respective naval nuclear propulsion acquisition programmes. Canada, Iran, Japan, South Korea and others in the future may also decide to acquire nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs), as are Australia and Brazil. How will the IAEA and NPT States Parties deal with the “non-application of safeguards on non-peaceful/non-proscribed military activities” has become a hotly contested matter at the IAEA Board of Governors, and also was contentious at the Xth NPT Review Conference (August 2022). This online discussion examined the various facets and implications of the challenge posed by naval nuclear propulsion to the IAEA’s safeguards system, the resulting effect on the Agency’s ability to verify nuclear activities in NNWS and implications for “safeguards conclusions”, as well as the challenges of naval nuclear propulsion for newcomer States. These and related issues were discussed by experts in the field. The previous discussion on "Nuclear Submarines: Who Will Get Them Next?" was held on 21 November 2021; the video is available here.
