Ad hoc Agreements and Nonproliferation

For a while now, I have been looking into the litany of agreements, frameworks, treaties and partnerships that constitute the “global nonproliferation regime.” The cornerstone, of course, is the 1968 NPT. Other formal components include the IAEA and its safeguards, the role of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in export controls, and the establishment of nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZ) across the world. All of these are initiatives that to one degree or another are formal, multilateral, and codified in international law.

But there are less formal, more ad hoc agreements that form a sort of “second layer” on top of the formal-arrangement layer. These initiatives may be strictly bilateral, they may be loose partnerships or coalitions with no formal structure, and/or they may not be codified in international law – which is another way of saying they may not be constrained by international law. Examples of these second-layer efforts include the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT), the Bush-legacy Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), and the number of bilateral agreements the United States has recently been inking with nations around the world. Two very current examples include a US-Malta anti-nuclear smuggling agreement, and a safeguards agreement between the US and Kuwait. Both deals are agreed to and signed on the US side by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semiautonomous branch of the Department of Energy.

The benefit of such deals, and of ad hoc arrangements in general, is that by not having the structure of a formal international organization with a secretariat, offices, etc., these agreements and partnerships are more fluid and can mobilize much more quickly. For example, if US intelligence picks up a story about a German-registered merchant vessel bound for Iran from North Korea that potentially has uranium enrichment components on board, one of two things could happen: either the United States could request action from a body like the UN Security Council, or it could leverage a partnership like the PSI.

In the first scenario, the UNSC would convene, deliberate, and finally make a decision in the form of a resolution -- or not. Either way, this process would take considerable time, which in the example given is of the utmost importance and cannot be wasted.

In the second scenario, the US might call on a PSI member state that can interdict the merchant vessel while it is en route to Iran. The member state would probably be a country like Japan, Philippines, Oman, or Qatar, and fellow PSI member Germany would give at least its acknowledgment if not its full permission for the US and/or other coordinating states to take action. That merchant vessel could be intercepted and any illicit materials could be seized -- all in a matter of hours. In the meantime, the UN Security Council would still be debating.

(Incidentally, this example is a variation of an actual situation in 2003, when a ship carrying centrifuge equipment and bound for Libya was interdicted. Following talks with US and UK officials, Libya renounced its nuclear ambitions later that year.)

The role and importance of such "second-layer" arrangements -- which fill the gaps that inevitably are created when formal international arrangements are codified and bureaucratized -- will continue to increase as world leaders recommit themselves to serious arms control efforts, with a view to nonproliferation and disarmament. In a post-Cold War, 9/11-influenced asymmetric arena, the threat of nuclear annihilation comes less from official state actors and more from non-state actors, who could acquire the requisite materials, technology and/or expertise to detonate a weapon of some kind and suffer little consequence, owing to their amorphous, undefinable nature in international politics. As such, the international community will need to continue to possess the capability to move quickly and efficiently, at a moment's notice, to increase the security of nuclear weapons stockpiles, facilities and material, all while preventing in real time any attempts to breach that security.