3. Actividades Programables
3.1 Mantenimiento Lógico Preventivo
3.1.5 Reportes
quantities of WMD and/or their related materials. Largely through what became known as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Initiative,7 vast amounts of chemical weapons and their precursors, nuclear weapons and radiological materials, and other legacies from the Cold War were collected, inventoried, dismantled and eventually safely secured or destroyed.
In many of these cases, the United States and its allies contributed money, material and experts to properly secure these weapons and materials. To the extent practicable, dismantlement and destruction was carried out in situ. Nuclear materials discovered and collected in these countries were shipped in most cases to Russia for dismantlement and storage. More and more, however,
6 As with all arms control or nonproliferation treaties, the CWC allows its parties to withdraw and escape its obligations by withdrawing from this Convention if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject-matter of this Convention, have jeopardized its supreme interests. See CWC, Art. 16.3.
7 Kennette Benedict, “Nunn-Lugar: 20 years of Cooperative Threat Reduction,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Dec.19, 2011; available at: http://thebulletin.org/nunn-lugar-20-years-cooperative-threat-reduction.
5 Annex II: International Law Challenges to WMD Disposition Options in cases where states of the former Soviet Union (FSU) possessing these weapons were unable
for a variety of reasons to properly store, secure or dispose of the materials -- resulting in a grave danger that such weapons might fall into the hands of terrorist groups -- the U.S. and its allies engaged with those states in a range of disposition and retrieval activities that were
unprecedented and certainly not contemplated by the norm-establishing non-proliferation treaties. On occasion, these retrieval and/or destruction operations failed to follow or acted contrary to the specific prohibitions or procedures contained in these nonproliferation treaties raising questions about the legality of such operations.
Nuclear weapons and radiological materials have been the most concerning and have provided the most examples of retrieval and disposition operations. The Obama Administration created a series of nuclear security summits where world leaders discussed and committed to measures to prevent the trade and spread of illicit nuclear materials.8 But the unexpected dissolution of the FSU, leaving thousands of nuclear weapons in the hands of successor states, was not
contemplated when the transfer ban was agreed. Nevertheless, the U.S. and its allies and partners engaged in these nuclear retrieval operations arguing they are fully consistent with our non-proliferation objectives and the spirit of the international legal norms against non-proliferation.
1. Lisbon Protocol, Operation Sapphire and Project Olympus
In May 1992, Kazakhstan signed the Lisbon Protocol9 to the START Treaty.10 The Lisbon Protocol obligated Kazakhstan, along with Belarus and Ukraine, to eliminate all nuclear arms on their territory and accede to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS), which Kazakhstan did in 1994.11 Thousands of nuclear weapons had been abandoned to the successor governments of the former Soviet Union (FSU), arguably in violation of Article 1 (transfer prohibition) of the NPT. The U.S. and Russia conducted the first-of-its-kind retrieval operations moving these weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to Russia, thus reducing the number of “nuclear weapon states.” Article I of the NPT provides that “Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly.” While arguably not in compliance with the NPT’s transfer prohibition, the agreement to transfer all nuclear weapons out of these countries was fully consistent with the NPT’s non-proliferation goals and resulted in converting ostensible “nuclear weapon states” into non-nuclear weapon members of the NPT.
8 The last such Nuclear Security Summit was held in late March, 2016. See Nuclear Security Summit website at:
http://www.nss2016.org.
9 See Arms Control Association Website, “The Lisbon Protocol at a Glance,” available at:
http://www.armscontrol.org/node/3289.
10 Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (1991), entered into force 1994, expired in 2009; Available at:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/tc/treaties/start1/index.htm.
11 The list of states parties can be found at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons.
6 Annex II: International Law Challenges to WMD Disposition Options The Lisbon Protocol was followed by an agreement that allowed for the implementation of the
Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program for the elimination of nuclear weapons systems and dismantlement of nuclear weapons infrastructure, as well as other WMD programs, in Kazakhstan and other states of the FSU.
Subsequently, U.S. officials learned that 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) was left essentially unguarded in a city in northern Kazakhstan. The HEU—along with plutonium the essential ingredient for making nuclear weapons—could have been sufficient to fabricate dozens of nuclear weapons.12
The Government of Kazakhstan had neither the resources nor the expertise to properly secure these materials and they were not allowed to do so in any event under the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state.13 Consequently, the U.S. negotiated an agreement that paid Kazakhstan for the removal of the HEU as well as related equipment. In an operation code-named Project Sapphire, the materials were packed and flown to the U.S.’s Y-12 Nuclear Security facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee for storage and eventual processing down to low grade uranium.14
In 1998, the U.S. carried out a similar retrieval operation in Tbilisi, Georgia code-named Project Olympus. The project consisted of removing fuel from an unsecured Georgian research reactor which had been shut down. It still housed spent fuel assemblies made of HEU along with fresh fuel rods. The radioactive material was sent to the UK for reprocessing. The UK violated its own regulations prohibiting accepting nuclear weapon materials but decided to “make an exception” for a worthy non-proliferation purpose. In both cases no objections to these disposition activities were registered either by the IAEA or other NPT states parties.15
Based on the growing realization that there were thousands of unsecured radioactive sources, and as a result of the lessons learned from Projects Sapphire and Olympus, the Department of
Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), in collaboration with the
Department of Defense and other U.S. agencies, established in 2004 the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI).16 GTRI’s mission is to prevent the acquisition of nuclear and radiological
12 Dena Sholk, “Project Sapphire: 20 years Later, and Still Relevant, November 17, 2014; available at http://thediplomat.com/2014/11/project-sapphire-20-years-later-and-still-relevant.
13 As a newly minted member of the NPT Kazakhstan was prohibited under Art. 1 of the NPT from transferring nuclear weapons. Arguably, NPT watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should have been charged with dismantling and safeguarding/destroying these weapons and nuclear material.
14 “From Project Sapphire to Today” Y-12 Report, Vol. 9, Issue 2, February 7, 2013; available at:
http://www.y12.doe.gov/news/report/project-sapphire-today.
15 T.A. Shelton, J.M. Viebrock, et.al. “Multilateral Nonproliferation Cooperation: US-Led effort to Remove HEU/LEU Fresh and Spent Fuel From the Republic of Georgia to Dounreay, Scotland (Auburn Endeavor/Project Olympus,” J. Nuclear Materials Management, Vol. 27:4 (2004); available at: http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/6457073. See also The Nuclear Threat Institute’s website on Georgia and Project Olympus; available at: http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/georgia/.
16 Department of Energy NNSA, Global Threat Reduction Initiative Review (2015); available at:
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/em/GlobalThreatReductionInitiative.pdf.
7 Annex II: International Law Challenges to WMD Disposition Options materials for use in weapons of mass destruction and other acts of terrorism, and reduce and
protect vulnerable nuclear and radiological material located at civilian sites worldwide. Under GTRI the NNSA has conducted removal operations in 21 additional countries, including Iraq, gaining valuable experience in conducting such operations in oftentimes less than benign environments.17
2. The Iraqi Nuclear Weapons Program
Most if not all of these retrieval operations were conducted under tight security and secrecy. The U.S., for example, in 2008 secretly removed over 550 metric tons of uranium “yellow cake”
from Iraq after Iraqi authorities admitted they could not safely secure the material and feared that terrorists or criminal groups would find and steal the material. Yellow cake is of proliferation concern because it can be enriched for use both in nuclear reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons. The Iraqi material was then shipped to Canada, via British territory, where a private firm processed it into fuel for primarily U.S. reactors.18 This was done with the full cooperation of the possessing, transfer and disposition nations, and fully consistent—therefore no sound of protest—with the object and purpose of the NPT to ensure that terrorists do not acquire these materials for use in a radiological weapon, and to stop the potential nuclear weapons
proliferation. Although there is no legal impediment in this case, it exemplifies the capabilities and willingness of the U.S., her allies and partners to undertake WMD retrieval and disposition operations in cases where the possessor state is unwilling or cannot properly secure such materials.